This is a portrait of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai (1789–1878) dressed in robes and wearing a brimless hat. He has a long, white beard.

Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia to a prominent Jewish family. From the age of 11, Rabbi Alkalai studied in yeshivot in Jerusalem, and served as rabbi of the Sephardi community in Zemun (today part of Belgrade, Serbia) from the age of 27. Rabbi Alkalai is considered one of the precursors of modern Zionism, and he called upon the Jews to return to the Land of Israel where he believed they would be safe from anti-Semitic atrocities. In 1874, toward the end of his life, Rabbi Alkalai immigrated to the Land of Israel, where he died in 1878.

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Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai – Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia to a prominent Jewish family. At the age of 27, he was appointed rabbi of the Sephardic community in Zemun (now part of Belgrade, Serbia) until he immigrated to Israel in 1874. Rabbi Alkalai is considered one of the precursors of modern Zionism. He argued vehemently that there could be no existential or spiritual solution for the Jewish people while in exile and that the “Jewish problem” would be resolved only by the mass return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. In his books he proposed that the return of the Jews to Israel should not wait for a miracle and expressed his belief that the Messiah would come once the Jews practiced Judaism in the Holy Land. His belief in the need for Jews to move to Israel was strengthened after the 1840 Damascus Blood Libel and the success of the Greeks as they fought for independence from the Ottoman Empire. In his 1843 book, Minchat Yehuda, which he dedicated to “our brothers the children of Israel who dwell in the city of Damascus,” Rabbi Alkalai laid out a plan to establish a worldwide organisation that would purchase land in the Land of Israel from the Ottomans and help the Jewish pioneers develop it. He also emphasized the importance of Hebrew as the language of Israel. Rabbi Alkalai’s ideas were later adopted by Theodor Herzl and the World Zionist Congress. 

Damascus Blood Libel – Father Thomas, a Capuchin friar living in Syria, and his Muslim servant, Ibrahim Amara, disappeared on February 5, 1840. Although he was known to be involved in questionable business practices and was probably killed by disgruntled business partners, the Catholic Church accused Jews of killing the men to use their blood for making matzah. The French consul together with the anti-Semitic Syrian governor-general extracted confessions from random Jews who were arrested and tortured. News of the accusations, tortures, and false confessions spread around the world. Prominent Jews, such as Sir Moses Montefiore, tried to intervene with little success. Jews who were still wrongly imprisoned due were ultimately released, however, the Catholic Church and much of Western Europe continued to report that Jews had killed Father Thomas in order to make matzah for Passover. The falsehood continues to this day, and the inscription on Father Thomas’ tomb in the Terra Sancta church in Damascus states that he was “murdered by the Jews on February 5, 1840.”