Jews entered European history as a non-national inter-European element

Evidence

It is still one of the most moving aspects of Jewish history that the Jews’ active entry into European history was caused by their being an inter-European, non-national element in a world of growing or existing nations. That this role proved more lasting and more essential than their function as state bankers is one of the material reasons for the new modern type of Jewish productivity in the arts and sciences. It is not without historical justice that their downfall coincided with the ruin of a system and a political body which, whatever its other defects, had needed and could tolerate a purely European element. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 110

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘non-national element in a world of nations’ concept is a key building block for understanding the nation-state’s problem with minorities — it anticipates later readings on how the imagined community of the nation requires homogeneity. — connects to: Jewishness was transposed from a nation’s religion into a national religion — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 836
• DEFINE: Arendt’s core thesis: Jews occupied a specifiable structural position in European history — the inter-European, non-national element — which explains both their productivity and their vulnerability as the nation-state consolidated.