Yeshayahu Leibowitz: The Holocaust as a Sign of Warning against Nationalism: the Holocaust as a sign of warning against nationalism

In 1993, the Israel Prize committee announced its decision to award the prize to Yeshayahu Leibowitz, despite, among other things, public criticism regarding his extremist pronouncements. His words comparing the IDF to Nazis were perhaps the most significant act to arouse such antagonism. Some portray this comparison as an element of Leibowitz's provocative side, expressing disapproval of it but at the same time praising him with words of respect and admiration for his personality and other aspects of his thinking. In this article, however, I consider this provocative, controversial statement in a different light – as central to Leibowitz's life and thinking. Indeed, his refusal to retract it was reflective of a deep inner truth that transcends its initial appearance and indicates that, far from being a provocateur in Israeli public life in this context, Leibowitz was actually articulating a sensible political-ethical doctrine shaped in the shadow of the Holocaust. This article explores the direct linkage between Leibowitz's consciousness of the Holocaust and his ideological view of nationalism in general and Jewish nationalism in particular. My assertion of this linkage appears to run counter to Leibowitz's known position: that the Holocaust was meaningless from the perspective of the Jewish world. However, as I will show, it is actually this perspective that helps us better understand Leibowitz's approach to nationalism, and perhaps also his radical view of the phenomenon. The reading proposed here is an attempt to explore the deeper political-philosophical position that constituted the foundation for Leibowitz's public pronouncements. Keywords: Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Holocaust, philosophy, Franz Grillparzer, Nazism, nationalism, Israel Eldad.