1840 - 1898 (17 Iyar 5658) HERMAN ZVI SCHAPIRA (Lithuania-Germany)
Rabbi, mathematician and Zionist leader. The Russian pogroms of 1881 convinced him that a more activist role was necessary and he was among the first members of the Hovevei Zion movement, and, while a professor at Heidelburg, devoted much of his time to the Zionist ideal. He proposed two revolutionary ideas. One, put forth at the first Zionist congress, was to establish a "general Jewish fund", which would buy up large parcels of land in Eretz Israel and lease them out for agricultural purposes, an idea which led to the establishment of the Jewish National Fund in 1901. His second idea, put forth in an article (1882), was the promotion of a plan to found the first Hebrew University in Eretz Israel.
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