The Academic Reception of Hegel: Yovel, Avineri, Rotenstreich (1970s-1980s)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Why This Group?
After the existential answers (Levinas, Jonas, Fackenheim), now the academic question: how does Hegel himself stand toward Judaism? Was he anti-Semitic? How did he view the Jewish religion and history? This question is not only historically interesting, but systematically relevant: if Hegel’s philosophy of reason and recognition were compatible with anti-Semitism, then his philosophy would have an inner contradiction.
The three researchers we treat work in a sober, academic manner – no existential despair as with Jonas, no ethical radicality as with Levinas, no practical urgency as with Fackenheim. They analyze Hegel’s texts, contextualize them historically, examine the arguments. This sobriety is important after the existential positions: it shows that one can work with Hegel without rejecting or deifying him.
Three Positions in Overview
Yirmiyahu Yovel (b. 1935): Israeli philosopher, taught in Jerusalem and New York. His main work “Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche and the Jews” (1998) is based on preliminary work from the 1970s/80s. Thesis: Hegel is ambivalent – neither simply anti-Semitic nor philo-Semitic. Judaism is, for Hegel, “sublated” in Christianity – a stage of history, necessary but overcome.[1]
Shlomo Avineri (b. 1933): Israeli political scientist, taught at Hebrew University Jerusalem, was director-general in the Israeli Foreign Ministry from 1975-77. His “Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State” (1972) reads Hegel from an Israeli perspective: how can Hegel’s philosophy of the state be relevant for the modern Jewish state?[2]
Nathan Rotenstreich (1914-1993): German-Israeli philosopher, emigrated to Palestine in 1932, taught in Jerusalem. His “Jews and German Philosophy” (1984) examines: why did German Jews in the nineteenth century become more Hegelian than the Germans themselves? And why did this symbiosis end catastrophically?[3]
Yovel’s Position: Hegel’s Ambivalence
The Systematic Question
Yovel does not ask: “Was Hegel a good person?” (biographical question), but: “Is Hegel’s system compatible with anti-Semitism?” (systematic question). This is the right question – for a system that preaches reason and recognition, but excludes Jews, would be contradictory.
Yovel’s answer is nuanced: Hegel was not an anti-Semite in the sense of the nineteenth/twentieth century (racist, völkisch, eliminationist). But his system contains a structural problem: Judaism as a “sublated stage.”
Judaism in Hegel’s Philosophy of History
For Hegel, Judaism is the religion of the sublime – God as the absolutely transcendent, beyond all images, unrepresentable. This is progress compared to the nature-religious cults (Egypt, Persia). But it is not yet reconciliation: the Jewish God remains separated from the world, the human being remains a servant of God.[4]
Christianity sublates this: God becomes human (Incarnation), the separation is overcome, spirit recognizes itself in the world. Judaism is a necessary stage – but precisely: a stage. It is overcome, no longer the highest form.
The Problem of “Sublation”
Yovel shows: this “sublation” is ambivalent:
Seen positively: Judaism is recognized as a necessary step. Without Jewish sublimity, no Christian spirit. Judaism is not rejected, but preserved (in the threefold sense of sublation).
Seen problematically: Judaism is only a moment – it no longer has an independent right. Jews who hold fast to their religion remain stuck on an “overcome stage.” They are anachronistic – relics of a past time.
This view was widespread in the nineteenth century – not only in Hegel. It led to two consequences:
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Liberal assimilation: Jews should “emancipate” themselves – give up Judaism, adapt to Christian-European culture. This was the path of many German Jews.
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Anti-Semitic exclusion: Jews who did not assimilate were branded as “backward.” They did not fit into the modern world.
Hegel himself advocated legal equality for Jews – against the anti-Semitism of his time. But his philosophy contained a structure that marked Jews as “overcome.”[5]
Yovel’s Assessment
Yovel judges: Hegel was not an anti-Semite in the moral sense – he did not want exclusion, did not want persecution. But his system had a blind spot: it could not grasp the continued existence of Judaism. For Hegel, Judaism was historically superseded – that it continued to exist was, for him, puzzling.
After 1945, after Auschwitz, after the founding of Israel it is clear: Judaism is not superseded. It is a living tradition, developing, taking on modern forms, not to be “sublated.”
The lesson: Hegel’s dialectic must not be teleological – not all traditions must dissolve into one synthesis. There are plural paths of reason.
Avineri’s Position: Hegel and the Modern State
Avineri asks a different question: not “What did Hegel think about Jews?” but: “Is Hegel’s philosophy of the state relevant for Israel?”
The Question
Israel is a modern state – democratic, constitutional, oriented toward the West. But it is also a Jewish state – defined by ethnic/religious identity. This tension between universal constitutional state and particular ethno-nationality is the central problem.
