Hannah Arendt Center presents:
Hannah Arendt in Hamburg
with Natan Sznaider
Thursday, April 9, 2026
Online Event
12:00 pm
This event occurs on:
Thu. April 9, 12 pm
In 1959, Hannah Arendt was invited to Hamburg to receive the Lessing Prize. Did she even want to accept it? As a Jew, she could not refuse the prize, but neither could she accept it as a German. So in her acceptance speech she radically reformulated what the Lessing Prize meant. Invited as a humanist, she spoke as a Jew. In her speech, identity becomes a political fact, one that she then brings onto the stage of the award ceremony itself. We carry within us personal, familial, and collective histories, and it is precisely these histories that ultimately shape our political passions.
All of this lies openly concealed within Hannah Arendt’s now iconic Lessing Prize acceptance speech. The Jew had indeed returned—but not the
Enlightenment-minded German who now happened to live in New York City and to whom a prize had been offered. Rather, it was a Jew who knew that she was also speaking before those who, only shortly before, had sought to destroy her. Her speech stands as a paradigmatic intervention in contemporary debates about particularism and universalism, and it should also be considered as a point of reference for thinking through those debates.
Natan Sznaider is Professor emeritus of Sociology at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. His research focuses on the theory of sociology, globalization, and memory culture. Born in Germany, he emigrated to Israel in 1974. Most recently, he co-authored a play about Hannah Arendt and the Lessing Prize: Niemandes Schwester. Natan Sznaider lives in Tel Aviv.
This event is organized by The Lessing Workshop.
In 1959, Hannah Arendt was invited to Hamburg to receive the Lessing Prize. Did she even want to accept it? As a Jew, she could not refuse the prize, but neither could she accept it as a German. So in her acceptance speech she radically reformulated what the Lessing Prize meant. Invited as a humanist, she spoke as a Jew. In her speech, identity becomes a political fact, one that she then brings onto the stage of the award ceremony itself. We carry within us personal, familial, and collective histories, and it is precisely these histories that ultimately shape our political passions.
All of this lies openly concealed within Hannah Arendt’s now iconic Lessing Prize acceptance speech. The Jew had indeed returned—but not the
Enlightenment-minded German who now happened to live in New York City and to whom a prize had been offered. Rather, it was a Jew who knew that she was also speaking before those who, only shortly before, had sought to destroy her. Her speech stands as a paradigmatic intervention in contemporary debates about particularism and universalism, and it should also be considered as a point of reference for thinking through those debates.
Natan Sznaider is Professor emeritus of Sociology at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. His research focuses on the theory of sociology, globalization, and memory culture. Born in Germany, he emigrated to Israel in 1974. Most recently, he co-authored a play about Hannah Arendt and the Lessing Prize: Niemandes Schwester. Natan Sznaider lives in Tel Aviv.
This event is organized by The Lessing Workshop.