Gandhi grandson resigns after criticism of anti-Semitic article

Brad A. Greenberg writes:

The president of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester resigned Thursday amid criticism of a short opinion piece he wrote for The Washington Post online titled "Jewish Identity Can’t Depend on Violence."

Penned by Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of Mohandas K. "Mahatma" Gandhi, the article was widely condemned. The essay was first posted on Jan. 7 on WashingtonPost.com’s On Faith blog, a commentary consortium of some of the world’s leading religious scholars. The blog’s editors, Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham published an apology today (Jan 18).

"As “On Faith” readers know, a post by Arun Gandhi on January 7 has produced an enormous response from readers who found Gandhi’s initial remarks anti-Semitic and his subsequent apology insufficient. When we undertook this project over a year ago, we wrote that our goal was to shed light on a subject—religion—that too often generates heat. The Gandhi post failed to comply with that mission, and we can only ask our readers to extend “On Faith” a measure of forbearance and tolerance as the site endeavors to conduct a civil and illuminating conversation. We regret the initial posting, and we apologize for the episode."