Papers by Shmuel Lederman
A Not So Textbook Case of Genocide
Journal of Genocide Research, 2025
This article offers an analysis of the genocide in Gaza and the issues it raises for genocide stu... more This article offers an analysis of the genocide in Gaza and the issues it raises for genocide studies and the current legal framework. Link with open access below.
Ordinary men and the banality of evil: recovering the conversation between Arendt and Browning
Holocaust Studies, 2025
This article seeks to recover the conversation between Christopher Browning and Hannah Arendt, wh... more This article seeks to recover the conversation between Christopher Browning and Hannah Arendt, which has been obscured by common misinterpretations of Arendt. I aim to show that reading Browning's account of “ordinary” German perpetrators alongside Arendt's analysis may help us re-think the way perpetrators often participated in mass murder because they adapted themselves to the Nazi order the same way they adapted themselves to the pre- and post-Nazi order. The return of this repressed Arendtian insight in Browning's work, I suggest, marks a realization that remains underexplored in Holocaust studies.
Journal of Jewish Ethics, 2023
Prisoners of war (POW) are generally due equal medical and humanitarian care under international ... more Prisoners of war (POW) are generally due equal medical and humanitarian care under international humanitarian law. Whether this applies to the Hamas combatants involved in the recent attack on Israel and what exactly it may mean are the subject of this article. On October 7, 2023, Hamas combatants infiltrated the southern part of Israel and murdered and kidnapped unarmed civilians. The Israeli Minister of Health issued a letter forbidding public hospitals from treating the combatants, instead directing them to medical facilities run by the Israeli military or prison system. This means that some of the combatants may not receive care equal to that received by Israeli civilians and soldiers, or rather that they might receive care that is inappropriate. This article argues that combatants should be treated humanely and appropriately based on three arguments. The first relies on international humanitarian law and its foregrounding moral axioms. The second relies on the Golden Rule. The third relies on the Arendtian concept of a common world. Humane and appropriate treatment does not necessarily mean equal or equitable treatment; it rather means treatment of a standard that is similar to the standard in the detaining country.
Bioethics, 2024
This paper explores the notion of loneliness as lack of solidarity in relations to Palestinians l... more This paper explores the notion of loneliness as lack of solidarity in relations to Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel, and the diaspora. Loneliness as lack of solidarity is defined as lacking someone to identify with and/or lacking someone who is willing to assist while carrying a burden. We describe the mechanism of lack of identification using the concept of epistemic injustice. The paper suggests that art may serve as a way to mitigate this kind of loneliness, and
focus on the Freedom Theater, which was operating in Jenin Refugee Camp until recently.
The Kantian Origins of Arendt’s “Banality of Evil”
Hannah Arendt's Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, 2024
It is often assumed that Arendt began to explore Kantian judgment seriously only after the Eichma... more It is often assumed that Arendt began to explore Kantian judgment seriously only after the Eichmann trial. In this article, I argue that it was, rather, Arendt’s engagement with Kantian judgment in the years before the trial that led her to the insight of the ‘banality of evil’. Recognizing the way Kantian judgment served as an important origin for the concept of the ‘banality of evil’, I further argue, has important implications for our understanding of this concept and its significance in the development of Arendt's thinking about genocidal perpetrators.
Journal of Genocide Research, 2024
The war in Yemen, which began in late 2014, has received relatively little attention from genocid... more The war in Yemen, which began in late 2014, has received relatively little attention from genocide scholars, despite the hundreds of thousands of victims it has claimed. In this article, we examine the war through the lens of Critical Genocide Studies (CGS), as a case study of how and why a mass atrocity that leads to the destruction of a substantial part of a distinct group becomes "forgotten" or "hidden." At the same time, we problematize previous attempts to come to terms with Yemen by critical genocide scholars. Our aim is to sharpen the challenges and conundrums that emerge when attempting to include in the study of genocide cases that are outside the "hegemonic" concept of genocide and the common "genocidal imagination." ARTICLE HISTORY
The Currency Value of the Holocaust and the Dynamics of‘Zombie Memory’: Toward a Reconceptualization of Contemporary Holocaust Remembrance
Journal of Holocaust Research, 2024
In this article, we reconceptualize how contemporary Holocaust memory functions through the metap... more In this article, we reconceptualize how contemporary Holocaust memory functions through the metaphors of common currency and ‘zombie memory.’ As currency, Holocaust memory is a medium of exchange that is perceived as a commodity produced to satisfy political wants or needs. For the most part, however, Holocaust memory lays dormant until triggered into life by specific events with particular characteristics that associate in the popular imaginary with the Holocaust–a mode of operation we call ‘zombie memory.’ We illustrate this dynamic of Holocaust memory by analyzing how the Holocaust has been referred to and discussed in light of current developments such as COVID-19,the rise of VOX in Spain, and political discourse in England about past and present mass atrocities. We demonstrate how the Holocaust is evoked in discursive occasions beyond those commemorative moments wherein it is by definition the focus of attention: how it is analogically utilized to express concerns, to push towards a specific policy goal, or to politically criticize others. As such, we underline how Holocaust memory can be converted within and between cultures, contributing to understanding and justification of domestic political actions. Situated in Holocaust studies, memory studies, and public discourse analysis, this research attests to the ongoing social process of negotiation over meaning-making.
Journal of Genocide Research, 2024
My contribution to a research forum on Israel-Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holoca... more My contribution to a research forum on Israel-Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Bioethics, 2023
In this article, we describe in detail the health and general living conditions resulting from th... more In this article, we describe in detail the health and general living conditions resulting from the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen, including the historical and geopolitical underpinnings. In addition to mere reporting, we use Yemen as a case study to examine the responsibility of bioethicists in general. We find it unacceptable that bioethics neglects the largest humanitarian crisis taking place in the world at the moment as well as the largest Cholera outbreak in history. We argue that bioethicists should do more to address armed conflicts and their resulting basic human rights violations. We end with a few recommendations to prevent such neglect.
History of Political THought, 2023
It is often assumed that Hannah Arendt began to seriously explore Kantian judgment only after the... more It is often assumed that Hannah Arendt began to seriously explore Kantian judgment only after the Eichmann trial. In this article, I argue that it was, rather, Arendt's engagement with Kantian judgment in the years before the trial that led her to the insight of the 'banality of evil'. Recognizing the way Kantian judgment served as an important 'origin' for the concept of the 'banality of evil', I further argue, has important implications for our understanding of this concept and its significance in the development of Arendt's thinking about genocidal perpetrators.
Journal of Jewish Ethics, 2022
This article presents a public health analysis of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt) during... more This article presents a public health analysis of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt) during Covid. Focusing on vaccination, the article goes against vaccine nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that Israel is obligated to provide adequately safe and effective vaccination to the OPT, for three main reasons, in descending normative force. One is corrective justice. Israel has been directly damaging the Palestinian health care infrastructure and contributed largely to the de-development of the health care system in the Palestinian territory, continuing to hamper its reconstruction. It then ought to rectify its wrongdoings. Second is responsibility and solidarity. Israel is responsible for the well-being of those who do not adequately possess it, including Palestinians. Furthermore, people living in Israel may identify with people living in the oPt in relevant ways and should thus stand with them in their fight against Covid-19. Third is prudence. Optimizing immunity among Palestinians would optimize immunity among Israelis. The article finally places the discussion within a wider context of human rights.
Developing World Bioethics, 2022
In this article we articulate a case from moral responsibility to assist Palestinians living in t... more In this article we articulate a case from moral responsibility to assist Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). We contextualize this responsibility by focusing on access to healthcare and the provision of vaccines against COVID-19. We specifically present two arguments from responsibility, one that is global or cosmopolitan, and one that is country-specific. For the latter, we focus on
American Political Science Review, 2022
Focusing on John Stuart Mill, a particularly illuminating contributor to modern democratic theory... more Focusing on John Stuart Mill, a particularly illuminating contributor to modern democratic theory, this article examines the connections between modern democracy and the European colonial experience. It argues that Mill drew on the exclusionary logic and discourse available through the colonial experience to present significant portions of the English working classes as domestic barbarians, whose potential rise to power posed a danger to civilization itself: a line of argument that helped him legitimate representative government as a democratic, rather than an antidemocratic form of government, as it had been traditionally perceived. The article contributes to our understanding of the development of modern democratic theory and practice by drawing attention to the ways the colonial experience shaped core Western institutions and ways of thinking, and it makes the case that this experience remains an essential, if often unacknowledged, part of our collective “self.”
Reading Texts on Sovereignty: Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought, 2021
Under human conditions [.. .] freedom and sovereignty are so little identical that they cannot ev... more Under human conditions [.. .] freedom and sovereignty are so little identical that they cannot even exist simultaneously. Where men wish to be sovereign, as individuals or as organized groups, they must submit to the oppression of the will, be this the individual will with which I force myself, or the "general will" of an organized group. If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereignty they must renounce. 1 Hannah Arendt's work can be seen to a large extent as a concentrated attack on the concept of sovereignty. It could hardly have been otherwise, as the basic lens through which Arendt looked at the world and tried to understand it was human plurality. Once human plurality is taken seriously, there is no place for the idea that we, as individuals or collectives, can or should be independent of the perspectives, judgments and actions of others in our shared world. A radical critique of the idea(l) of sovereignty was called for from early on in Arendt's intellectual development and it became increasingly rich and multilayered through her political and philosophical interventions. Let us start where it is easiest: with the sovereignty of the state. Already in an early essay from 1945, "Approaches to the 'German Problem'," Arendt notes that "the national State, once the very symbol of the sovereignty of the people, no longer represented the people, becoming incapable of safeguarding either its external or internal security." 2 Here we need to distinguish between the two parts of the term Arendt uses in this statement: the "national state." Arendt's critique of nationalism and the nation-state is well known: she understood it as the takeover of the state by the nation, which naturally meant that those who are not part of the nation, namely national and ethnic minorities as well as refugees from other ethnic and national groups, would
Indian Journal of Gender Studies
This article examines the emancipatory potential, which exists in displacement in terms of the ch... more This article examines the emancipatory potential, which exists in displacement in terms of the change in gender roles and the transformation of women into influential and leading forces in the rehabilitation of refugees. It also examines the issue from a cultural archetypal point of view and investigates the cultural interpretation and perception of the state of chaos and destruction as gender-dependent. On the basis of archetypal models of rites of passage, we examine the different perceptions of the liminal and anti-structural phase of displacement and the way it diminishes powers and coping resources among men, as opposed to the creation of healing and rehabilitative resources derived from the marginal areas of women’s culture.
