The Ambivalences of German-Jewish Identity: Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem

As was the case with her understanding of the role of European Jewry in The Origins of Totalitarianism, in "Reflections on Little Rock" her analysis was hamstrung by her rigid and anachronistic reliance on the categories of the "social" and the "political." Since she defined politics, following Aristotle, as a realm of human freedom or "action," and society as a sphere of economic necessity or "life," their interpenetration was always fatal, argued [Hannah Arendt]. Thus, she reasoned, using political means -- federal enforcement of a judicial decision -- to achieve social ends -- integration -- would prove disastrous. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, moreover, she had identified the monopolization of the political by the social as one of the chief causes of totalitarianism. Political equality, she argued, was all that American Blacks could aspire toward; social equality, as mandated by the recent Supreme Court ruling, would present the danger of a white backlash. Yet, Arendt was unable to see that in the South the social and political lot of African-Americans was inherently interrelated. She failed to realize that under conditions of segregation social equality was a necessary prerequisite for the attainment of genuine political freedom and empowerment; and that, under the strictures of the old "separate but equal" system, political freedom, where it existed, was essentially meaningless. Once again, however, her myopia was, one might say, conceptually overdetermined. She had brought her preconceived normative categories -- the "social" and the "political" -- to bear on a situation in which they proved radically inapplicable. Nor was a willingness to admit she had erred one of Arendt's outstanding virtues.
To return to the fabled exchange with [Gershom Scholem]: in retrospect, one can only say that, sadly, Arendt missed the point. Scholem was far from advocating an unthinking Jewish nationalism (he was, along with Buber and Judah Magnes, affiliated with the Ichud, a small group of Palestinian Jews who sought to promote Arab-Jewish understanding). Nor was it his position (one definitely harbored in certain quarters) that by criticizing one another Jews only provided aid and comfort to "the enemy" (of which the Jews, to be sure, had many). Instead, Scholem's criticism concerned the unsympathetic and captious tone of Arendt's remarks as much as their content. More than anything else, it was her rhetorical highhandedness and insensitivity that ended up provoking the wrath of so many. Hence, Arendt's rejoinder concerning her imputed lack of "Ahabath Israel" -- that she loved only her "friends" and never entire "peoples" -- was beside the point. Scholem was not summoning her to love all Jews. He was pointing out what over the course of Arendt's long treatise was obvious and undeniable: from a formal standpoint her narrative betrayed no trace of solidarity with her people of origin. Instead, the obverse seemed to be true: the historical behavior of the Jews as a people had gravely disappointed her, and she was letting this fact be known. That this people had been recently subjected to one of the most brutal episodes of genocide in recorded history seemed to matter little from her perspective. Amid three hundred pages of analysis and description, expressions of sympathy or compassion were not to be found. Moreover, she, who had herself been spared the worst, had presumed to sit in judgment. As Walter Laqueur observed: "Hannah Arendt's reproaches were those of an outsider, lacking identification: they were almost inhumanly cold."(8)