…Zemun; …

Andronikos Komnenos, born early in the twelfth century, around 1118, is endowed by nature with the most remarkable gifts both of mind and body: he is handsome and eloquent, but licentious; and, at the same time, active, hardy, courageous, a great general and an able politician.

Andronikos' had spent his early years alternately in pleasure and in military service.

Taken captive by the Seljuq Turks in 1141, he had remained in their hands for a year.

On being ransomed, he had gone to Constantinople, where was held the court of his cousin, the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, with whom he is a great favorite.

Here the charms of his niece, Eudoxia, attract him and she becomes his mistress.

Accompanied by Eudoxia, he had set out for an important command in Cilicia in 1152.

Failing in his principal enterprise, an attack upon Mopsuestia, he returned, but was again appointed to the command of a province.

This second post he seems also to have left after a short interval, for he appears again in Constantinople, and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the brothers of Eudoxia.

About this time (1153) a conspiracy against the Emperor, in which Andronikos participated, had been discovered and he was thrown into prison.

There he had remained for about twelve years, during which time he made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to escape.

At last, in 1165, he is successful in escaping.

After passing through many dangers, he reached the court of his cousin Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia.

While under the protection of Yaroslav, Andronikos brings about an alliance between him and the Emperor Manuel I, and so restores himself to the emperor's favor.

With a Galician army, he joins Manuel in the invasion of Hungary and assists at the siege of Semlin.

Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai may justly be regarded as one of the precursors of such modern Zionists as Theodor Herzl.

A Sephardi born in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1798, he had at an early age been taken to Jerusalem, where he was reared and educated for the rabbinate.

At twenty-five, he had gone to Semlin, in Croatia, as a rabbi and found himself teaching Hebrew to the young men of his congregation, whose native language is Ladino.

He writes two books in this language, in the first of which he argues that a physical return to Israel is a precondition for redemption, instead of the symbolic “return to Israel” by means of repentance and resuming the ways of God.

This doctrine is unacceptable to Orthodox Jews and generates much controversy.

His second book is a refutation of the heated attacks directed at his proto-Zionist views.

Rabbi Judah Alkalai has taken to admonishing Jews that the Damascus affair is part of a divine design to awaken Jews to the reality of their condition in exile.

Believing that Jews should migrate nowhere but to Palestine, he will travel in England and about Europe seeking support for such emigration, founding organizations wherever he goes, but these will come to naught.