Ernst Simon

Born Akiba Ernst Simon in Berlin, Ernst Simon served in World War I. He returned to Berlin a devoted Zionist and began coediting Buber’s Der Jude newspaper. Simon earned a doctorate at Heidelberg in 1923, moved to Palestine in 1926, and worked as a teacher, eventually joining the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a professor of philosophy and education. His philosophy of religious humanism recognized a world in which God and humanity are mutually bound to each other through the Covenant, which demands that people work to perfect the world, principally through education. Simon wrote for Hebrew and German newspapers, and he was an active member of the Brit Shalom movement seeking a binational arrangement between Jews and Palestinians and the League for Jewish Arab Rapprochement. He also helped to establish secondary and postsecondary educational programs in Palestine and Germany and cofounded the post-Holocaust international Leo Baeck Institute. Simon actively supported intergroup dialogue and cofounded the israeli Iḥud binational party. He was awarded the israel Prize in 1967.