Gandhi and His Jewish Friends

Most of Gandhi's close associates in South Africa were Jewish. They were brought together through a common interest in theosophy and became deeply involved in Gandhi's campaigns, looking after his affairs when he was away in London or India. There was much in common between Gandhi's ashrams and the early Kibbutzim, something which Hermann Kallenbach, his closest friend, was struck by when he first went to Palestine. But Gandhi disagreed with Martin Buber and Judah Magnes on the issue of non-violence and failed to understand what was happening to Jews on the continent in the 1930s. This inability is rooted in the difference in the condition of Jews and Indians in the respective diasporas in South Africa and in Gandhi's effort to bring Indian Muslims into the nationalist movement.