Biography

Martin (Hebrew name: ‫מָ ְרדֳּ כַי‬, Mordechai) Buber was born in Vienna to an Orthodox Jewish family.
Buber was a direct descendant of the 16th-century rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, known as the
Maharam of Padua. Karl Marx is another notable relative.[4] After the divorce of his parents when he
was three years old, he was raised by his grandfather in Lvov.[4] His grandfather, Solomon Buber, was a
scholar of Midrash and Rabbinic Literature. At home, Buber spoke Yiddish and German. In 1892, Buber
returned to his father's house in Lemberg, today's Lviv, Ukraine.

Despite Buber's connection to the Davidic line as a descendant of Katzenellenbogen, a personal religious
crisis led him to break with Jewish religious customs. He began reading Immanuel Kant, Søren
Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche.[5] The latter two, in particular, inspired him to pursue studies in
philosophy. In 1896, Buber went to study in Vienna (philosophy, art history, German studies, philology).

In 1898, he joined the Zionist movement, participating in congresses and organizational work. In 1899,
while studying in Zürich, Buber met his future wife, Paula Winkler, a "brilliant Catholic writer from a
Bavarian peasant family"[6] who later converted to Judaism.[7]

Buber, initially, supported and celebrated the Great War as a 'world historical mission' for Germany
along with Jewish intellectuals to civilize the Near East.[8] While in Vienna, during and after World War I,
some researchers claim he was influenced by the writings of Jacob L. Moreno, particularly the use of the
term ‘encounter’.[9][10]

In 1930, Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, but resigned from
his professorship in protest immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the
Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German
government forbade Jews from public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem,
Mandate Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and
introductory sociology.

Buber's wife Paula died in 1958, and he died at his home in the Talbiya neighborhood of Jerusalem on
June 13, 1965. They had two children: a son, Rafael Buber, and a daughter, Eva Strauss-Steinitz.

Major themes
Buber's evocative, sometimes poetic, writing style marked the major themes in his work: the retelling of
Hasidic and Chinese tales, Biblical commentary, and metaphysical dialogue. A cultural Zionist, Buber was
active in the Jewish and educational communities of Germany and Israel.[11] He was also a staunch
supporter of a binational solution in Palestine, and, after the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel,
of a regional federation of Israel and Arab states. His influence extends across the humanities,
particularly in the fields of social psychology, social philosophy, and religious existentialism.[12]

Buber's attitude toward Zionism was tied to his desire to promote a vision of "Hebrew humanism".[13]
According to Laurence J. Silberstein, the terminology of "Hebrew humanism" was coined to "distinguish
[Buber's] form of nationalism from that of the official Zionist movement" and to point to how "Israel's
problem was but a distinct form of the universal human problem. Accordingly, the task of Israel as a
distinct nation was inexorably linked to the task of humanity in general".[14]

Zionist views

Approaching Zionism from his own personal viewpoint, Buber disagreed with Theodor Herzl about the
political and cultural direction of Zionism. Herzl envisioned the goal of Zionism in a nation-state, but did
not consider Jewish culture or religion necessary. In contrast, Buber believed the potential of Zionism
was for social and spiritual enrichment. For example, Buber argued that following the formation of the
Israeli state, there would need to be reforms to Judaism: "We need someone who would do for Judaism
what Pope John XXIII has done for the Catholic Church".[15] Herzl and Buber would continue, in mutual
respect and disagreement, to work towards their respective goals for the rest of their lives.

In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement.
However, a year later he became involved with the Jewish Hasidim movement. Buber admired how the
Hasidic communities actualized their religion in daily life and culture. In stark contrast to the busy Zionist
organizations, which were always mulling political concerns, the Hasidim were focused on the values
which Buber had long advocated for Zionism to adopt. In 1904, he withdrew from much of his Zionist
organizational work, and devoted himself to study and writing. In that year, he published his thesis,
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Individuationsproblems, on Jakob Böhme and Nikolaus Cusanus.[16]

