Horkheimer could not determine whether his persecution targeted his politics or his Jewishness.

Evidence

I don’t make the rules, either. Hannah Arendt had a rule, though. “If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew,” she wrote. “Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man.” So is that what I have to do? What I have been putting off doing all this time? Do I have to defend myself from all this as a Jew? — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 914 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s strategic indecision reflected a Jewish condition requiring Machiavellian skill for security — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1744; Horkheimer’s cautious tactical maneuvering stemmed from Jewish insecurity — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1744; Assimilation never threatened Jewish survival because outsiders always perceived their Jewishness (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Arendt held that attacks levied on one’s Jewishness must be answered as a Jew #complicates (0.85) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 914
• Assimilation never threatened Jewish survival because outsiders always perceived their Jewishness #corroborates (0.80)
• German society defined Jewishness as a bodily essence no assimilation could erase #corroborates (0.80)
• Shifting Jewishness from a crime to a fixed identity foreclosed all escape routes. #expands (0.80)
• Horkheimer’s strategic indecision reflected a Jewish condition requiring Machiavellian skill for security #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1744
• Horkheimer’s cautious tactical maneuvering stemmed from Jewish insecurity #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1744