Abstract
The paper offers a first comparison and critical review of the social and political theories of German-Jewish political thinker Hannah Arendt and Russian-born Zionist thinker Aaron David (A. D.) Gordon. Bringing these two thinkers into conversation sheds light on their distinctive human ontologies and competing theories of labor that led them, in turn, to critically assess modern politics. Subsequently, the analysis identifies the two thinkers’ opposing conceptual trajectories as underpinning their competing perspectives on the Jewish state. Whereas Arendt’s commitment to upholding neutral political spaces led her to call for safeguarding the state from the Jewish nation, Gordon’s view of nations as corporeal-organic entities led him to advocate securing the Jewish nation from statist institutions. In broader terms, the analysis seeks to add to the burgeoning literature in recent years that revisits the theoretical and ideological parameters conventionally understood as underlying the historical debate about the Jewish state. The analysis shows that whereas Gordon, as a Zionist thinker, set forth an antistatist doctrine, the non-Zionist Arendt assigned a key role to the state in securing Jewish national self-determination.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 60-80 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Shofar |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Authors.
Keywords
- A. D. Gordon
- Hannah Arendt
- Jewish nationalism
- Labor Zionism
- anti-Zionism
- non-Zionism
- the Jewish state
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies
- History
- Religious studies