Samuel Mohilever also Shmuel Mohilever, was a rabbi, pioneer of Religious Zionism

Religious Zionism

Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...

 and one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....

 movement.

Mohilever was born in Głębokie (now Hlybokaye

Hlybokaye

Hlybokaye is a town in Vitebsk Oblast, Belarus, the capital of the Hlybokaye Raion . The first records about the settlement are dated 1514....

, Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

) and studied in the Volozhin yeshiva

Volozhin yeshiva

The Volozhin Yeshiva, also known as Etz Chaim Yeshiva, was a prestigious Lithuanian yeshiva located in the town of Volozhin, Russia, . It was founded by Rabbi Chaim Itzkovitz, a student of the famed Vilna Gaon, and trained several generations of scholars, rabbis, and leaders...

.

After the pogroms following the May Laws

May Laws

Temporary regulations regarding the Jews were proposed by minister of internal affairs Nikolai Ignatyev and enacted on May 15 , 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia...

, he helped found the Hovevei Zion in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, and convinced Baron Edmond James de Rothschild

Edmond James de Rothschild

Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild was a French member of the Rothschild banking family. A strong supporter of Zionism, his generous donations lent significant support to the movement during its early years, which helped lead to the establishment of the State of Israel.- Early years :A...

 to financially support a settlement called Ekron (now Qiryat Ekron).

Mohilever was made the rabbi of Białystok in 1883 and worked to promote Zionism by convincing Białystok's Jews to move to Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately...

, then a struggling settlement.

In 1884, Mohilever was elected to the presidency of the Hovevei Zion conference, with Leon Pinsker serving as chairman. Mohilever served as chairman in the 1887 and 1889 conferences. Many of his contributions were of a religious nature - Mohilever insured that Jewish farming in Palestine complied with Jewish laws and tradition by setting up a rabbinical committee to oversee it.

In 1893 a series of differences with the movement's main office in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

 led to decision that another centre be established under Mohilever's leadership. The new office, named Mizrahi, (A Hebrew abbreviation of merkaz ruhani – "spiritual centre") was tasked with Zionist propaganda and cultural work among orthodox Jews.

In 1897 Mohilever sent a message to the First Zionist Congress

First Zionist Congress

The First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization held in Basel , Switzerland, from August 29 to August 31, 1897. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement...

: 'It is essential', he wrote, 'that the Congress unite all "Sons of Zion" who are true to our cause to work in complete harmony and fraternity, even if there be among them differences of opinion regarding religion.'

When in 1901 Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines

Yitzchak Yaacov Reines

Yitzchak Yaacov Reines יצחק יעקב ריינס , was a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi and the founder of the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement.-Life:...

 and other of Mohilever's disciples re-established the organization, they did so with the same stance, spirit and name. Mohilever had successfully inspired the amalgamation of traditional Jewish orthodoxy with practical Zionism.

The kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 Gan Shmuel was named after Mohilever.