Every Jew had to choose between pariah, parvenu, or betraying conformity

Evidence

For the formation of a social history of the Jews within nineteenth-century European society, it was, however, decisive that to a certain extent every Jew in every generation had somehow at some time to decide whether he would remain a pariah and stay out of society altogether, or become a parvenu, or conform to society on the demoralizing condition that he not so much hide his-origin as “betray with the secret of his origin the secret of his people as well.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 221

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core conceptual distinction for this chapter: the pariah/parvenu/conformist triad as the structural choice forced on assimilating Jews.
• XREF: Connects to Arendt’s earlier material on Rahel Varnhagen and to later Islamophobia readings on the forced identity choices of minority subjects under majority society.