“To Buber,
therefore, Judaism is coincident with a vital prophetic tradition.”
Hans Urs Von Balthsar
Martin
Buber and Christianity (p.36)
The Jewish Zionist
tradition took two different paths within the early years of its formation in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The
tradition of Theodore Herzl, Max Nordau and Vladimir Jabotinsky was aggressive
and hawkish and had limited sympathy for the Arabs that were living in
Palestine. Sadly so, when most think of Zionism, they tend to assume the
perspective of Herzl and followers was the only approach to a Jewish homeland.
There was, though, another approach to the Zionist position. Men like Ahad
Ha-am, Martin Buber and Judah Magnes stood within this more irenical and
prophetic heritage.
Such a tradition did not
dismiss the idea of a return to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but the return
had to be done slowly and be sensitive to the obvious presence of the Arabs
that lived in the area. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 seemed to give the nod
to the political Zionism of Herzl, and it was in the 1920s that the more
moderate Zionist tradition of Brit Shalom (Covenant of Peace) was formed. Brit
Shalom became Ihud (Union) in the 1930s, and the focus of Brit Shalom-Ihud was
to create an ethos of concord and unity between the Jews and Arabs in
Palestine.
There were, therefore, two
types of Zionism that dominated the Jewish return to Palestine in the early
decades of the movement. The political Zionism of Herzl had little patience for
the Arab-Palestinian presence, whereas the cultural Zionism of Buber was committed
to peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians. Buber became interested in
Herzl’s political Zionism in 1900, and he became editor of Die Welt (Herzl’s flagship magazine) in 1901, but he
left in 1904 over Herzl’s limited understanding of Zionism. Buber’s deeper
feel and commitment to the spiritual and cultural roots of the Jewish tradition
and the Zionist position lead him to become editor of Der Jude in 1916, and he remained the editor until 1924. Der
Jude became one the most important
German Jewish magazines that challenged the position of Die Welt. Buber was appointed in 1923 to be the chair of
Jewish History of Religion and Ethics at Frankfort University in Germany. This
position was unique in Germany, Europe and the world. When the Nazis came to
power in 1933, Buber was removed from the chair and the programme was axed.
Martin Buber was at the
forefront of German Jewish thinking/activism in the 1930s when Hitler came to
power and began his purges of the Jewish people. In fact, Buber was at work
with Franz Rosenzweig, beginning in 1925, on a translation of the Jewish Bible
into German that challenged Luther’s translation. Buber lingered in Germany as
long as he could, but by 1938 at the age of 60, Buber knew he had to leave.
Martin Buber moved to Jerusalem, bought a home on the Lovers of Zion Street and
began teaching at Hebrew University with Judah Magnes.
Mahatma Gandhi was a well
known international activist in the 1920s-1930s, and his faithful and committed
nonviolent opposition to British rule was front and centre in the minds of
many. Gandhi, like Nehru, stood for an independent India in opposition to
British imperial rule. Gandhi’s activist and nonviolent political approach was
bearing much fruit, and drew the attention of many. This seemed to be the best
way to move from imperial dominance to a post-colonial nationalism. Often such
a transition erupted into violence, but Gandhi’s commitment to a type of
pacifism that was politically engaged held the attention of the world and was
achieving fruitful results. Gandhi published an article in his magazine (Harijan) in November 26, 1938 suggesting that the Jews in
Germany use Satyagraha (soul-force) in response to the Nazis. Gandhi was
critical of Zionism for the simple reason that the Jews that were settling in
Palestine were mistreating the Arabs who owned property in the area and whose
families had lived in Palestine for centuries. Gandhi’s article was read by
Buber and Magnes, and both men knew they needed to respond to Gandhi. Was the
opposition that Gandhi faced from the British in India the same as the Jews
were confronting from the Germans? Would Gandhi’s nonviolent approach work when
faced with the Nazi threat? Buber’s response to Gandhi makes for a challenging
read at a variety of levels. Both Gandhi and Buber were men of peace, but is
peacemaking the same in all contexts? Should Gandhi’s approach be seen as a
peacemaking absolute that cannot be questioned, or are there other ways of
understanding what it means to be a maker of peace? It is in Buber and Magnes’
replies to Gandhi that we enter a more tangled and complicated approach to the
issue of peacemaking. Let us now turn to the Buber and Magnes responses to
Gandhi.
