Ha'Gaon Reb Solomon Buber

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/

Death notice in the Neue Freie Presse - http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=nfp&datum=19061230...

Solomon Buber, Galician scholar and editor of Hebrew works, born in Lvov on February 2nd, 1827 and died just short of his eightieth birthday. His father who was well-versed in Talmudic literature and Jewish Philosophy, taught him secular education and obtained professional teachers for his religious education.

He married at twenty to Adele (Udel) and entered the commercial world becoming "Handelskammerath" and auditor of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, The National Bank, and the Galician Savings Bank. He was also on many Jewish community committees in Lvov and was one of their learders for close to half a century.

"His affairs consistently prospered, and he acquired considerable wealth", wrote the London Jewish Chronicle in his obituary, 1907. After enumerating some of his professional and social activities the Chronicle goes on to say that besides being ".....a man of affairs, as financier, municipal official, philanthropist and communal leader, it will amaze some to hear that Buber was beyond question the most prolific Jewish man of letters of this time".

He became a wealthy merchant and owned a large estate. During his youth he was influenced by the writings of Nahman Krochmal, S.L. Rappoport, and Zunz.

Being a researcher by nature he became particularly attracted to Midrashic literature resulting in the commentary on Pesikta de Rab Kahana published by the Mekize Nirdamim Society, Lyck (Lutsk), 1868 and German (Leipzig) in 1884.

Other Midrashic works similarly edited appeared between 1883 and 1902 numbering some fifteen in all.

He distinguished himself in other fields as well, including the biography on the grammarian Elias Levita, Leipzig, 1856. Anshei Shem (biographies and epitaphs of the leaders and Rabbis of Lvov from 1500-1890), Cracow, 1895 and Kiryah Nisgavah (biographies of the leading Rabbis of Zolkiew), published Cracow, 1903. He further wrote ten more books between 1885 and 1901 and his knowledge of Jewish history and literature is displayed in the additions to the works of others and his numerous contributions to magazines. For his services he received the title of "Imperial Councillor."

        "And when all is said, Buber's editions are found by students the easiest

to use, the most informing, the most inspiring of all editions. For Buber
writes never as the mere bookman; he writes as the book-lover. He puts
his character into all his work. An that character was a beautiful one. He
owed much of his charm to his ideally happy home life. He married when
twenty and is wife, who survives him was a true comrade, sharing his
charities and literary pursuits. No Jewish scholar of the nineteenth century
was better beloved; none had so few detractors."
London Jewish Chronicle, January 4, 1907
--------------------------------

Martin Buber's parents (Carl Buber and Elise née Wurgast) separated in 1882. For the next ten years, Martin lived with his paternal grandparents, Solomon and Adele Buber, in Lemberg (Lvov).

Solomon, a ‘master of the old Haskala’ (Martin Buber) who called himself ‘a Pole of the Mosaic persuasion’ (Friedman [1981] p. 11), produced the first modern editions of rabbinic midrash literature yet was greatly respected even by the ultraorthodox establishment.

His reputation opened the doors for Martin when he began to show interest in Zionism and Hasidic literature.

The wealth of his grandparents was built on the Galician estate administered by Adele and enhanced by Solomon through mining, banking, and commerce. It provided Martin with financial security until the German occupation of Poland in 1939, at which time the estate was destroyed.

Home-schooled and pampered by his grandmother, Buber became a bookish aesthete with few friends his age and the play of the imagination as his diversion. He easily absorbed local languages (Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, German) and acquired others (Greek, Latin, French, Italian, English). German was the dominant language at home, while the language of instruction at the Franz Joseph Gymnasium was Polish. This multilingualism nourished Buber's life-long obsession with words and meanings.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/