Jewish political intuition favored distant central authority over local popular power

Evidence

Of all European peoples, the Jews had been the only one without a state of their own and had been, precisely for this reason, so eager and so suitable for alliances with governments and states as such, no matter what these governments or states might represent. On the other hand, the Jews had no political tradition or experience, and were as little aware of the tension between society and state as they were of the obvious risks and power-possibilities of their new role. What little knowledge or traditional practice they brought to politics had its source first in the Roman Empire, where they had been protected, so to speak, by the Roman soldier, and later, in the Middle Ages, when they sought and received protection against the population and the local rulers from remote monarchical and Church authorities. From these experiences, they had somehow drawn the conclusion that authority, and especially high authority, was favorable to them and that lower officials, and especially the common people, were dangerous. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 112

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt establishes the Jews’ concept of authority derived from Roman and medieval protection — a historical lesson that becomes politically fatal when the nation-state structure changes.