Martin Buber

Martin Buber (1878–1965) was an Austrian-Israeli philosopher, best remembered for his philosophy of dialogue—a branch of existentialism built around the difference between I–Thou and I–It relationships. He was born in Vienna into an observant Jewish family but later abandoned religious practice to study philosophy. Over roughly fifty years, he wrote extensively on Zionism and collaborated with various Zionist organizations. In 1923, he published his well-known existential essay *Ich und Du* (later translated as *I and Thou*), and in 1925 he started a German translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Buber’s full Hebrew name was Mordechai. His family was Orthodox, and he was a direct descendant of the 16th-century rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, with Karl Marx also among his notable relatives. After his parents divorced when he was three, he was raised by his grandfather Solomon Buber, a scholar of Midrash and rabbinic literature, in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine). At home, he spoke Yiddish and German. In 1892, he returned to his father’s house in Lemberg. A personal religious crisis led him to break with Jewish customs; he then read Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, the latter two inspiring his shift to philosophy. In 1896, he began studying in Vienna, focusing on philosophy, art history, German studies, and philology.

He joined the Zionist movement in 1898, attending congresses and doing organizational work. In 1899, while studying in Zürich, he met Paula Winkler, a Catholic writer from a Bavarian peasant family; she left the Catholic Church in 1901 and converted to Judaism in 1907. Buber initially supported World War I, viewing it as a “world historical mission” for Germany and Jewish intellectuals to civilize the Near East. Some researchers suggest that during and after the war, his thinking was influenced by Jacob L. Moreno’s writings, especially the concept of “encounter.”

In 1930, Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main but resigned in protest when Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which grew in importance as Jews were barred from public education. In 1938, he left Germany for Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, where he became a professor at Hebrew University, teaching anthropology and introductory sociology. In 1947, he was forced to flee his home in Abu Tor due to the advance of the Arab Liberation Army. After Israel’s founding in 1948, he became the country’s best-known philosopher.

Buber and Paula had two children: a son, Rafael, and a daughter, Eva Strauss-Steinitz. They helped raise their granddaughters Barbara Goldschmidt and Judith Buber Agassi, born from Rafael’s marriage to Margarete Buber-Neumann. Paula died in Venice in 1958; Buber died at his home in Jerusalem’s Talbiya neighborhood on 13 June 1965.

Buber’s writing was often evocative and poetic, covering Hasidic and Chinese tales, biblical commentary, and metaphysical dialogue. A cultural Zionist, he was active in Jewish and educational communities in Germany and Israel. He strongly supported a binational solution in Palestine and, after Israel’s establishment, a regional federation of Israel and Arab states. His influence spans social psychology, social philosophy, and religious existentialism. His Zionism was tied to a vision of “Hebrew humanism,” a term coined to distinguish his nationalism from official Zionist movements and to link Israel’s problems to universal human concerns.

Early in his Zionist engagement, Buber disagreed with Theodor Herzl. Herzl saw Zionism as a political movement without religious goals; Buber believed it could bring social and spiritual enrichment. He argued that after the formation of Israel, Judaism would need reforms similar to those Pope John XXIII brought to the Catholic Church. Despite their differences, the two men worked respectfully toward their aims. In 1902, Buber edited the Zionist weekly *Die Welt*, but a year later he became involved with the Jewish Hasidic movement, admiring how Hasidic communities lived their religion in daily life, in contrast to the political focus of Zionist organizations.