Avineri shows: Hegel had thought through similar problems – in his analysis of state, nation, ethical life. Hegel’s philosophy of the state is not simply an apology for Prussia, but systematic reflection on: how can the state guarantee universal rights and at the same time preserve particular identity?[6]
Hegel’s Distinction: State Versus Nation
State (in Hegel): the institution of freedom – constitutional state, constitution, separation of powers. The state is universal – it applies to all citizens equally, regardless of origin, religion, ethnicity.
Nation (in Hegel): ethical life – language, culture, history, shared values. The nation is particular – it distinguishes itself from other nations.
Hegel’s thesis: a good state mediates both – it is universal in its rights, particular in its culture. It excludes no one (universal), but it has an identity (particular).
The Application to Israel
Avineri shows: Israel is a Hegelian state in this sense:
Universal: constitutional democracy, separation of powers, fundamental rights for all citizens (including the 20% Arab minority).
Particular: Jewish identity – Hebrew language, Jewish holidays, “right of return” for Jews.
The tension: can one be both at once? Avineri affirms this – but he sees the problems. Arab citizens often feel like second-class citizens – because the state defines itself as “Jewish.” That is the unresolved tension between universalism and particularism.
Avineri does not use Hegel to justify Israel, but to problematize it: Hegel’s philosophy shows where the tensions lie – it does not resolve them.
Rotenstreich’s Position: The German-Jewish Symbiosis
Rotenstreich asks: why did German Jews in the nineteenth century become more Hegelian than the Germans themselves? And why did this symbiosis end in catastrophe?
The Attraction of Hegel for Jews
In the nineteenth century there was a remarkable constellation: German Jews were disproportionately fascinated by Hegel. Examples:
- Eduard Gans (1797-1839): student of Hegel, jurist, converted to Christianity in order to become a professor
- Moses Hess (1812-1875): socialist, forerunner of Zionism, Hegelian dialectician
- Karl Marx (1818-1883): baptized Jew, revolutionized Hegel
- Many Neo-Kantians, later Frankfurt School: Jewish origin, Hegelian education
Why this attraction?
Rotenstreich shows: Hegel’s universalism was attractive to Jews. The Enlightenment promised: equality of all human beings – regardless of religion, origin, station. Hegel offered the philosophical justification: reason is universal, every thinking person shares in it.
For Jews, who had been excluded for centuries, this was liberation: no longer defined by particularity (Jewish religion), but by universality (human reason). Assimilation was the path to equal rights – and Hegel offered the theory for it.[7]
The Tragic End
But this symbiosis ended catastrophically. National Socialism destroyed it – not although German Jews were assimilated, but precisely because they were. The Nazis biologized: not culture (universalizable), but race (particular, unchangeable).
Rotenstreich shows the irony: Jews tried, through universalization (Hegel, Enlightenment, education), to become equal citizens. Anti-Semitism answered with re-particularization – “You are Jews, no matter how educated you are.”
The philosophical lesson: universalism alone is not enough. One also needs recognition of particularity. Jews have the right to remain Jews – not only as a “sublated stage,” but as a living tradition.
Sublation: What Do These Three Researchers Show?
The Common Insight
All three – Yovel, Avineri, Rotenstreich – show: one can still read Hegel after Auschwitz, still use him productively, still question him critically. But one must see his limits:
The teleological philosophy of history – not all traditions must dissolve into one synthesis.
Eurocentrism – Europe is not the measure of all things.
The subsumption of the particular – not everything particular is only a “moment” of the universal.
The Methodological Achievement
These researchers practice what we called, in Chapter 1 of Volume 1, the “Compass”: they ask: does the critique really hit Hegel – or only a caricature?
Their answer: both. Hegel was not an anti-Semite – but his system had weaknesses. These weaknesses are correctable – through pluralization of teleology, through recognition of particularity, through self-critique of universalism.
This is sober scholarship – no existential despair, but also no naive affirmation. It is exactly the kind of reception of Hegel that is possible and necessary after the existential upheavals (Levinas, Jonas, Fackenheim).
Yirmiyahu Yovel: Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche and the Jews, University Park: Penn State Press, 1998. Based on earlier work from the 1970s/80s. ↩︎
Shlomo Avineri: Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. ↩︎
Nathan Rotenstreich: Jews and German Philosophy: The Polemics of Emancipation, New York: Schocken Books, 1984. ↩︎
Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, in: Werke in zwanzig Bänden (TWA) 16–17, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1969–1971, here Vol. 16, p. 289ff. Judaism as the religion of sublimity. ↩︎
Yovel: Dark Riddle, pp. 45–68. ↩︎
Avineri: Hegel’s Theory, pp. 176–201. ↩︎
Rotenstreich: Jews and German Philosophy, pp. 12–34. ↩︎