Language:
English
Year of publication:
1995
Titel der Quelle:
New German Critique
Angaben zur Quelle:
66 (1995) 147-163
Keywords:
Arendt, Hannah,
;
Dreyfus, Alfred,
;
Trials (Treason)
Abstract:
A paper presented at the conference "Legacies of the Dreyfus Affair", New York University, April 1995. Analyzes Arendt's assessment of the Dreyfus Affair on the background of her own life story as an emigre in France between 1933-41, her experience of antisemitism in Germany and France, and her analysis of the phenomenon in her writings. In her opinion, the Dreyfus Affair was a key to understanding European fascism, and especially the Vichy regime. Two elements of the Affair were later developed in fascism: antisemitism and a disdain for republican and parliamentary values. Rejecting Jewish "parvenus" - i.e. Jews who were eager to acquire a position in society at any cost, including full assimilation, and who were partly responsible for the Dreyfus Affair, Arendt praised those "pariahs", with whom she ranked herself, who engage in struggle against injustice on the basis of universal principles - what she called "the fight for 'abstract' justice".
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink