ARGUMENTS
269
so unyieldingly on the side of disinterested justice, and that she judges
both Nazi and Jew. But abstract justice, as the Talmudic wisdom knew,
is sometimes
too
'strong' a yardstick to judge the world." And in his
Encounter
letter, Gershon Sholem, makes the same complaint: "In the
Jewish tradition, there is a concept ... we know as
Ahabath Israel:
'Love of the Jewish people.' In you, dear Hannah, as in so many
intellectuals who came from the German Left, I find little trace of this."
I think Mr. Bell and Mr. Sholem have made explicit, because their
intention was understanding rather than polemics, the concealed, perhaps
often unconscious, assumption that explains the violence of the Jewish
attacks on Miss Arendt's book. Both reproach her because she lacks a
special feeling in favor of her fellow Jews. But such a prejudice would
have made it impossible for her to speculate on how the catastrophe
might have been less complete had the Jewish leadership followed
different policies, or to attempt a realistic interpretation of the Nazi
horror as the work of men (who can be understood) and not of "mon–
sters" and demons (who cannot). That is, she tried to learn something
from history, an enterprise in which I don't think either the Talmud or
Ahabath Israel
would have been usefu1.
2
I am not Jewish, but if I were,
I hope I would not agree with Mr. Bell that "in this situation, one's
identity as a Jew ... is relevant," if it means applying a different
("weaker") yardstick to Jews. A yardstick is not a yardstick
if
it is more
or less than three feet long, and justice is not justice unless it is
"universalistic." I
am
old-fashioned enough (as of the thirties) to still
find these favored, special, exceptional categories of race or nation
morally suspect and intellectually confusing. And so I take heart in a book
like
Eichmann in Jerusalem .
2. One might expect the editor of our most intelligent Jewish magazine to see
that Miss Arendt's criticisms, however tactless, of the policies that at least
didn't
prevent
the 1942-1944 catastrophe might hold lessons for the future.
But Mr. Podhoretz ends his article plaintively: "The Nazis destroyed a third
of the J ewish people. In the name of all that is humane, will the remnant
never let up on itself?" Letting up on one's self may be humane--there are
other adjectives---but it doesn't make for understanding, or survival.
