Martin Buber aroused passionate, often contradictory opinions, both regarding his personality and his thought. Gershom Schocken, editor of Haaretz , said that one day he was walking with S. Y. Agnon: "We were walking around Talpiot and I asked him what his attitude was towards Buber. Agnon stopped in his walk and said: 'I want to tell you something. There are people about whom you have to decide once: do you love them or do you hate them. I decided to love Buber.'" Buber's philosophical and theological writings, including the famous I and Thou , have contributed greatly to religious and Jewish thought, as well as to biblical studies, political theory, and Zionist thought. In this new biography, Paul Mendes-Flor situates Buber's legacy at the crossroads between the intellectual and cultural life of German Jewry and European life in the first half of the twentieth century. This is the first full biography of the groundbreaking modern Jewish philosopher. The book is organized around several key events in his life, such as his mother suddenly abandoning him when he was three years old—a formative trauma that left Buber with a lasting sense of sensitivity to the fragility of human relationships and the need to nurture them with what he would later call "dialogical attention."

The selection of articles in this volume provides a discussion on five fields from Martin Buber's thought: the Arab question, which Buber defined as a Jewish problem; the kibbutz within Israeli society; education, which Buber defined as a dialogue; psychotherapy; and the universal values of Judaism.

The articles in this volume: To behold the stars and the heavenly bodies - Shlomo Pines and Ze'ev Harvey Expounding the work for creation - B. Lifshitz The Arba'ah Turim of Rabbi Abraham Bar Judah, disciple of Don Hasdai Crescas - Shalom Rosenberg Fin-de-siecle orientalism and the aesthetics of Jewish self-affirmation - Paul Mendes-Flohr Response: Criteria for the designation "Halakhic Ruling" - Haim Soloveitchik Book review: Notes on Medievil Jewish-Christian polemics - Moshe Idel Summeries in English of all the articles at the end of the volume.

The articles in this volume: Mazmiah Qeren Yeshu'ah - Yehuda Liebes Plucking of grain on the Sabath and the Jewish-Christian debate - Menahem Kister The polemics against allegory in the commentary of Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor - Sarah Kamin Inadvertent heresy in Medievil Jewish thought: Maimonides and Abarbanel vs. Crescas and Duran? - Daniel Lasker Book review: Gershom Shalom: historian or philosopher? An answer to E. Schweid's criticism - Joseph Dan Clarification of concepts - Nathan Rotenstreich More about "Mysticism and Judaism" - Hava Lazarus-Yafeh Response: Response to D. Tamar - Rachel Elior Summeries in English of all the articles at the end of the volume.