Gandhi’s Rosh Hashanah greeting from 1939 wished Jews ‘era of peace’
A message by Mahatma Gandhi on the day that the Nazis invaded Poland has been discovered at the National Library of Israel
A Rosh Hashanah greeting written by Mahatma Gandhi on the day that the Nazis invaded Poland has been discovered at the National Library of Israel.
The handwritten letter from the famed Indian advocate of nonviolence to A.E. Shohet, the head of the Bombay Zionist Association, is dated Sept. 1, 1939. The library placed it online this week.
“Dear Shohet, You have my good wishes for your new year,” the letter reads. “How I wish the new year may mean an era of peace for your afflicted people.”
The greeting was discovered as part of a major National Library of Israel initiative to review millions of items in its archival collections, which include personal papers, photographs and documents. The library’s initiative is with support from the Leir Foundation.
Shohet was an Indian Jew from the Baghdadi community in Bombay. He also headed Bombay’s Keren Hayesod office and served as editor of The Jewish Advocate newspaper.
Shohet had interviewed Gandhi earlier that year, in March, at his ashram in Wardha, according to the National Library.
Gandhi had called for resisting Nazism solely through non-confrontational means.
“My sympathies are all with the Jews … If there ever could be a justifiable war, in the name of and for humanity, war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war,” he wrote in November 1938.
Not long before he was assassinated in January 1948, Gandhi called the Holocaust “the greatest crime of our time,” yet maintained that “… the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs … It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany … As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
