Abraham Halevi Fraenkel, Martin Buber and Adult Education at the Hebrew University

Abstract This article examines the adult education program operated by the Hebrew University since 1940. The article depicts Abraham Halevi Fraenkel at its center. Fraenkel’s name as the founder of adult education at the Hebrew University has been almost completely forgotten. I want to return Fraenkel to center stage, and to attempt to connect his activities in Palestine/The Land of Israel to the ideas he brought with him from Germany in the field of adult education. These ideas can be seen as part of his religious and political convictions. Alongside Fraenkel in the leadership of adult education was Martin Buber, who worked from the 1940s to promote adult education at the Hebrew University. Buber’s endeavors in Germany in the field of adult education have been more extensively described in the literature than his role in this field in Israel. New archival material has made it possible to shed additional light both on Fraenkel’s character and on Buber’s undertakings in the 1940s on behalf of adult education in the Yishuv. A comparison between the two personalities reveals some insight into the establishment of adult education from an overall perspective.