Jews always depended on non-Jewish protection for their physical existence after exile.

Evidence

Nowhere and at no time after the destruction of the temple did Jews possess their own territory and their own state; they always depended for their physical existence upon the protection of non-Jewish authorities, although some means of self-protection, the right to bear arms, were granted to “the Jews in France and Germany well into the thirteenth century.” This does not mean that Jews were always deprived of power, but it is true that in any contest of violence, no matter for what reasons, Jews were not only vulnerable but helpless so that it was only natural, especially in the centuries of complete estrangement that preceded their rise to political equality, that all current outbursts of violence should be experienced by them as mere repetitions. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 18

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds directly into the statelessness literature (Arendt’s own later chapters, and core readings like Arendt on the right to have rights) — central to the Foundations Module toolkit.