In the early 1920s, Martin Buber started advocating a binational Jewish-Arab state, stating that the
Jewish people should proclaim "its desire to live in peace and brotherhood with the Arab people, and to
develop the common homeland into a republic in which both peoples will have the possibility of free
development".[17]
Buber rejected the idea of Zionism as just another national movement, and wanted instead to see the
creation of an exemplary society; a society which would not, he said, be characterized by Jewish
domination of the Arabs. It was necessary for the Zionist movement to reach a consensus with the Arabs
even at the cost of the Jews remaining a minority in the country. In 1925, he was involved in the
creation of the organization Brit Shalom (Covenant of Peace), which advocated the creation of a
binational state, and throughout the rest of his life, he hoped and believed that Jews and Arabs one day
would live in peace in a joint nation. In 1942, he co-founded the Ihud party, which advocated a bi-
nationalist program. Nevertheless, he was connected with decades of friendship to Zionists and
philosophers such as Chaim Weizmann, Max Brod, Hugo Bergman, and Felix Weltsch, who were close
friends of his from old European times in Prague, Berlin, and Vienna to the Jerusalem of the 1940s
through the 1960s.

After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Buber advocated Israel's participation in a federation of "Near
East" states wider than just Palestine.[18]

Literary and academic career

Martin Buber's house (1916–38) in Heppenheim, Germany. Now the headquarters of the ICCJ.

Martin Buber and Rabbi Binyamin in Palestine (1920–30)

Buber (left) and Judah Leon Magnes testifying before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in
Jerusalem (1946)

Buber in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, prior to 1948

From 1906 until 1914, Buber published editions of Hasidic, mystical, and mythic texts from Jewish and
world sources. In 1916, he moved from Berlin to Heppenheim.

During World War I, he helped establish the Jewish National Committee[19] to improve the condition of
Eastern European Jews. During that period he became the editor of Der Jude (German for "The Jew"), a
Jewish monthly (until 1924). In 1921, Buber began his close relationship with Franz Rosenzweig. In 1922,
he and Rosenzweig co-operated in Rosenzweig's House of Jewish Learning, known in Germany as
Lehrhaus.[20]

In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and
Thou). Though he edited the work later in his life, he refused to make substantial changes. In 1925, he
began, in conjunction with Franz Rosenzweig, translating the Hebrew Bible into German. He himself
called this translation Verdeutschung ("Germanification"), since it does not always use literary German
language, but instead attempts to find new dynamic (often newly invented) equivalent phrasing to
respect the multivalent Hebrew original. Between 1926 and 1930, Buber co-edited the quarterly Die
Kreatur ("The Creature").[21]

In 1930, Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main. He resigned in
protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. On October 4,
1933, the Nazi authorities forbade him to lecture. In 1935, he was expelled from the
Reichsschrifttumskammer (the National Socialist authors' association). He then founded the Central
Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body, as the German
government forbade Jews to attend public education.[22] The Nazi administration increasingly
obstructed this body.

Finally, in 1938, Buber left Germany, and settled in Jerusalem, then capital of Mandate Palestine. He
received a professorship at Hebrew University, there lecturing in anthropology and introductory
sociology. The lectures he gave during the first semester were published in the book The problem of
man (Das Problem des Menschen);[23][24] in these lectures he discusses how the question "What is
Man?" became the central one in philosophical anthropology.[25] He participated in the discussion of
the Jews' problems in Palestine and of the Arab question – working out of his Biblical, philosophic, and
Hasidic work.

He became a member of the group Ihud, which aimed at a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews in
Palestine. Such a binational confederation was viewed by Buber as a more proper fulfillment of Zionism
than a solely Jewish state. In 1946, he published his work Paths in Utopia,[26] in which he detailed his
communitarian socialist views and his theory of the "dialogical community" founded upon interpersonal
"dialogical relationships".

