Assimilated Western European Jews were more preoccupied with Jewish birth than traditional communities were.

Evidence

Assimilated Jewry has been reproached with alienation from Judaism, and the final catastrophe brought upon it is frequently thought to have been a suffering as senseless as it was horrible, since it had lost the old value of martyrdom. This argument overlooks the fact that as far as the old ways of faith and life are concerned, “alienation” was equally apparent in Eastern European countries. But the usual notion of the Jews of Western Europe as “dejudaized” is misleading for another reason. Proust’s picture, in contrast to the all too obviously interested utterances of official Judaism, shows that never did the fact of Jewish birth play such a decisive role in private life and everyday existence as among the assimilated Jews. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 265

Categorization

• XREF: Arendt’s Proust-sourced evidence parallels how official/communal spokespeople and lived experience diverge — a dynamic relevant to representation-of-the-Other readings.