The Institut subordinated Jewish identity and anti-Semitism to social class analysis

Evidence

If one were to characterize the Institut’s general attitude towards the “Jewish question,” it would have to be seen as similar to that expressed by another radical Jew almost a century before, Karl Marx. In both cases the religious or ethnic issue was clearly subordinated to the social. In Dammerung, Horkheimer attacked Jewish capitalists who were against anti-Semitism simply because it posed an economic threat. “The readiness to sacrifice life and property for belief,” he wrote, “is left behind with the material basis of the ghetto. With the bourgeois Jew, the hierarchy of goods is neither Jewish nor Christian, but bourgeois… . The Jewish revolutionary, like the `aryan,’ risks his own life for the freedom of mankind.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 162

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the later critical-theory debate over whether the Frankfurt School neglected anti-Semitism; connects to Horkheimer’s 1940s Studies in Prejudice turn. — connects to: Anti-Semitism functions as an interchangeable, replaceable programmatic label under Fascism; Assimilated Jews’ role-playing bitterness fed radical critique despite claimed non-discrimination — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 166; Marx’s class analysis excluded political questions and thereby the Jewish question — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 137 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Marx’s class analysis excluded political questions and thereby the Jewish question #expands (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 137