R. Abraham b. Samuel Alkalai (1750?–1811), Bulgarian rabbi and codifier. Alkalai, who was apparently born in Salonika, studied under his uncle R. Reuben b. Jacob, whose novellae he sometimes quotes in his works. He served as rabbi of Dupnitsa, where he also headed a yeshivah (1781). He visited Salonika in 1798, and Adrianople on his way to Constantinople (1802), as emissary of his community, which was suffering great hardships. Later he settled in Safed. His best-known work is Zekhor le-Avraham, in which he arranged alphabetically the laws of the Shulhan Arukh (2 vols., Salonika 1798; vol. 3, addenda, 1815). A second edition of the first two volumes, published by his nephew R. Judah Hayyim Alkalai, included an abridgment of vol. 3 with his own additions (1818). He also wrote responsa, Hesed le-Avraham (2 vols., 1813–14). A manuscript volume of his sermons is in the Jewish Theological Seminary library in New York (no. 9425).

חלק א: על א"ח וי"ד ... דפוס סעדי הלוי, בשלהי דהאי שתא ח'ס'ד' ל'אברהם א'ש'ר' נשבעת כו' [תקע"ג]. [2], קנט דף. חלק א:בראש הספר הקדמת ר' יוסף חיים אלקלעי, בן המחבר.