21 thoughts on “Buber May’ve Gotten House, But Said’s Family Will Have Last Laugh – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. The lords will always get their property back.
    Those who have, must have.
    However the simple people always gets nothing.

  2. Uhm… didn’t Edward Said’s family reside on 10 Brenner Street? Hovevei Tsiyon ( חובבי ציון‬‎ ) is just around the corner, maybe a five minute walk away – below Jabotinsky Street.

      1. I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken Richard. Buber definitely rented part of the property on 10 Brenner Street from 1938-1942 from Said’s Aunt. What you’re claiming is that the Saids owned not one but two homes in Talbiyeh. I have never heard of that.

  3. Btw, Martin Buber apparently did live on Hovevei Tsiyon – there’s reference to a meeting he had there with David Ben Gurion in the hopes of convincing him to commute Adolf Eichmann’s 1962 execution. The home is currently owned by Michael Steinhardt. Yeah, THE Michael Steinhardt who help found Birthright Israel. But the thing is that Said’s family lived on Brenner, or at least that’s the address Edward Said always used. In any case, Buber died in 1965 and lived on Hovevei Tsiyon in 1962 so he couldn’t have lived on Brenner “for the rest of his life.”

    1. How fitting that Michael Steinhardt is the next generation of pro-Israel gonif stealing the Said family’s home. Now, I hope even more fervently for a resolution of the conflict that dispossesses him of his expropriated property.

      Does Steinhardt own or rent the property from the State (as Buber did till his death)?

        1. The photo I used for this blog post said that this was both Said’s & Buber’s house. Since Uri Davis said that Buber returned to live in the Said’s house after 48 I assumed that they must be one & the same. I’ve contacted a member of Edward Said’s family & hope to be able to say something more definitive about this shortly. Thanks all for poring over yr memory & Google searches to help demystify this.

  4. I am more than willing to stand corrected, but my previous looks into this have taught me that Buber did live in a Said family home in Talbiyeh – 10 Brenner St. as it is now called – between 1938-42, when he was compelled by the court to vacate as a result of a landlord-tenant dispute. The landlord was indeed a member of the Said family I have never seen any evidence connecting the house on Hovvei Tziyon St, where Buber lived until his death, with the Said family. If anyone has evidence to the contrary – I would be pleased to see it.

  5. It’s a pity, Mr Silverstein, that you too fell into this trap of lies, started by Edward Said many yeas ago. Even the late Said had to apologize to the Buber family, after being confronted with the true facts. It all happened in 1942, when the Said family evicted the Buber family from the flat on Brenner Street, which they rented from the Saids. Buber never returned to the house. Only many years later – perhaps in an effort to improve his image in the eyes of his people – Edward Said invented this libelous fib. Decency, and integrity demand that you too apologize for repeating this insulting nonsense, and clean you website from its presence. You have a reputation to keep.

    1. On the contrary, what you write is not true. A commenter here has noted that Buber met with David Ben Gurion at this very home in 1962. So Buber did in fact return to the home after 1948. Can you prove the veracity of anything else you claim here. Where is the proof for the Said apology?

      1. The Said’s owned the house on 10 Brenner. Buber lived there from 1938 to 1942. He may very well have moved back after 1948, but he lived at 3 Hovevei Tsiyon at least from 1961 until his death in 1965. The home you have pictured here is at 3 Hovevei Tsiyon. The Said’s never owned this property. Edward Said never mentioned 3 Hovevei Tsiyon – he always talks about 10 Brenner. Like Daniel Seidemann, I am willing to be shown differently. I am open to the possibility that I am wrong, but I have seen nothing that indicates that the Said’s owned 3 Hovevei Tsiyon. That’s the home you have displayed and possibly mislabeled as the Said-Buber House. I’m thinking Buber did live on 10 Brenner after 1948 and probably moved to the smaller property at 3 Hovevei Tsiyon after his wife died in 1958. But that’s just a guess. What sin’t a guess is that there is no indication anywhere that 3 Hovevei Tsiyon ever belonged to the Saids.

    2. Now you are just being stubborn.
      The house in your photo is not – I repeat NOT – the Said house. Never was, isn’t, and will never be. This is the house on Hovevey Tzion street, where Buber lived until he died. This is also the house where the meeting with Ben-Gurion took place. Said’s ONLY house is on Brenner street. After the Buber family was evicted by the Saids from their flat in Brenner street, (FLAT, not house, the other two flats in the house were rented to foreign consulates), they moved to Abu-tur. They had to flee from Abu tur when the 1948 war broke out. THEY NEVER RETURNED TO THE SAID HOUSE. Not even for one minute. After changing a few addresses, they moved into Hovevey Tzion (the house in your photo), and lived there until Buber’s death. You may find all that information in the article -” ‘My Beautiful Old House’ and Other Fabrications by Edward Said”, by Justus Reid Weiner, Commentary 1999. (Although the writer is right-winged, he got it right this time…).
      There are also numerous articles about it in the Israeli and American press. You just have to do some homework.
      So, the sad fact is that you were misled. it Happens. The decent thing to do is to clean your website from these lies, write you are sorry, and save you integrity and credibility.

      1. Justus Weiner got it right? Said himself denounced Weiner’s article as a tissue of lies, ignorance & fabrication. Yr offering him as a source is pathetic. I am checking w a member of Said’s family to know the true facts.

        It’s u who ought to apologize for polluting these threads w a positive reference to the mendacious Commentary.

