Abstract
Rebb Binyamin (pseudonym of Yehoshua Radler-Feldman; 1880–1957) was a leading figure in movements that called for the establishment of a joint Jewish-Arab political framework in Palestine and that sharply criticized the Zionist cooperation with the British colonial authorities. In the early 1920s, he began exploring the writings of Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) as the basis for his critical approach toward the hegemonic Zionist discourse. In his writings Rebb Binyamin emphasized Gandhi’s refusal to reconcile himself to the British colonial “divide and rule” policies by creating divisions between Hindus and Muslims, the Indian anticolonial struggle that he led, and the way this struggle inspired the development of anticolonial movements in the Middle East. These aspects of Gandhi’s political repertoire were considered by Rebb Binyamin as a framework for the critical discussion of the ways in which the British colonial authorities perceived the Zionist movement as their representative and pointed to the fact that the Zionist-colonial partnership was an obstacle to the crystallization of Jewish-Arab cooperation. This article focuses on the ways in which Rebb Binyamin’s reading of Gandhi served as the basis for his critique of hegemonic Zionist discourse and practices.
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Notes
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.
On Zionism as settler-colonialism, see Sabbagh-Khoury 2021.
The Nakba (literally, “catastrophe”) is the expulsion and uprooting of the Palestinians in the war of 1948, the confiscation of their property, and the prevention of their return.
See also Dobnov and Robson 2019: 3.
All translations from Hebrew and to the work of Rebb Binyamin in this article are mine.
It seems that Rebb Binyamin read Gandhi’s speech in this edition: Speeches and Writings (Gandhi 1922: 249–57).
During the 1920s, Gandhi clearly saw the study of both Devanagari and Urdu scripts as an Indian national obligation (see, for example, Gandhi 1920, 1921a,b,c). During the 1930s, however, as Mufti argues, “for Gandhi, the goal of the nationalist movement could only be one national language and one script” (2007: 149).
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.
For details, see Tzoreff 2020.
This is not a commonly used expression to my knowledge. Apparently, it means that “I don’t need much to rely on, since a potato soup I can find everywhere.” This enabled him an attitude of resistance.
On Buber after the rise of the Nazi Party, see Maor 2016: 137–59. Gandhi’s understanding of Satyagraha as a performative act of rejection is manifested in his correspondences with Tagore, to which Rebb Binyamin referred in his early essay from 1924 (see Bhattacharya 1997: 54–68)
See, for example, Rebb Binyamin 1944a,b. For a broader discussion of Rebb Binyamin’s criticism of the Zionist policies during World War II, see Tzoreff 2023: 283–92.
See also Devji 2012: 131.
See, for example, Gandhiyani 1954.
Gandhi’s insistence on British withdrawal was also in danger of violence in the Indian context, see Devji 2012: 151–85.
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Tzoreff, Ar. Rebb Binyamin’s Gandhi: India, Islam, and the Question of Palestine. Hindu Studies 27, 377–391 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-023-09347-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-023-09347-0