The content of Gandhi’s
article (Harijan: November 26, 1938)
must be pondered first before we can fully understand the reply by both Buber
and Magnes. Gandhi made it quite clear that he had immense sympathy for the
Jews. In fact, he stated ‘My sympathies are with the Jews’, and he thought they
had become ‘the untouchables of Christianity’. But, sympathy had to be balanced
with justice. Gandhi wondered why the Jews had to return to a land where others
were living. ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England
belongs to the English, of France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to
impose the Jews on the Arabs’. This position did not mean Gandhi ignored the
plight of the Jews in Germany under Hitler. The idea of a Jewish National Home
had all sorts of problems, but Gandhi could understand the desire given the
context of Germany in the 1930s.
Gandhi suggested that just
as Indians in white South Africa (being a minority and consigned to ghetto
life) had used ‘satyagraha’ to oppose the apartheid regime when there was no
support from the broader world, so the Jews in Germany should do the same.
Gandhi was amply aware there would be much suffering and death as the Jews
non-violently opposed Hitler, but he suggested this is what they should do.
Gandhi raised an interesting theological point in such an argument that needs
some pondering. He suggested that ‘No person who has faith in a living God need
feel helpless or forlorn’. Gandhi furthered argued that ‘as the Jews attributed
personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought
not to feel helpless’. This is a most interesting argument. If the Jews act in
a non-violent way, will God intervene in history to protect them? The Jewish
Bible has many tales of God acting in history to protect the Jews. Can these
stories be applied to the Jews in Germany? Will God guide them across such the
Red Sea against the German Pharaoh? Gandhi was convinced that as he
trusted in the Ultimate Reality (‘Sat’) of Indian thought, and clung faithfully
to such a reality (‘graha’), he was guided and protected both in his South
African and Indian experiences against the Dutch and English. Surely the living
and active, immanent and interventionist, just and compassionate God of the
Jews would break into history and protect the Jews in Germany if they but
opposed Hitler in a vulnerable and non-violent manner? This question raised by
Gandhi does have all sorts of telling implications if taken seriously and acted
upon in a consistent manner. Would God actually intervene to protect the Jews
in Germany or is this just naïve and silly thinking? How were the Jews in
Germany to respond to such a challenge?
Gandhi’s experience in
South Africa and India had convinced him that opposition to injustice and
racism had to be opposed and had to be opposed in a direct, civil and
non-violent manner. Gandhi had great success midst much suffering and
mistreatment, and he was convinced that if the German Jews clung to their God
as he had done to his understanding of God, they would, in time, wear down and
overcome the vicious and violent Nazi regime.
Gandhi did recognize that
many German Jews would think his suggestions and recommendations sheer folly
and foolish. There was the Jewish longing for a National Homeland, and there
was the German context that would not be resolved by Gandhi’s notion of ‘satyagraha’.
The only way to prevent greater suffering for the Jews was to turn to
Palestine. Gandhi did not deny this as an option, although his primary argument
was that German Jews should remain Germany and confront the German Pharaoh, and
Jehovah could be counted
on to deliver them. Many Jews, understandably so, were not so trusting. God had
not intervened throughout most of the 1930s in Germany, and the repression was
getting worse. Gandhi had enough sympathy for the Jewish plight to
acknowledge that a flight to Palestine was an option. Gandhi did caution
the Jews, though, that if they were to turn to Palestine there were three
things they had to be aware of.
