Jews could merge with neither a class nor a nationality in the nation-state

Evidence

The result for the Jews was simply that the Jewish nationality could not merge with the others and could not become a nationality itself, just as it had not merged with other classes in the nation-state, or become-a class itself. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 161

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Core scaffolding concept: the Jew’s structural position as belonging to neither class nor nationality, which becomes the foundation for Arendt’s account of Jewish political homelessness.

Related

• Jewish social position derived from state relationship rather than class, leaving them socially void. (similarity 0.86)
• Jews entered European history as a non-national inter-European element (similarity 0.84)
• Jews historically occupied no social class but sat as an inserted wedge between classes. (similarity 0.83)
• Jews’ value lay in being bound to no national cause (similarity 0.83)
• Statelessness proved nationality could exist without territory or state institutions (similarity 0.82)
• Jews occupied no class position because the state, not class relations, defined them (similarity 0.81)
• The nation-state made nationality a prerequisite for citizenship (similarity 0.81)
• Jews were the only inter-European element in a nationalized Europe (similarity 0.79)
• European nationalism supplied the ideological template for Jewish statehood claims (similarity 0.79)
• Jewish political neutrality vanished with assimilation, and Zionists had independent politics. (similarity 0.78)
• Jewish admission into society hinged on perceived exotic difference, not similarity (similarity 0.78)