Softcover, 12mo, 115 pages, 17 cm. In Hebrew. Series: Sifre mofet le-vate-sefer; mis. 22; Variation: Sifre mofet le-vate-sefer; mis. 22. SUBJECT (S) : Hasidim -- Legends. Jewish legends. Buber (1878-1965) was a “philosopher and theologian, Zionist thinker and leader. Born in Vienna, Buber as a child lived in Lemberg with his grandfather Solomon Buber, the noted Midrash scholar. From 1896 he studied at the universities of Vienna, Leipzig, and Zurich, and finally at the University of Berlin, where he was a pupil of the philosophers Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel. Having joined the Zionist movement in 1898, he was a delegate to the Third Zionist Congress in 1899 where he spoke on behalf of the Propaganda Committee. In this speech, which bore the influence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish writers, notably of Ahad Ha-Am, Buber emphasized the importance of education as opposed to a program of propaganda. In 1901 he was appointed editor of the central weekly organ of the Zionist movement, Die Welt, in which he emphasized the need for a new Jewish cultural creativity. This emphasis on cultural rather than political activity led, at the Fifth Zionist Congress in 1901, to the formation of the Zionist Democratic Fraction which stood in opposition to Herzl. Buber, a member of this faction, resigned before the Congress as editor of Die Welt. Together with his friends, he founded the Juedischer Verlag in Berlin, which went on to publish books of literary quality. At the age of 26 Buber took up the study of Hasidism. At first his interest was essentially aesthetic. After attempting to translate the tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav into German, he decided to retell them in German in the form of a free adaptation. Thus originated Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman and Die Legende des Baalschem. Later Buber’s interest turned from the aesthetic aspect of Hasidism to its content. Deeply stirred by the religious message of Hasidism, he considered it his duty to convey that message to the world. Among the books he later wrote on Hasidism are Gog u-Magog, Or ha-Ganuz, and Pardes ha-Hasidut” (Bergman and Meir in EJ, 2007) . OCLC lists 12 copies worldwide. Hinge repair. Chipped cover corners. Browning to pages. Light staining to front and back cover. Otherwise, good condition. (Hasid-6-5)