Between Hirsch Kalischer

Zwi Hirsch Kalischer (also Zvi or Zewi Hirsch Kalischer ; born March 24, 1795 in Lissa ; died October 16, 1874 in Thorn ) was a German rabbi , Zionist thinker, Talmud scholar , forerunner of the Palestine movement and religious Zionism .

Life

Zwi Hirsch Kalischer received the classic Jewish training of his time, became a rabbi and worked in Thorn from 1824 until his death. In addition to fulfilling the tasks for his congregation, he was continuously committed to the settlement of Jews in Eretz Israel , which for him represented a necessary step and active contribution of the Jewish people before the arrival of the Messiah.

According to his work Drischath Zion ( Zion's production , 1861), redemption takes place on a double, earthly-supernatural level: through God's help on the one hand, through active action by the Jewish people - through the settlement of Palestine and reconstruction work in the country - on the other. He attached particular importance to the development of extensive agriculture. In his deliberations he pointed to the independence movements of the European nations and missed a similar national awakening among the Jews. He met with great resistance from the vast majority of Orthodox rabbis of his time.

Kalischer promoted his ideas on numerous trips through Europe, visiting the large Jewish communities and trying to win over Jewish leaders for his views, as well as by publishing articles in Hebrew newspapers, magazines and halachic compilations for his ideas. The book itself influenced various Jewish thinkers, including Moses Hess .

Memorial plaque in the old town of Thorner

When Mikveh Israel was opened as an agricultural school in 1870 , Kalischer saw the dawn of a new era in the sense of the realization of his ideals and considered moving there to monitor compliance with all commandments related to Eretz Israel. But it shouldn't come to that. Zwi Hirsch Kalischer died in Thorn in 1874 and was buried there. His gravestone was only located and found in 2010.

Zwi Hirsch Kalischer was the grandfather of the physicist Salomon Kalischer .

The bronze plaque shown here is on his home in Toruń, today Toruń , Poland.

Sources / literature (selection)

Jewish Lexicon , Berlin 1927, Vol. III.
John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 361.
Drischath Zion, or Zion's making, in Hebrew by Hirsch Kalischer, translated into German by Dr. Poper, rabbi in Czarnikau. 2nd edition, Berlin 1905.
Dan Cohn-Sherbok: Fifty Key Jewish Thinkers , London / New York 1997, ISBN 0415126274 , pp. 71-74

Web links

Commons : Zwi Hirsch Kalischer - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Drischath Zion, or Zion's production, in Hebrew by Hirsch Kalischer, translated into German by Dr. Poper, rabbi in Czarnikau. 2nd edition, Berlin 1905.

personal data
SURNAME	Kalischer, Zwi Hirsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German rabbi and forerunner of religious Zionism
DATE OF BIRTH	March 24, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lissa
DATE OF DEATH	October 16, 1874
Place of death	Thorn

[1] Drischath Zion, or Zion's production, in Hebrew by Hirsch Kalischer, translated into German by Dr. Poper, rabbi in Czarnikau. 2nd edition, Berlin 1905.