        1. Oh, Said “denounced” Weiner’s article… how surprising and convincing… Please, do check with the Said family. They, I think, have enough integrity to tell you the truth. While you are at it – why don’t you check with the Buber family? they too still exist. (But of-course, they are not credible enough for you. Only Edward Daid – who never lived in the house, and whose close family emigrated from Palestine in 1911 – he is credible enough).
          I learned a lot from this correspondence with you. Not about Buber, but about you and your site, which I respected. It seems you need to do some TIKUN BAIT, before you take up TIKUN OLAM.

          1. Actually, Said was born in the house though he grew up in Egypt. Actually your entire interaction fr start to finish shows you never had any respect for me or this site. I wish you could be more honest about your own agenda.

            I have consulted the Said family & the Buber family has weighed in as well. I’ve also written a new blog post.

      2. Hi Kalman,
        I read the Justus Weiner piece at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/991691/posts and at http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp422.htm – it is also in Commentary but behind a pay wall. It does talk about Buber renting a flat at 10 Brenner between 1938 and 1942 but makes no mention of what happened to Buber afterward. I mean obviously, anyone that lives in Jerusalem knows that Buber’s house is at 3 Hovevei Tsiyon, a mere 4 minute walk from the Said house at 10 Brenner. Where did you get the info about when Buber moved to 3 Hovevei Tsiyon? I think the confusion comes from the Uri Davis piece cited by Richard in the post. There, Uri Davis makes an explosive claim, one that even Said has never made (as far as I know), to wit:

        According to Edward Said, prior to 1948 the Buber family were tenants of the Saids in Jerusalem. They paid their rent for their house in the wealthy mixed Arab-Jewish Talbiyya Quarter to Edward Said’s father. Sometime towards 1948, a tenant-landlord dispute erupted between Mr Said and Professor Buber, and the case was taken for adjudication before the British Mandate court. Buber lost the case and had to leave the premises. At the door, after returning the keys to Edward Said’s father, Buber turned round and said: “Mr Said, you just wait. I will be back.” … Immediately after the war Buber was as good as his word. He returned to take residence in the Saids’ house in Talbiyya, now as tenant of the Custodian. He lived there for the rest of his life.

        Now we know that Said identified his house as 10 Brenner and we know that Buber lived there first and then eventually at 3 Hovevei Tsiyon. Weiner works (worked?) at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which is considered a pro-Israel institution. He wrote this article for Commentary Magazine, a right wing publication, and he teaches International Law at Hebrew U and Tel Aviv U. Uri Davis is also a Professor and a Jewish convert to Islam. He is also the first (only?) Jew elected to the Palestine National Council and a harsh critic of the Israeli government. So who do we believe? I know that Said was in front of 10 Brenner in the BBC film “In Search of Palestine” when he described it as his home… any ideas? Suggestions? Links??

        1. Hi Pea,

          I wouldn’t consider Davis a very reliable source. He is somewhat of an eccentric, and although very courageous and dedicated, he sometimes does not allow the facts to disturb his Idee-fixe(s).

          Said’s tale keeps popping up every few years, Although he himself – after being confronted with the facts, stopped telling it. He admitted his memory may have misled him.

          The true facts are well known to people who lived at that time (and since) in Jerusalem, and were also described many times in the press. Buber left to Abu-Tur in 1943, Left abu-tur in 1948, lived for about a year in a little hotel – I think in Beit Hakerem. In 1950 or so, the family bought the house in Hovevey Tzion 3, where he spent the rest of his life. Said visited Jerusalem in 1992, was photographed in front of the house, although he hardly lived in it. He grew up in Egypt, and then in the States.
          You can find more information in David Kroyanker’s book about Talbieh, in Danny Rubinstein’s article about the house (in Haaretz 1999) or contact Prof. Yosef Aggasi of the Tel-Aviv University, who is a relative of Buber, and lived witnessed most of it.
          It’s a shame that this false story keeps finding sponsors who neglect their duty to check facts before they prolong the life of a fib.

          1. yes, I am related to the Buber family: I married Judith Buber, Martin’s younger granddaughter, at Hovevei Zion 3 on August 10, 1949.
            In the end of 1947 Buber moved from the Nashashibi House in Abu-Tur where he had lived since 1942 when he was forced to leave the apartment in the Talbieh Boulos Said house. The Jerusalem Anglican Bishop came to his Abu-Tur home and insisted on taking him and his wife away from the flying bullets. They moved to the Asher Pension, Jerusalem, Rehavia, 20, Ibn Ezra Street. After the end of hostilities he bought the Hovevei Zion 3 house after verifying that its previous owner had returned to Turkey and they moved there and lived in that house to the end of their lives.
            Yes, Mr. Silverstein, I too suppose that an apology will benefit you and Tikun Olam.
            Joseph Agassi

          2. Kalman: Said identified, an posed in front of 10 Brenner as his home in the BBC Film “In Search of Palestine” which was produced in like 1997. Rubinstein wrote an obit for Said in 2003 which stated “The family built a house in Jerusalem’s Talbieh neighborhood – where Brenner street is today. The house became a source of contention after the family lost it following the 1948 war.” That article is here. That was all I could find – if you have a link to Rubinstein’s article, that would be handy. I’ve been scouring sources all over the place. Still no reference to 3 Hovevei Tsiyon as having ever belonged to the Said family – except for the caption of that pic in flickr. And no, I don’t consider Davis a very reliable source because it seems that he’s dead wrong. I’m even willing to bet on it!

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