The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The Martin Buber Society of Fellows is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of academic excellence. students will also be appointed for one year.

Our goal is to foster innovative research of broad cultural relevance and to create a community of scholars who can inspire one another. The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is a German Foundation financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Its research facility is situated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is aim

ed at creating a creative, vibrant scholarly environment for outstanding young scholars in all fields of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Scholars from the two countries who have completed their Ph.D. degrees within the last five years are eligible to apply, on the basis of a detailed research proposal, for generous fellowships, initially for a period of one year, but renewable for further periods thereafter upon submission of a long-term research project which will be evaluated by the Academic Committee. The Fellows-five from Israel and five from Germany in each annual batch-- will be housed at the Hebrew University and work in offices in the beautifully appointed Rabin Building on the Mount Scopus campus. They will have the freedom to carry out their research under optimal conditions, and they will take part in regular activities including a weekly seminar or colloquium, periodic workshops and conferences, study trips, lectures, and social events. Senior scholars from both countries will be associated with the Society as Senior Fellows and mentors, and a small number of select Ph.D. Israeli Fellows will be encouraged to spend one year in Germany at major institutions of higher learning. The Society is governed by a binational Kuratorium which meets regularly in Germany to decide on questions of strategy, budget, and development. All academic activity is overseen by the Academic Committee of seven members representing a wide range of disciplines: Prof. David Shulman (Director, Hebrew University), Prof. Maria Mavroudi (University of California), Prof. Margalit Finkelberg (Tel Aviv University), Prof. Yakov Metzer (Hebrew University), Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl, (Freie Universitaet Berlin), Prof. Theda Skocpol (Harvard) and Prof. Dorothea Weltecke (University of Konstanz). The Academic Committee is responsible for selecting the next year's Fellows from among the candidates who have applied. The Society of Fellows, like similar institutions at Harvard, Konstanz, Princeton, University of Michigan, and elsewhere, is committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and to a strong inter-disciplinary orientation. Our goal is to foster innovative, path-breaking research of broad cultural meaning and relevance and to create a community of scholars who can learn from and inspire one another. Scholars who have acquired a strong basis in their chosen discipline will be encouraged to embark upon broader, imaginative projects and to explore new disciplines and methodologies, thus crossing academic boundaries and challenging ossified conceptions. The primary values that guide us are originality, depth of insight, breadth of vision, cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary curiosity, collegiality, and (of course) solid erudition. The Society is funded by a generous grant from the German government with significant matching from the Hebrew University. The Director is nominated by the President of the Hebrew University and approved by the Kuratorium. The Society maintains close ties with other academic institutions in the two countries, including the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University.

05/08/2026

13/07/2026

To apply:

https://buberfellows.huji.ac.il/application

06/07/2026

Warm congratulations to our Alumnus Dr. Oded Na'aman!

Warm congratulations to Dr. Oded Na'aman of the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, on the awarding of a prestigious GIF Nexus Collaborative Track 2025 grant by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.

The grant will support Dr. Na’aman’s research project, “Political anger and democracy: A philosophical-empirical study,” conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Nora Heinzelmann of Heidelberg University.
With democracies eroding worldwide, this project builds a normative-empirical framework to distinguish political anger that defends democracy from anger that undermines it.

The Department of Philosophy and the Faculty of Humanities are proud of Dr. Na’aman’s achievement, warmly congratulate him, and look forward to the insights this important research will yield.

Photos from The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences's post

05/07/2026

Last Thursday, we had the honor to host Dr. Henry Marx, State Secretary for Higher Education and Research of the state of Berlin, for a visit at the MBSF.

02/07/2026

Our new CFA is out!
To apply:
https://buberfellows.huji.ac.il/application

Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

16/06/2026

Marking over 15 years of academic partnership between the Zukunftskolleg in Konstanz and the MBSF, a group of our fellows participated last week in a joint 3-day workshop at the University of Konstanz. This event marks the first installment of our annual exchange, with the second part scheduled to take place this autumn in Jerusalem.
Under the title "From Tool to Teammate: How Does AI Fundamentally Transform Research Practice?" the workshop examined the intersection of historical preservation and emerging methodological frontiers. The workshop ranged from archival site visits at the St. Gallen Abbey Library and the Archive of the Kanton St. Gallen to discussions on contemporary methods. Key sessions addressed AI-driven behavioral insights, the role of prompting as a scholarly expertise, and the ethical dimensions of AI-mediated research collaboration.
We look forward to reconvening with our partners in Jerusalem this autumn to continue these vital academic dialogues!

27/05/2026

We were delighted to welcome Verena Shifferman, Director of the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF) to our weekly Kaffeestunde yesterday! She introduced us to the work of the GIF and we had an engaging discussion about possible avenues for future collaboration.

Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

25/05/2026

It is always wonderful to hear about two Buberians meeting somewhere around the globe!

Our alumni Katharina Kraus and Antonios Kalatzis recently crossed paths in Vienna, and they shared some happy updates:

Katharina has officially returned to Europe after nine years in the US (where she taught at the University of Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins University). She is now the Professor of Philosophy of the Enlightenment and Modernity at the University of Vienna! In the photo, she is holding her newly published Cambridge Element, Kant's Ideas of Reason.

Antonios recently delivered a lecture on Hegel and Aristotle at the University of Vienna's Department of Philosophy. Looking ahead, he will soon be assuming a Professorship for Classical German Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens!

Warm congratulations and thank you for sharing this news :)

Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

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