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Gandhi and the Jews, the Jews and Gandhi: An Overall Perspective

  • ARTICLE: SPECIAL ISSUE ON GANDHI, ISRAEL, AND THE JEWS
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Abstract

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)’s relationship with the Jews is explored in this article. The history of this relationship can be divided into two different periods. The first begins during his formative years in South Africa from 1893 to 1914, and the second, during his political activism in India thereafter. The article points out that Gandhi’s close Jewish associates in South Africa, although coming primarily from a Theosophist background, considered their support of Gandhi and his struggle to represent their core Jewish values. Still, Gandhi’s close Jewish supporters did not successfully influence Gandhi regarding Zionism. In retrospect, Gandhi’s objection to Zionism enormously impacted the Indian Congress Party’s position regarding Palestine. The article notes that although Gandhi opposed political Zionism, he supported Zionism as a spiritual movement that could be best realized “within.” Somewhat surprising and little-known fact was a desire on Gandhi’s part to mediate between the Arabs and the Jews in direct talks. Gandhi hoped the Zionist leaders would respond positively to his offer to mediate so that he could advance his teachings of nonviolence while also claiming to represent the Indian Muslims. The article discusses Gandhi’s call to German and European Jews to resist the Nazi regime by adopting Satyagraha, the consequent rift with Jewry that followed, and his silence after the Holocaust. Finally, the article also briefly explores B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956)’s views on the Jews and the Indian pariahs.

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Notes

  1. For review of Guha 2013, see Hofmeyr 2014.

  2. In 1894 Gandhi wrote: “To me there is little difference between Theosophy and Esoteric Christianity” (160).

  3. In Gandhi’s Collected Works, there is no mention of Jews or Judaism before his coming to South Africa.

  4. It is clear from Kallenbach’s diaries and other documents that Gandhi’s Jewish supporters introduced him to many other Jews in South Africa. Copies of Kallenbach’s diaries from the years 1910 to 1914 are in my possession.

  5. Sonja Schlesin (1888–1956), Gandhi’s devoted secretary, although not a Theosophist, played an essential role in managing the Satyagraha struggle. Gandhi (1925–29: 225–27) highly praised her in his autobiography.

  6. “I have a world of friends among the Jews. In South Africa, I was surrounded by Jews” (1931: 105), Gandhi told a reporter from the Jewish Chronicle (London) before the second Round Table Conference.

  7. Zionism (derivative of the word “Zion,” a biblical name for Jerusalem) is a Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state of Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews.

  8. The Khilafat movement is a pan-Islamic movement in India that arose in 1919 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire to salvage the Ottoman caliph as a symbol of unity among the Muslim community in India. The movement fell apart after the abolition of the caliphate in 1924.

  9. The period during which Palestine was under British colonial rule (1917–48). It relied on the mandate that was granted to it by the league of nations following the First World War.

  10. Issued in London in 1917 during the First World War, the Balfour Declaration committed the British government to supporting the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, an Ottoman region at the time, with a small Jewish population.

  11. An interesting comparison between the development of the idea of Pakistan and the Zionist movement can be found in Devji 2013.

  12. Gandhi also claimed that the situation of Jews in Europe was preferable to that of Indians in South Africa. I believe that this absurd and unfortunate comparison was rooted in his experience in South Africa, where Jews succeeded in changing discriminatory laws by utilizing political tools.

  13. See Bergmann and Shimoni 1947; and Shimoni 1977.

  14. Ambedkar’s claims related to the desperate circumstances of the Dalits, who (unlike Jews) could not become fully integrated, even if they wanted to. In this sense, they were in a worse position than the Jews.

  15. See Roy’s (2014) criticism of Gandhi in her controversial introduction to Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste.

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  1. Tel Hai Academic College, 1220800, Upper Galilee, Israel

    Shimon Lev

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Lev, S. Gandhi and the Jews, the Jews and Gandhi: An Overall Perspective. Hindu Studies 27, 393–409 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-023-09348-z

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