“An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind” Gandhi, the Jewish People, and Supersessionism

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Steven Shankman

Abstract

The phrase “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” has come to epitomize the thought of Mahatma Gandhi. That phrase is in fact the invention of Gandhi’s biographer Louis Fischer. It is justifiably associated with Gandhi, however, because it articulates Gandhi’s persistently supersessionist understanding of Jews and of Judaism. The biblical phrase “an eye for an eye” is not, according to rabbinic tradition, an injunction that one inflict physical injury on another in the spirit of revenge or retribution.

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