Zvi (Zwi) Hirsch Kalischer (Hebrew:צבי הירש קלישר)(24 March 1795 – 16 October 1874) was an Orthodox German rabbi who expressed views, from a religious perspective, in favour of the Jewish re-settlement of the Land of Israel, which predate Theodor Herzl and the Zionist movement.

It is suggested that Kalischer's early life in an area which was annexed by Prussia, introduced him to the modern ideas of emancipation and enlightenment emanating from Berlin.

[2] After his marriage he left Jacob of Lissa and settled in Thorn, a city on the Vistula River, then in Prussia and now Toruń, in northern Poland, where he spent the rest of his life.

In Toruń, he took an active interest in the affairs of the Jewish community, and for more than forty years held the office of Rabbinatsverweser ("acting rabbi").

He proposed: He thought the time was especially favorable for the carrying out of this idea, as the sympathy of men like Isaac Moïse Crémieux, Moses Montefiore, Edmond James de Rothschild, and Albert Cohn rendered the Jews politically influential.

Owing to Kalischer's agitation, the Alliance Israélite Universelle founded the Mikveh Israel agricultural school in Palestine in 1870.

By exerting a strong influence upon his contemporaries, including such prominent men as Heinrich Grätz, Moses Hess (see Rome and Jerusalem, pp.