Excursus: Israel as a Philosophical Problem (1948-1989)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Preliminary Remark: This excursus is short (3-4 pages), purely philosophical, no current politics. We ask: what does the founding of the state of Israel mean systematically for the question of particularity and universality?
The Systematic Question
For 2000 years, Jews existed as a diaspora people – without state, without territory, scattered across all continents. This form of existence was unique: a people that was not defined by state, territory, language (everyday language was Yiddish, Ladino, or the respective national language), but by religion and culture.
This diaspora existence had a paradoxical structure:
Particular: Jews were a distinct group – own religion, own customs, own identity.
Universal: Jews lived in all civilizations – European, Islamic, Asian, African. They were trans-civilizational – not a regional culture, but a global presence.
The diaspora was involuntary – the result of expulsion, persecution, exile. But it developed its own forms: international networks, intellectual mobility, cultural flexibility.
The Dialectic of the Founding of the State
1948: Israel is founded. The dialectic reads:
Thesis: diaspora – Jews as a universal people without a state Antithesis: the Holocaust – the diaspora is annihilated Synthesis?: Israel – but is this reconciliation?
The question is: is Israel the sublation of the diaspora (in the threefold Hegelian sense: preserving + negating + raising to a higher level)? Or is it only negation of the diaspora – replacement by a “normal” nation-state?
Three Philosophical Positions (Very Briefly)
Martin Buber (1878-1965): advocated, before 1948, for a bi-national state – Jews and Arabs together. This would be the mediation of particularity (both peoples retain their identity) and universality (a shared state). Buber failed – Israel became a Jewish nation-state, there was war, there was the Nakba (expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians).[1]
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975): criticized, after 1961 (Eichmann trial), Israel’s development. Her argument: Israel must not become a “normal” nation-state – it must be exemplary. After Auschwitz, Israel has the obligation to be different: not ethnically exclusive, but universally inclusive. Arendt was heavily criticized for this – her critique was regarded by many as “Jewish self-hatred.”[2]
Gershom Scholem (1897-1982): the great scholar of mysticism warned: the secularization of Judaism in Zionism is dangerous. If one removes the religious dimension (Tikkun, messianic hope) and keeps only the nationalism, Israel becomes like any other nation-state – with all its dangers (chauvinism, militarism, exclusion). Scholem advocated for the preservation of the mystical tradition as a corrective against nationalism.[3]
Systematic Placement (Without Value Judgment)
The founding of the state shows a dialectical tension that remains unresolved:
Particularity: Israel as a Jewish state – defined by ethnic/religious affiliation. This tends to exclude others (Arab citizens often feel like second-class citizens).
Universality: Israel as a democratic constitutional state – equal rights for all. This requires inclusion, not exclusion.
This tension cannot be resolved through simple synthesis. It is the real dialectic of modernity: how can a state be both universal (equal rights) and particular (own identity)?
Hegel had seen this tension – but not resolved it. His philosophy of the state describes the problem, but offers no ready-made solution. The solution must be found practically – through institutional design, through political struggle, through cultural mediation.
The philosophical lesson: dialectic is not a theoretical system that solves all problems, but explication of structures within which we must act. Hegel shows where the tensions lie – we must work on them practically.
Martin Buber: A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. ↩︎
Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, New York: Viking Press, 1963. On the controversy see Seyla Benhabib: The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1996, pp. 65–85. ↩︎
Gershom Scholem: “Zum Verständnis der messianischen Idee im Judentum” (1959), in: Judaica I, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1963, pp. 7–74. ↩︎