Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer

Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795–1874) was born in Lissa, in the Prussian province of Posen (today Leszno, Poland), and studied Talmud under Jacob of Lissa and Rabbi Akiva Eiger. He settled in Thorn (Toruń), on the Vistula, where he spent the rest of his life and for more than four decades served the Jewish community as acting rabbi, declining any salary for the role while his family lived modestly. His scholarship ranged widely: he wrote Moznaim LeMishpat on questions of Jewish civil law, Emunah Yeshara on philosophy and theology, and Tzvi LeTzadik, glosses on the Shulchan Aruch. He is best remembered for Derishat Tzion (1862), which argued that the people's redemption could unfold gradually through practical agricultural settlement of the Land of Israel. The book helped shape the later Hibbat Tzion movement and the roots of religious Zionism.