Title: The political consequences of thinking : gender and Judaism in the work of Hannah Arendt /
Authors: Ring, Jennifer, 1948-
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 1997
Subjects: Arendt, Hannah,; Arendt, Hannah,; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence; World War, 1939-1945 Jews Rescue Palestine.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Public opinion; Public opinion Israel; Jews New York (State) New York Politics and government.; Israel Politics and government
Abstract: In this book, Jennifer Ring offers a wholly new interpretation of Hannah Arendt's work, from Eichmann in Jerusalem, with its bitter reception by the Jewish community, to The Life of the Mind. Departing from previous scholarship, Ring applies the perspectives of gender and ethnicity to investigate the extent to which Arendt's identity as a Jewish woman influenced both her thought and its reception. Ring's analysis of Zionist and assimilationist responses to century-old antisemitic sexual stereo-types leads her to argue that Arendt's criticism of European Jewish leadership during the Holocaust was bound to be explosive. New York and Israeli Jews shared a rare moment of unity in their condemnation of Arendt, charging that she had betrayed the Jewish community - the kind of charge, Ring contends, often leveled against women who dare to speak out publicly against prominent men in their own cultural or racial groups.
Contents: 1: Introduction -- Hannah Arendt, Judaism, and gender -- Identity politics and multiculturalism -- Assimilation and gender -- Race and gender -- The context of feminist theory -- Structure and organization of the book -- 2: The politics of the Eichmann controversy -- Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem -- The controversy -- 3: Israel and the Holocaust -- The dawning of reality -- The structure of discomfort -- Attempts at rescue -- Israeli attitudes toward the Holocaust victims -- Postwar negotiations with Germany -- The "Kastner trial" -- The trial of Adolf Eichmann -- 4: The New York intellectuals and Eichmann in Jerusalem -- The New York intellectuals and Judaism -- The New York intellectuals and the Holocaust -- Postwar politics and the New Yorkers -- The New York intellectuals and Hannah Arendt -- 5: Race, gender and Judaism: the Eichmann controversy as case study -- Nazis and sexuality -- Racism, sexism, and Jewish masculinity --^