On November 1938 Gandhi published an article about the two questions that most preoccupied the Jewish world, Nazi Germany and the conflict in Palestine. Gandhi presented his rather demanding suggestion to the European Jews to adopt his Satygraha (Non- Violence) strategy in order to resist the Nazi type of extreme racist violence. This harsh demand raised a wide variety of responses among the Jewish intellectual community like Martin Buber‘s and Judea Magnes.
The Holocaust raises the question of whether non-violence in the emphatic sense in Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy has any meaning in the confrontation with extremely malicious doctrines. The talk will deal with Gandhi’s attitude towards Nazism as a doctrine and present Gandhi’s moralism, which is the basis of his reflection on the kind of action Jews of Europe should take in an extremely vulnerable situation. Finally it will also discuss the similarities and the differences between „kiddush Hashem“ (martyrdom) and Satyagraha and will refer to Gandhi‘s strange silence and his only comment after the Holocaust, when the extant of it was revealed.
Shimon Lev (1962) is currently completing his Doctoral Studies in the Hebrew University on: The cultural and political meeting between the Jewish world and the Indian World – A comparative research in the light of the development of the Indian and Zionist national movements. Recently his last book „Soulmates : The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach“ (2012) was published by Orient BlackSwan Publishing House, India. His article „Melting Hitler‘s ‚heart of stone‘ – Gandhi‘s Attitude to the Holocaust“, was published in The Journal of Judeo Indo Studies (Edit Nathan Katz, Vol 13 Autumn 2013).