Renew Ottoman Judaism through Zionism

Born in Salonika in the Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece), David Florentin first attended a traditional Jewish primary school before attending and graduating from an Alliance Israélite Universelle school in his native city. In 1897, in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, he founded L’Avenir, a major Ladino newspaper (first a weekly and then a daily) that declared allegiance to the Ottoman Empire while also promoting pro-Zionist ideas and opposing assimilation. In 1898, Florentin was instrumental in establishing the Salonikan pro-Zionist association Kadima, which later became an influential political club. Florentin produced numerous rewritings of European novels and translated works of nonfiction, including the Communist Manifesto (1914). He also served on the executive committee of the World Zionist Organization and, from 1918 to 1933, led the Greek Zionist Federation. In 1920, Florentin purchased a plot of land from Palestinian Arabs to develop the Tel Aviv neighborhood that now bears his name. He immigrated to Palestine in 1937.