Born in Vienna Martin Buber (1878-1965) joined several Zionist organizations as a university student. In 1901, he was appointed editor of the weekly Zionist paper, Die Welt, in which he emphasized the need for a new Jewish cultural creativity. With the outbreak of World War I, Buber founded in Berlin the Jewish National Committee which worked throughout the war on behalf of the Jews in Eastern European countries under German occupation, and on behalf of the yishuv in Palestine. While participating in public affairs during this time, Buber also continued writing. In 1923, he finished his book Ich und Du, which is today considered a landmark or twentieth-century intellectual history.

Influenced by the writings of Frederich Nietzsche, Ich und Du united the proto-Existentialists currents of modern German thought with the Judeo-Christian tradition. In his text, Buber lays out a view of the world in which human beings can enter into relationships using their innermost and whole being to form true partnerships. These deep forms of rapport contrast with those that spring from the Industrial Revolution, namely the common, but basically unethical, treatment of others as objects for our use and the incorrect view of the universe as merely the object of our senses and experiences. Buber argues for an ethic that does not use other people (or books, or trees, or God), and does not consider them objects of one's own personal experience. Instead, Buber writes, we must learn to consider everything around us as "You" speaking to "me," and requiring a response. Buber goes on to demonstrate how these interhuman meetings are a reflection of the human meeting with God. For Buber, the essence of biblical religion consists in the fact that -- regardless of the infinite abyss between them -- a dialogue between man and God is possible. Ecumenical in its appeal, Ich und Du nevertheless reflects the profound Talmudic tradition from which it has emerged.