Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk רבי אברהם מקאליסק
co-leader of the first Chassidic aliyah with Rabbi Menachem Mendel; head of the community in Tiberias
A disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. In 5537 he set out with Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and some three hundred people for the Land of Israel.
After Rabbi Menachem Mendel died in 5548 the leadership of the Chassidic community passed to him. His chief concern was not teaching but money: the community lived on collections from Eastern Europe, and whether they arrived decided whether it had anything to eat. His correspondence about this with Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who was raising the funds there, is a well-known and difficult chapter: two men who respected each other differed on how the collection should be run and who should dispose of it.
He died in Tiberias in 5570.
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Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Pri HaAretz — the community's letters from the Land of Israel, where he is named beside Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Abraham of Kalisk” — the years, his part in the aliyah of 5537, his death in Tiberias
Basis: documents and evidence.