Intertwined Lives and Themes among Jewish Exiles

Abstract

This introductory chapter outlines the entanglement of Jewish intellectuals and others as they confronted exile, migration, and, in some cases, statelessness. These intellectuals include Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Albert Hirschmann, Varian Fry, Judith Shklar, Carl J. Friedrich, and Isaiah Berlin. They faced these challenges because of their Jewish origins, regardless of whether they themselves identified as Jewish, whether they were believers, or whether they were practicing Jews or not. Meanwhile, the chapter considers that for German Jews, the experience of belonging and not belonging, of being rendered migrants and internal exiles in their own country, began in the mid-nineteenth century, with the granting of certain civil rights to Jews residing in German territories. Lastly, the chapter presents a brief layout of the succeeding chapters' content.