Martin Buber

Martin Buber (1878 - 1965) was born in Vienna to an Orthodox Jewish family. "Because his parents divorced when he was three years old, he was educated and raised by his grandfather in Lvov where he learned Talmud, literature and the ways of Chassidism whose Rabbis and leaders he became exposed to." His grandfather, Solomon Buber was a renowned 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.

Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish 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. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, he became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925, he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.

In 1930, Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, but resigned in protest from his professorship 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 to attend public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine (later Israel), receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology.

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