First, they needed to be
wary of coming to Palestine ‘under the shadow of the British gun. A religious
act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb’. Second, it
was essential, if the Jews were to return to Palestine that they ‘settle in
Palestine only by the good will of the Arabs’.
Gandhi suggested yet again
that the Jews that return to Palestine practice ‘satyagraha’ in their
relationship with the Arabs that lived in the area. Third, the Jews had to
separate their return to Palestine from the military support of the British. ‘As
it is, they (the Jews) are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people
who have done no wrong to them’. Why, in short, should the Arabs in Palestine
be evacuated because of a civil war in Europe or a Biblical promise of a
National Homeland in Palestine?
Gandhi’s essay was only
five pages, but much is said in it and drew forth replies from two of the
leading Jewish humanitarian Zionists in Palestine at the time.
‘Two Letters to Gandhi’
from Martin Buber and Judah Magnes were the first to be written in the “The
Bond” pamphlet series, and they were meant to open up a dialogue between the
Jews and Gandhi and Israel and India. Buber’s letter was written from Jerusalem
and completed February 24th, 1939, and Magnes’ letter was written
from Jerusalem and completed February 26th, 1939. Both letters are much longer
than Gandhi’s ‘Statement’, and there is no doubt by 1939 Hitler’s intentions in
regards to the Jews was obvious. Buber had fled from Germany in 1938.
Buber’s letter to Gandhi
is twenty-two pages, and in his compact, poetic and prophetic way he urges
Gandhi to ponder deeper and further the comments he made in the ‘Statement’ in Harijan. Buber in no way seeks to demean Gandhi’s
comments, but he does urge Gandhi to understand the Jewish soul in a fuller and
more historic way and manner. Gandhi had become for many a mentor and guide,
and Buber honoured Gandhi’s work in both South Africa and India. He knew Gandhi
had been in the trenches, knew the cost to be paid for being in such a place,
hence he deserved much respect. But, did Gandhi truly know the complex nature
of the Jewish people and their historic moment? This was the burden of Buber’s
reply to Gandhi.
Buber made it clear that
it was simply wrong of Gandhi to assume his struggles in South Africa for
justice and India for independence were comparable to what the Jews were facing
in Germany. Buber lived in Germany throughout the five years Hitler was in
power (1933-1938), and he left for Palestine in 1938. Buber described what it
was like for the Jews in Germany in the 1930s, and he insisted the level of
brutality and evil they faced was nothing like what Gandhi had faced and
endured. There is no doubt the Dutch and English in South Africa and India were
engaged in unjust and racist practices, but Germany under Hitler was evil,
violence and brutality in its starkest and rawest form. In short, ‘satyagraha’
would have been an act of sheer madness under the Nazis. Buber does not answer
Gandhi’s theological question about the interventionist presence of God in
Germany in defense of the Jews if they engaged in active non-violent
resistance. Buber was in Germany from 1933-1938, and the situation had
continued to deteriorate even though many a Jew attempted to heed Gandhi’s
model of opposing racism and injustice. The situation, of course, was to get
much worse after Buber went to Palestine. So, why did the God that redeemed the
Jews from Pharaoh in Egypt not intervene to rescue the Jews from the German
Pharaoh? Buber did not answer this question, but he did argue that the God of
Abraham and Moses had called the Jews to be a special people, and part of such
an election was a commitment to promised land.
