No one fares worse from this [assimilation] process than those bold spirits who tried to make of the emancipation of the Jews that which it really should have been-an admission of Jews as Jews to the ranks of humanity, rather than a permit to ape the gentiles or an opportunity to play the parvenu. Realizing only too well that they did not enjoy political freedom nor full admission to the life of nations, but that, instead, they had been separated from their own people and lost contact with the simple natural life of the common man, these men yet achieved liberty and popularity by the sheer force of imagination. As individuals they started an emancipation of their own, of their own hearts and brains.
Hannah Arendt, “The Jew As Pariah: A Hidden Tradition”
