Samuel Mohilever

was a rabbi, pioneer of Religious Zionism and one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion movement.

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, and convinced Baron Edmond James de Rothschild 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, then a struggling settlement. (Wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Mohilever