Hegel compared the Jew-Arab link to strangers sharing a coffee

Evidence

In this particular passage, the Jews are the only “Orientals” named explicitly (at times even the only ones to be distinguished from others). Yet there are more instances where Hegel explicitly compares, opposes, or simply juxtaposes Jews and Arabs, Judaism and Islam. The logic of the link thus established (or undone) may, however, very well be like the association between an Arab and a stranger, ein Fremd, over “a cup of coffee.” What is established with ~he partaking “is not what is called a symbol. The connection between symbol and symbolized is not itself spiritual, is not life, but an objective bond; symbol and symbolized are strangers to one another,” sind einander fremd, “and their connection lies outside them” (248/G364). There may very well be a unity, yet what is lacking in it-this is, of course, well known-is recognition. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 636

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The ‘strangers over coffee’ analogy resonates with the book’s core thesis about Jews and Arabs being bound yet lacking mutual recognition — a connection to the project’s central concern with recognition in Hegel.
• CANDY: Hegel likening the Jew-Arab relationship to strangers sharing coffee — where the bond is real but recognition is absent — is a striking, compact image worth sharing.

Related

• Hegel’s link between Jews and Arabs lacks the recognition that would unite them (similarity 0.91)