Jewish social alienation differed from class alienation in being inescapable across generations

Evidence

Their basic common experience was that no degree of conformism was enough to make one’s position as a member of society secure. … Although Jews were on the whole more privileged than the working class, even privileged Jews could not escape their Jewishness. Privileged workers, on the other hand, ceased to be `workers’ in the second generation at the latest; but it was more difficult for them to achieve more privileged conditions. The Jewish experience of the tenacity of social alienation therefore formed a point of contact with the experience of the tenacity of social alienation which workers as a rule went through. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 17

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The contrast between racialized alienation (inescapable Jewishness, regardless of conformity) and class alienation (which privileged workers escape in the second generation) is a precision instrument for understanding why the School’s critique had the shape it did — worth sitting with.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s library: Things Fall Apart and A Very Minor Prophet both deal with inescapable social markers that no achievement can dissolve. — connects to: Philosemitism and antisemitism are intertwined responses to Jewish social visibility — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 274; Jewishness in contemporary England functions as visible bodily otherness rather than belonging — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 760; Assimilation paradoxically produced Jewish chauvinism rather than dissolving it (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Success does not erase visible and linguistic marks of Jewish difference #exemplifies (0.80) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 751
• Jewishness in contemporary England functions as visible bodily otherness rather than belonging #exemplifies (0.78) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 760
• Philosemitism and antisemitism are intertwined responses to Jewish social visibility #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 274
• Diaspora cultural identification persists across multiple generations #expands (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 818
• Assimilation paradoxically produced Jewish chauvinism rather than dissolving it #complicates (0.72)
• Prejudice transmits across generations mostly through parents’ unintended influence #expands (0.72)