Hermann Schapira

[3] After studying for the rabbinate, Schapira was first appointed rabbi at age twenty-four, but then decided to dedicate his life to the secular sciences.

[2] In 1878 he switched back to scientific studies, spending the next four years in the German university town of Heidelberg where he especially concentrated on mathematics and physics.

[2] Throughout his life, Schapira remained a student of Hebrew literature, contributing an edition of the Mishnat ha-Middot (1880) based on a Munich manuscript.

[2] In the aftermath of the Russian pogroms of 1881, Schapira lent his support to the proto-Zionist Hibbat Zion movement.

[4] In 1884, Schapira proposed the establishment of an organization for the acquisition of land in Eretz Yisrael and came up with the idea of the "Blue Box" as means of collecting money.