Guest Lecture “Hannah Arendt – The Jewish Writings” by Dr. Alon Segev

On December 12, 2016, Dr. Alon Segev held a guest lecture on “Hannah Arendt – The Jewish Writings” at the Department of Philosophy. In his lecture, Dr. Segev exposed the basic assumption in Hannah Arendt’s The Jewish Writings, and discussed her critique of Jewish life and the Zionist entity—later the Jewish state—in Palestine. Dr. Segev suggested, that Arendt´s basic assumption is that politics could only exist as a dynamic process, as an interplay between different players with different worldviews and interests. Thus, politics could not be reduced to a state of inertia. According to Arendt, adherence to such inertia would lead to the destruction of politics and the loss of any chance to conduct a normal and fully productive life. The Zionist movement – as Dr. Segev presented - was fixed from its very inception in a state of inertia and thus introduced into its own definition of a permanent antagonism toward other nations. Dr. Segev discussed what this means for the State of Israel and what Hannah Arendt thought about this topic in her writings. He presented Arendt’s main claims and then criticized them by pointing at the merits and flaws in her thesis. The guest lecture took place during the course “Sozialphilosophie und Politische Philosophie: Hannah Arendts Vita Activa“, taught by assoz.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Oberprantacher, MA.