Rabbi David L. Algaze, originally of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the founder and spiritual leader of Ḥavurat Yisrael, Forest Hills, New York. He received his smikhah from Rabbi Joseph Messas, Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Israel, and from Rabbi Ezra Basry, head of the Bet-Din of Jerusalem. Rabbi Algaze founded Eli, a city in Samaria, in 1984. In 1989 he founded The Coalition for Israel. He has been Rosh Yeshivah of Ohr Torah Institute and a delegate of the Soviet Union. A graduate of the University of Buenos Aires, he holds a Master of Philosophy degree from Columbia University and a Master of Hebrew Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. The Rabbi has been a Fellow of the Herbert Lehman Institute of Ethics, a Columbia University President's Fellow, and a Kent Fellow of the Danfourth Foundation. A sepharadi rabbi, his forefathers include the Maharit, Rabbi Yomtov Algaze, who was Rishon Letzion, chief rabbi of the ancient Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael, and Rabbi Shlomo Algaze, the chief rabbi who excommunicated Shabbetai Tzvi.