Nearly a century before political Zionism entered mainstream debate, a Sephardic rabbi from the Balkans put forward a bold idea: Jewish settlement and political independence in the Land of Israel should begin through human action, not waiting for miracles.
His argument, written in 1834, unsettled traditional thinking and quietly reshaped Jewish political imagination.
A Rabbi Ahead of His Time
In 1834, Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai published his first book advocating Jewish settlement and political independence in the Land of Israel.
At the time, such views were deeply controversial.
Most rabbinic authorities believed redemption would arrive solely through divine intervention, tied to the coming of the Messiah.
Alkalai disagreed, plainly and publicly.
He argued that Jews themselves had a role to play in restoring national life, through immigration, land settlement, and political organization.
For the early 19th century, this was radical stuff.
Roots in the Ottoman World
Alkalai was born in 1798 in Sarajevo, then part of the Ottoman Empire, into a Sephardic family shaped by exile and memory.
As a young man, he spent formative years in Jerusalem, studying homiletics and Jewish mysticism.
His teachers included respected figures such as Rabbi Yaacov Finzi and Rabbi Eliezer Pappo, grounding him firmly in traditional scholarship.
Yet Jerusalem also exposed him to reality.
The Jewish community there lived in hardship, dependent on charity, politically powerless, and vulnerable.
That contrast between sacred longing and daily weakness stayed with him.
Later, in 1825, Alkalai became rabbi of Semlin, near Belgrade, placing him at the crossroads of Europe’s political awakening.
Nationalism in the Balkans Shapes a Jewish Vision
Living in the Balkans during the 19th century meant witnessing history in motion.
Christian nations across the region were pushing back against imperial rule, demanding independence, language rights, and political autonomy.
Serbia, Greece, and others were rewriting their futures.
Alkalai watched this closely.
He began asking an uncomfortable question: if other peoples could reclaim sovereignty through collective effort, why not the Jews?
This idea filtered directly into his writings.
Jewish exile, he argued, was not only a theological condition but a political one.
And political conditions, he believed, could be changed by human initiative.
This thinking marked a sharp break from dominant rabbinic caution of the era.
Settlement as a Human Obligation
Alkalai’s 1834 work framed Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel as a mitzvah requiring action, not patience.
Waiting passively for redemption, in his view, was a misunderstanding of Jewish responsibility.
He proposed organized immigration, agricultural settlement, and even proto-political institutions as steps Jews should take themselves.
One short line in his writings struck many readers: redemption begins from below.
That phrase carried weight.
It suggested that faith and politics were not opposites, but partners.
Some contemporaries criticized him harshly, accusing him of forcing God’s hand.
Others, quietly, listened.
Early Religious Zionism Takes Shape
Long before Theodor Herzl, Alkalai articulated ideas that later became pillars of Religious Zionism.
He believed Jewish law could accommodate national revival.
He believed prayer and plowing fields were not contradictions.
And he believed exile would not end on its own.
While his readership was limited, his influence traveled.
Later thinkers in Eastern Europe encountered his ideas, sometimes indirectly, sometimes through students and correspondents.
He did not found a movement.
But he planted seeds.
A Lonely Voice, Then a Resonant One
During Alkalai’s lifetime, his proposals remained marginal.
Jewish communities were cautious, fragmented, and often focused on survival rather than national projects.
Ottoman Palestine was poor, underdeveloped, and risky.
Migration was expensive and dangerous.
Still, Alkalai persisted.
He wrote, taught, and argued that Jews must prepare materially for redemption, not just spiritually.
By the time of his death in 1878, the world had begun to change.
Small Jewish agricultural settlements were forming in Palestine.
Ideas once dismissed as reckless were becoming thinkable.
Reassessing Alkalai’s Legacy Today
Modern historians increasingly view Alkalai as a bridge figure.
He connected traditional messianic belief with emerging political nationalism.
He spoke the language of faith but addressed the realities of power, land, and governance.
That blend made him unusual.
And, in hindsight, strikingly modern.
Today, scholars place him among the earliest architects of Jewish political revival, even if his name remains less known than later figures.
His 1834 book reads less like prophecy and more like strategy.
