February 8, 1878
Renowned philosopher Martin Buber is born in Vienna. After his parents’ divorce when he is 3 years old, Buber spends much of his childhood in Lemberg, Ukraine, where he is raised by his grandparents in a religious home. Buber’s grandfather is a scholar of both Midrash and Greek literature and teaches him Hebrew.
Buber becomes increasingly interested in philosophy and drifts away from traditional Judaism, studying philosophy and art history while a student at universities in Leipzig, Vienna and Berlin. He receives a doctorate in 1904.
While in Leipzig, Buber becomes involved with the Zionist movement. In 1899 he is a delegate to the Third Zionist Congress, where he delivers an address emphasizing the importance of education as opposed to pure propaganda in bringing Jews to the movement: “We must win the whole people for our cause and win them not merely by external agitation but through inner transformation. They must not be Zionists as one is a conservative or a liberal, but as one is a man or an artist. This can be accomplished through ‘inner agitation’ through nourishing Jewish culture, … the spirit of the people, its national history, and its national literature through education of the people.”
In 1901, Theodor Herzl appoints Buber the editor of Die Welt, the official weekly publication of the Zionist movement. Buber resigns after a year over differences with Herzl; Buber prefers promoting cultural Zionism over political Zionism. Shortly afterward, he becomes interested in Hasidism, first as a scholarly pursuit, but eventually he becomes deeply interested in the religious message of the movement and lives among Hasidim in Galicia.
After being dismissed from his position at the University of Frankfurt by the Nazis in 1938, Buber makes aliyah and becomes a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is best known for his philosophy of dialogue and for his translation of the Hebrew Bible into German.
