In August 1944, the Cultural Center of the Histadrut, the General Federation of Hebrew Workers in Palestine, sent letters to the kibbutzim proposing an adult education scheme for the workers’ settlements. The proposal outlined an intensive university-level course for a limited group of kibbutz members who would commit to regular weekly meetings. The program’s initiator was Edwin Samuel, an administrator in the British Mandate government, who suggested replicating the model of the British Workers’ Educational Association in Palestine. It was launched by the Public Education Committee of the Hebrew University, which had been supervised for over two decades by Abraham Halevi Fraenkel.
At the bottom of the letter, a postscript note was added: »P.S. Professor Martin Buber’s memorandum On the Path and Purpose of the People’s Education is attached. This memorandum was intended to emphasize the proposed course’s significance in comparison to individual lectures«. The relegation of Buber’s opinion to the bottom of the page points to a gap between two approaches to adult education. Why was the renowned philosopher’s memorandum reduced to a mere obiter dictum?
Martin Buber’s involvement in adult education initiatives began long before his migration from Germany to Palestine in 1938. During his life in Germany, Buber was deeply involved in both theory and practice of adult education initiatives. He had already taken part in the planning of such programs for the Hebrew University since around 1902, long before its official inauguration in 1925. However, his direct hands-on activity, through giving lectures and sitting in committees, increased significantly after he had settled in Jerusalem. With his extensive experience, Buber became a leading figure in advancing adult education in the Yishuv.
Central to Buber’s philosophy was his emphasis on dialogue and the profound relations that emerge from it, a concept he termed the »I-Thou« relationship. In Buber’s view, adult education was a means of fostering independent thinking and self-realization through the acquisition of knowledge and life experience, ultimately enabling individuals to better serve society. By facilitating genuine dialogue among instructors and learners, and by encouraging in-depth exploration of concepts, Buber’s method aimed at nurturing the individual’s active spirit. While imparting knowledge was undoubtedly one function of adult education, Buber did not consider it the most crucial aspect. Instead, the learner’s intellectual engagement was the primary aim.
As an active member of the Hebrew University’s Public Education Committee, Buber had a platform to promote his vision of intensive adult education. Though he gave public lectures across the Yishuv at the time, he argued during committee discussions that this lecture model was insufficient. In a committee session in June 1944, he stated that »the public’s attachment to adult education in Palestine is still at an extensive stage and must move on to the intensive method«. According to him, concentrated courses, which delve deeper into one topic rather than provide a wide panorama, should be given primacy.
It was at this meeting that the decision was made to ask Buber to draft a memorandum on the usefulness of intensive education, to be distributed in the workers’ settlements. Buber hastened to write the memorandum On the Path and Purpose of the People’s Education, in which he laid down the main points of his vision for the field. He began by stating that the popular concept of educating the people for the sole purpose of imparting knowledge is misguided and »based on a way of thinking that has long since been abolished, and rightly so, in the circles that lead the new work on education in Europe«.
With these words, Buber appears to have alluded to the »New Direction« (Neue Richtung), a movement that had emerged in Germany after the First World War and advocated adult education through public libraries and programs tailored to the learners’ needs and abilities. The New Direction’s innovation contrasted with the model that had originated in Britain in the nineteenth century and was based on extension programs, in which university lecturers delivered structured courses to diverse audiences. In Mandatory Palestine, this British-influenced model was confronted with Buber’s learner-centered approach inspired by the New Direction.
While the connection between Buber’s philosophy and the New Direction has not been widely recognized, the unpublished memorandum supports the claim that his activity in adult education in Palestine drew inspiration from that movement. The memorandum went on to detail the desired action in the New Direction’s spirit, for »the development of a human type, suitable to the special situation of his people and society and able to fulfill the roles that arise from that situation«. Buber reiterated that individual lectures are almost worthless in comparison to courses with repeated meetings and active student participation, especially if there is striving to get to the »depth of problems«. This depth, he argued, is only reached when »a regular and continuous contact is established, until the teacher can interweave with the fabric of the [students’] lives«. Only in-depth sessions, then, can lead to the creation of an in-depth person.
In practice, Buber’s memorandum was attached to the Cultural Center’s letter proposing tutorial courses to the cultural committees in the workers’ settlements. The letter laid down a scheme of adult education in the kibbutzim, outlining that 15 to 25 people would participate in each course, studying once a week with a university teacher who would visit the settlement for a full day. Buber’s memorandum, it summarized, »emphasizes the importance of the course as opposed to the single lecture within the system of university classes in the summer and spring seasons«.
The letter’s wording indicates a gap between Buber’s memorandum and the Cultural Center’s course proposal. While the memorandum delved into the concepts of dialogic learning and inner transformation, the proposal focused on logistical details like class sizes, teacher visits and assignments. By attaching Buber’s memorandum as a supplement, the disconnects between his German-inspired approach and the Center’s British-influenced attitude, between his theoretical vision and the on-the-ground reality, became evident. While the memo reflected lofty ideals, it did not directly relate to the pragmatic implementation of its proposals. The Cultural Center, it seems, wanted to pay respect to Buber by including his opinion, without really adopting his suggestions.
This gap between Buber’s vision for transformative education and the realities in Palestine at the time recurred throughout his years of activity in the country. Yet Buber remained steadfast, never wavering in his belief that the memorandum he had written reflected the ideas he held dear. He continued to fight for the realization of his educational ideals, rooted in the principles of dialogue, personal growth and the cultivation of social responsibility through immersive learning experiences. This vision would eventually find expression in the Institute for Adult Education Instructors (Beit Midrash Lemorei Am), which Buber founded in 1949.
Rakefet Cohen-Anzi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is researching the history of adult education in Mandatory Palestine and Israel. | rakefet.anzi(at)mail.huji.ac.il
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