Martin Buber Zionist Sugar

Posted on August 5, 2013 by zjb

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My dear friend and nemesis GK wonders about Martin Buber’s place here in Israel. But Buber keeps popping up. At my cousin’s apartment, Buber’s own home in Talbiyah, in relation to Deleuze, on the sugar packets at the coffee station at the recently concluded World Union of Jewish Studies Congress in Jerusalem. I keep coming back to Buber again and again while in Israel. Not because his thought reflects the reality here, but because it’s the one Jewish thought that interrogates the reality here with the greatest and most insistent clarity. That’s Buber, not Rosenzweig, not Soloveitchik, not Heschel, and also not Kooks senior or junior. I was getting coffee at the conference with a colleague, and Buber’s was the first face that I noticed in the basket full of sugar packets, Buber nestled comfortably alongside the rest of the guys, with Herzl, Ahad Ha’Am, Bialik, Dizengoff, Arlozoroff, Katznelson, et.al. Two-state, one-state, two-state, what’s the difference? Of  course, I continued to collect the entire selection of Zionist sugar, and will take them all home to the United States as a momento.

About zjb

Zachary Braiterman is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. His specialization is modern Jewish thought and philosophical aesthetics. http://religion.syr.edu
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4 Responses to Martin Buber Zionist Sugar

  1. Bill Plevan says:
    August 5, 2013 at 10:28 am

    I can’t believe there is “Buber sugar!” Can I buy a box of just Buber packets?

    Reply
    • zjb says:
      August 5, 2013 at 11:40 am

      if you go to the slideshow, there’s the company website listed on the side of the packet in one of the photographs. let me know what you can get!

      Reply
  2. jessie says:
    August 6, 2013 at 3:44 am

    Sorry to have missed you! But your posts give me new views on this place, whatever it’s called. Rumor has it that there’s a dog in Manhattan named Buber and that his bark is always I-Thou. The owner now goes by the name of the “Kirtan Rabbi” (kind of like Israel, Palestine whatever) – who knows what happened to the dog?! Is the sugar as bittersweet as the legacy? Tell us what’s missing in your set and we’ll try to fill in.

    Reply
    • zjb says:
      August 6, 2013 at 3:48 am

      hi Jessie: thanks for the kind comments and your insight about “the dog,” i’m so sorry we missed you this trip. next visit, i promise!!

      Reply

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