The European Legacy , 2020
In this article, I discuss the way Judith Butler builds on Hannah Arendt’s political thought for ... more In this article, I discuss the way Judith Butler builds on Hannah Arendt’s political thought for her critique of Zionism. While her critique is valuable in many ways, I argue that it also obscures the complexity of Arendt’s position on Zionism. Instead of Butler’s portrayal of Arendt as a proto-anti-Zionist, along the lines of Butler herself, I suggest that Arendt was a radical Zionist. Arendt, I contend, offered a radical critique of Zionism but at the same time she supported the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine, without losing sight of the different streams within Zionism or the different paths that were possible at every juncture in the years leading to the foundation of the state. By contextualizing Arendt’s position on Zionism against the background of her broader political thought, I attempt to show that, while her engagement with the Zionist movement largely ceased in the late 1940s, her support of Zionism continued to inform her major writings, from her recognition of the need of individuals to belong to a national community to her emphasis on the artificiality of any collective achievement. Through this reconstruction of Arendt’s views of Zionism I attempt to show that she provides us with important sources for engaging with Zionism in a critical way without dismissing and rejecting it, as Butler and other progressives do, as a settler-colonialist enterprise.
New German Critique, 2019
The article reexamines Hannah Arendt’s shift from “radical evil” in The Origins of Totalitarianis... more The article reexamines Hannah Arendt’s shift from “radical evil” in The Origins of Totalitarianism to “the banality of evil” in Eichmann in Jerusalem and subsequent writings. At the heart of this shift stands Arendt’s realization that she exaggerated the role of ideology in motivating ordinary people to become mass murderers. Instead, political conformity—namely, self-adjustment to the ruling political order simply because it is the ruling order—becomes Arendt’s main explanation for the participation of “ordinary people” in the Nazi mass murder. This shift in Arendt’s interpretation is truly radical, and its implications require further consideration and investigation.
The German Revolution and Political Theory, 2019
Hannah Arendt is known for her celebration and critical examination of modern revolutions. Howeve... more Hannah Arendt is known for her celebration and critical examination of modern revolutions. However, the relative absence of the German Revolution from Arendt’s writings has received little attention in scholarship, despite the major role it played in the development of her political thought. This chapter examines the distinctive influence the German Revolution had on Arendt through various personal and intellectual ties. It suggests that despite the little discussion Arendt devoted to it, it constituted an important part of a broader “silent dialogue” Arendt had with the European socialist left, in which she implicitly incorporated various lines of thought into her reflections on modern revolutions while reframing them along the lines of her own political theory.
Developing World Bioethics, 2019
Using Madison Powers and Ruth Faden's definition of ‘well‐being,’ the authors argue that Israel, ... more Using Madison Powers and Ruth Faden's definition of ‘well‐being,’ the authors argue that Israel, the international community and public health practitioners have a justice‐based obligation to assist the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Focusing on Palestinians in Gaza, the authors first outline a normative framework of justice, as articulated by Powers and Faden. Following Powers and Faden's assumption that empirical assessments of justice can be made using the six dimensions of well‐being, the authors next present current data on the living conditions in Gaza and describe how these conditions prevent residents from achieving sufficient levels of well‐being. Using these indicators to demonstrate that Palestinians living in Gaza suffer deficiencies in these dimensions of well‐being, the authors present a strong argument from justice to assist the residents of Gaza. The medical, public health, and bioethics community cannot sit idle while injustice continues.
Arendt on Freedom, Liberation and Revolution, 2019
In this chapter, I seek to show that the vision of radical, participatory democracy plays a much ... more In this chapter, I seek to show that the vision of radical, participatory democracy plays a much more important role in Arendt’s political thought than commentators usually allow. I begin by discussing the way federalist arrangements Arendt advocated in different contexts were meant to be complemented by a citizen council system, and reinterpret her call for new political structures that would guarantee human dignity in this light. I then turn to demonstrate the close links between Arendt’s conception of “the political” and her support for the council system. Finally, I suggest that Arendt’s discussions on the relations between philosophy, politics and judgment reflect her urgent sense of the need for participatory democracy. Arendt, I conclude, provides powerful normative foundations for the theory of participatory democracy.
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Papers by Shmuel Lederman
focus on the Freedom Theater, which was operating in Jenin Refugee Camp until recently.