Buber disagreed with
Gandhi about Gandhi’s notion that the Jews should stay in Germany and confront
Hitler, but he did agree with Gandhi that the Jews in Palestine should co-exist
with the Arabs to make Palestine a fitter and finer place to live. Buber
explained how the Jews and Arabs could support one another and live in a
peaceful way, but he did argue that the Jewish soul was attached to the ancient
land of Palestine like the political Zionists. He insisted, though, unlike the
political Zionists, that Zionism had to be a Jewish movement in which Jews
walked the extra mile to discern how Arabs and Jews could work in unity to
build a better living situation for both people. The idealistic Zionism of
Buber did, of course, run contrary to the realistic and hawkish Zionism of
those like Herzl and Ben-Gurion. Buber was, in short, snared between the
competing demands of Gandhi and Ben-Gurion. Buber concluded his letter to
Gandhi by suggesting that the Jews and the Arabs needed to hear one another and
enter into dialogue rather than only the Jews as Gandhi had suggested. There is
a legitimate sense in which Gandhi had addressed the Jews in his ‘Statement’,
but never leveled any responsibility on the Arabs of Palestine. Buber found
this a serious flaw in Gandhi’s evaluation of the situation. A fuller treatment
of Buber’s position can be found in Israel and Palestine: The History
of an Idea (1944). In May, 1948, the
State of Israel was proclaimed, and in the lead up to the proclamation and the
ensuing war, there is no doubt whose form of Zionism dominated the day. It was
certainly not Buber’s version of Zionism even though Buber remained a prophetic
and idealistic Zionist in opposition to the more hawkish forms of the Zionist
way that followed 1948.
The letter of Judah
Magnes, like Buber’s, is a long letter, although it is shorter than Buber’s.
Magnes, like Buber, takes Gandhi to task for offering advice that is
inapplicable in Germany. The context of Nazi Germany cannot and should not be
compared to South Africa and India. Such a comparison distorts the reality of
the situation. Many a German Jew had tried to practice ‘satyagraha’ and
suffered in ways Gandhi could not imagine or anticipate. Magnes, like Buber,
highlights many an example of German Jews doing what Gandhi suggested, but the
results were more and more vicious and violent. Magnes also suggested that the
Jews certainly understood the meaning of martyrdom. Much of their history is a
tale of woe and endless rejection. It is this litany of suffering and martyrdom
that seems to be part of the Jewish soul. In short, Magnes makes it abundantly
clear that the Jews had practiced non-violent resistance and known the meaning
of martyrdom in a way Gandhi would probably never fully be able to comprehend.
Much of Magnes’ tract for the times lingers on the reality of the German Jews
plight and the fact the Jews had come to the end of their tether. Magnes, like
Gandhi, might not be a booster of war, but does there come a time when limited
violence must be used to prevent greater violence? The German Jews were living in
a cauldron that was heating up more each year, and there were dire consequences
afoot if action was not taken to stop Hitler.
Magnes, like Buber, agreed
with Gandhi that the Jews in Palestine had to learn to live with the indigenous
Arab community that existed in Palestine before the coming of the Jews. It is
in this sense that Gandhi, Buber and Magnes were on the same page. Gandhi was
not an idealistic Zionist like Buber and Magnes, but he did agree with Buber
and Magnes that if the Jews were going to return to Palestine (and they were),
much work had to be done on how this transition could occur in a peaceful way
and manner. This conversation, of course, became somewhat dated after the
proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. Buber and Magnes continued to be
prophetic gadflies to the hawkish Zionism that led to the massive Palestinian
exodus and refugee problem after 1948. The courageous life of Magnes is well
told in the biography, For Zion’s Sake: A Biography of Judah L. Magnes;
First Chancellor and First President of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1954).
The question and issue of
pacifism and Gandhi’s understanding of non-violent civil resistance was tested
to the limit and found wanting by Buber and Magnes. The letters of both men
pushed Gandhi’s thinking to places in which the theory and practice of active
pacifism should be questioned. Buber and Magnes are excellent test cases (as
was the times they lived in and their geographic contexts). Unlike many a
Zionist that used Jewish persecution and martyrdom as a means to oppress the
Palestinians, Buber and Magnes pointed to a better way: peaceful co-existence
with the Palestinians. Such a position is a minority report within the Jewish
tradition, and in this sense both Buber and Magnes are faithful to the ancient
Jewish prophetic heritage.
Ron Dart
This is a great summary of the two letters to Gandhi. It is a shame that this is rarely mentioned in modern day philosophy academia.
Posted by: Patrick | August 25, 2010 at 10:08 PM