Martin Buber
Martin Buber (Hebrew: מרטין בובר; German: Martin Buber, pronounced [ˈmaʁtiːn̩ ˈbuːbɐ] ; Yiddish: מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian-Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship.[1] Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. He produced writings about Zionism and worked with various bodies within the Zionist movement extensively over a nearly 50-year period spanning his time in Europe and the Near East. In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou),[2] and in 1925 he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language reflecting the patterns of the Hebrew language.
Not to be confused with Martin Bucer.
Martin Buber
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature ten times, and the Nobel Peace Prize seven times.[3]
Biography[edit]
Martin (Hebrew name: מָרְדֳּכַי, 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 (מהר"ם), the Hebrew acronym for “Mordechai, HaRav (the Rabbi), Meir”, 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 Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine).[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.
Despite Buber's putative 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 in 1901 left the Catholic Church and in 1907 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] Some researchers believe that while in Vienna during and after World War I, 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, Mandatory Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology. After the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Buber became the best known Israeli philosopher.
Buber and Paula had two children: a son, Rafael Buber, and a daughter, Eva Strauss-Steinitz. They helped raise their granddaughters Barbara Goldschmidt (1921–2013) and Judith Buber Agassi (1924–2018), born by their son Rafael's marriage to Margarete Buber-Neumann.
Buber's wife Paula Winkler died in 1958 in Venice, and he died at his home in the Talbiya neighborhood of Jerusalem on June 13, 1965.
Buber was a vegetarian.[11]
Students and colleagues[edit]
Buber was a sort of mentor figure in the lives of Gershom Scholem and Walter Benjamin, the 'Kabbalist of the Holy City' and the 'Marxist Rabbi' of Berlin during the era leading up to, overlapping with proceeding after the Holocaust (Benjamin died during his escape from Europe, but Buber retained contact with Scholem after the war).[51][52]
While his relationship with these two was sometimes unilaterally contentious (with the students occasionally attacking or critiquing their patron somewhat viciously) Buber acted as an impresario, publisher and by various means as one of the great sponsors of their careers and growing reputations. Scholem was to be amongst the friends and interested parties who helped attend to and orchestrate Buber's eventual emigration to Palestine from the very beginning stages of that discussion during the rise of Hitler.[51][53] They corresponded also in regards to their work with Brit Shalom, an early think-tank that was tasked with figuring out the dynamics of two-state solution to be brokered between Israel and Palestine more than twenty years before Israel became a nation state--and also about a great many issues regarding their shared interest in ancient, sacred and often mystical Jewish literature whilst keeping tabs likewise on mutual acquaintances and important publications in their fields of interest.[54] Scholem dedicated his bibliography of the Zohar to Buber.[51]
Hasidism and mysticism[edit]
Buber was a scholar, interpreter, and translator of Hasidic lore. He viewed Hasidism as a source of cultural renewal for Judaism, frequently citing examples from the Hasidic tradition that emphasized community, interpersonal life, and meaning in common activities (e. g., a worker's relation to his tools). The Hasidic ideal, according to Buber, emphasized a life lived in the unconditional presence of God, where there was no distinct separation between daily habits and religious experience. This was a major influence on Buber's philosophy of anthropology, which considered the basis of human existence as dialogical.
In 1906, Buber published Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman, a collection of the tales of the Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a renowned Hasidic rebbe, as interpreted and retold in a Neo-Hasidic fashion by Buber. Two years later, Buber published Die Legende des Baalschem (stories of the Baal Shem Tov), the founder of Hasidism.[36]