Martin Buber’s engagement with Hebrew as political activism

Abstract

This article follows Martin Buber’s (1878–1965) engagement with Hebrew in the context of his political activism, focusing on the 1930s and 1940s. It examines Buber’s paradoxical command of the language and years-long lack of fluency, which he finally acquired upon immigrating to Palestine in 1938. It is argued that between 1933 and 1948 Buber crafted his translations and authored works in a manner that employed specific resonances of the Hebrew language to advocate his ideology. The article presents Buber’s sophisticated employment of his expert knowledge of Hebrew in the service of political activism, in Nazi Germany and British Mandate Palestine, demonstrating how Hebrew figures both in his theological-political programme and in his political activism in specific circumstances.