A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs

A new edition of Martin Buber’s many writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine, with updated forewords by two preeminent Palestinian and Jewish scholars.

The theologian and philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) was committed to radical socioeconomic reconstruction in pursuit of international peace. His voluminous writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine interweave his religious and philosophical teachings with his politics, each essential to Buber’s vision of democratic and religious life.

A Land of Two Peoples collects the letters, talks, and essays in which Buber advocated for a binationalism that reconciled Arabs and Jews as a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. As relevant today as when it was first published nearly fifty years ago, this edition of A Land of Two Peoples includes two forewords from the preeminent Jewish and Palestinian scholars Paul Mendes-Flohr and Raef Zreik.

Martin Buber was professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he taught courses in anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and Hasidic and biblical studies. He is best known for his book I and Thou. Paul Mendes-Flohr is professor emeritus of modern Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and professor emeritus of Jewish intellectual history at the University of Chicago. He is the author or editor of many books, including A Companion to Martin Buber, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Raef Zreik is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a jurist, and associate professor of law at Ono Academic College, Israel.