The first Buber

As a college student at the University of Leipzig and then Berlin, Martin Buber was a leader in the early Zionist movement. During this period between 1898 and 1902, he published a series of Zionist writings that were clearly meant to be confrontational and challenge those who embraced traditional Judaism. These essays, poems, and speeches, given nearly one hundred years ago, have never been translated until now and are considered some of the most important and exciting of Buber's texts. For Buber, Zionism was not primarily a political issue. It implied a reorientation of the entire being, an overcoming of a Diaspora mentality, a catharsis, and a readiness to build in the land of Israel a new, just, free, and creative community.