After World War II, Buber began lecture tours in Europe and the United States. In 1952, he argued with
Buber is famous for his thesis of dialogical existence, as he described in the book I and Thou. However,
his work dealt with a range of issues including religious consciousness, modernity, the concept of evil,
ethics, education, and Biblical hermeneutics.[28]

Buber rejected the label of "philosopher" or "theologian", claiming he was not interested in ideas, only
personal experience, and could not discuss God, but only relationships to God.[29]

Politically, Buber's social philosophy on points of prefiguration aligns with that of anarchism, though
Buber explicitly disavowed the affiliation in his lifetime and justified the existence of a state under
limited conditions.[30][31]

Dialogue and existence

In I and Thou, Buber introduced his thesis on human existence. Inspired by Feuerbach's The Essence of
Christianity and Kierkegaard's Single One, Buber worked upon the premise of existence as encounter.
[32] He explained this philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du and Ich-Es to categorize the modes of
consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with other individuals,
inanimate objects, and all reality in general. Theologically, he associated the first with the Jewish Jesus
and the second with the apostle Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus, a Jew).[33] Philosophically, these word
pairs express complex ideas about modes of being—particularly how a person exists and actualizes that
existence. As Buber argues in I and Thou, a person is at all times engaged with the world in one of these
modes.

The generic motif Buber employs to describe the dual modes of being is one of dialogue (Ich-Du) and
monologue (Ich-Es).[34] The concept of communication, particularly language-oriented communication,
is used both in describing dialogue/monologue through metaphors and expressing the interpersonal
nature of human existence.

Ich-Du

Ich-Du ("I-Thou" or "I-You") is a relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic existence of two beings.
It is a concrete encounter, because these beings meet one another in their authentic existence, without
any qualification or objectification of one another. Even imagination and ideas do not play a role in this
relation. In an I–Thou encounter, infinity and universality are made actual (rather than being merely
concepts).[34] Buber stressed that an Ich-Du relationship lacks any composition (e. g., structure) and
communicates no content (e. g., information). Despite the fact that Ich-Du cannot be proven to happen
as an event (e. g., it cannot be measured), Buber stressed that it is real and perceivable. A variety of
examples are used to illustrate Ich-Du relationships in daily life—two lovers, an observer and a cat, the
author and a tree, and two strangers on a train. Common English words used to describe the Ich-Du
relationship include encounter, meeting, dialogue, mutuality, and exchange.

One key Ich-Du relationship Buber identified was that which can exist between a human being and God.
Buber argued that this is the only way in which it is possible to interact with God, and that an Ich-Du
relationship with anything or anyone connects in some way with the eternal relation to God.

To create this I–Thou relationship with God, a person has to be open to the idea of such a relationship,
but not actively pursue it. The pursuit of such a relation creates qualities associated with It-ness, and so
would prevent an I-You relation, limiting it to I-It. Buber claims that if we are open to the I–Thou, God
eventually comes to us in response to our welcome. Also, because the God Buber describes is
completely devoid of qualities, this I–Thou relationship lasts as long as the individual wills it. When the
individual finally returns to the I-It way of relating, this acts as a barrier to deeper relationship and
community.

Ich-Es

The Ich-Es ("I-It") relationship is nearly the opposite of Ich-Du.[34] Whereas in Ich-Du the two beings
encounter one another, in an Ich-Es relationship the beings do not actually meet. Instead, the "I"
confronts and qualifies an idea, or conceptualization, of the being in its presence and treats that being
as an object. All such objects are considered merely mental representations, created and sustained by
the individual mind. This is based partly on Kant's theory of phenomenon, in that these objects reside in
the cognitive agent’s mind, existing only as thoughts. Therefore, the Ich-Es relationship is in fact a
relationship with oneself; it is not a dialogue, but a monologue.

In the Ich-Es relationship, an individual treats other things, people, etc., as objects to be used and
experienced. Essentially, this form of objectivity relates to the world in terms of the self – how an object
can serve the individual’s interest.

Buber argued that human life consists of an oscillation between Ich-Du and Ich-Es, and that in fact
Ich-Du experiences are rather few and far between. In diagnosing the various perceived ills of
modernity (e. g., isolation, dehumanization, etc.), Buber believed that the expansion of a purely analytic,
material view of existence was at heart an advocation of Ich-Es relations - even between human beings.
Buber argued that this paradigm devalued not only existents, but the meaning of all existence.