Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the Berlin salons hosted by Jewish women

Abstract

In this study, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s work, we will analyze how Jewish women in Berlin assimilated in the context of the emancipation of the Jews in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. According to the German philosopher, the Berlin salons hosted by Jewish women brought together the most diverse range of society. In this sense, we will focus on how Rahel Varnhagen’s salon originated, and how the consequences of Jewish emancipation produced the definitive closure of the salons. With that aim, we base our study on Arendt’s early works written in the 1930s, Original Assimilation: An Epilogue to the One Hundredth Anniversary of Rahel Varnhagen's Death; Berliner Salon; Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess, in addition to her first major work, published two decades later, The Origins of Totalitarianism.