Rabbi Shmuel Mohliber

Mohilever was born in Głębokie (now Hlybokaye, Belarus) and studied in the Volozhin yeshiva.

After the pogroms following the May Laws, he helped found the Hovevei Zion in Warsaw.

Mohilever was active in the propagandist and organizational affairs as well as labors on behalf of colonization in Palestine. In 1882 he went to Paris to meet a young Edmond James de Rothschild, and convinced him to take an interest in the struggling settlers in Israel and to financially support a settlement called Ekron (now Mazkeret Batya).

Mohilever was made the Rabbi of Białystok in 1883. He dedicated himself to promote Zionism by convincing Białystok's Jews to move to Petah Tikva, 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 1897 Mohilever sent a message to the First Zionist Congress: '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.'

Rabbi Mohilever’s last letter to the Jews of Russia before his death urged them to work to achieve a deep attachment to the commandment to settle in Israel, which he said is “the foundation of the existence of our people.”

The kibbutz Gan Shmuel in Israel was named after Shmuel Mohilever.