Session: “Heidegger and the Jewish Question” with Akbar Jabari

From the “Black Notebooks” to the Question of Technology: A Report on the “Heidegger and the Jewish Question” Lecture

The lecture “Heidegger and the Jewish Question,” delivered by Akbar Jabari, was held on Thursday, 3 September 2026, at Iran Philosophy City. Its central subject was a reconsideration of Martin Heidegger’s remarks on Jews and Judaism in the “Black Notebooks,” and an examination of their relation to his philosophy, National Socialism, and the question of technology in the modern world. Jabari stressed that his talk was neither a defence of all Heidegger’s political positions nor a defence of the critique of Judaism; rather, it was an attempt to report on and understand these notes within Heidegger’s own conceptual framework.

A Philosophical Question or a Political Case File?

At the beginning of the session, Mr Zamani, the host, described the publication of the “Black Notebooks” as one of the most contentious events connected with twentieth-century philosophy. In his view, Heidegger’s relationship with Nazism and antisemitism has become so prominent since the end of the Second World War that philosophical discussion of his work is sometimes turned into a legal and moral case file—one in which the reader, rather than seeking to understand a body of thought, awaits a final verdict on the philosopher himself.

Zamani distinguished between a thinker’s greatness in the ontological sphere and his errors in politics, arguing that a great thinker may make serious mistakes when entering political and historical affairs. Yet, in his view, National Socialism cannot be regarded as the direct result of Heidegger’s philosophy, nor can Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole be reduced to his political record. He also stressed the role of multiple historical, economic, and social factors in the formation of Nazism, warning against the simplistic Nazi/non-Nazi binary.

The host went on to raise the relationship between National Socialism and Zionism from the perspective of certain structural similarities. Referring to the Lacanian concepts of “act” and “acting out,” he asked to what extent Heidegger’s entry into politics suspended an existing order, and to what extent it unwittingly placed him on the very ground he claimed to be moving beyond.

The “Black Notebooks” and the Scope of the Discussion of Judaism

Akbar Jabari began by introducing the “Black Notebooks” (Schwarze Hefte), a multi-volume collection of Heidegger’s philosophical and personal notes spanning several decades of his life. Jabari said that, among roughly 3,500 pages in the collection, passages directly concerning Judaism are very limited and are found chiefly across the first four volumes. In his view, the small number of such passages in relation to the collection as a whole shows that the “Black Notebooks” should not be treated simply as a work about Jews or as an antisemitic manifesto; the greater part of these notes is devoted to the development of Heidegger’s central philosophical questions.

To clarify the point of dispute, he distinguished three different meanings of antisemitism: personal antisemitism, meaning hatred and hostility towards Jewish individuals; racial antisemitism, meaning belief in the biological superiority of one race and the racial inferiority of another; and religious antisemitism, meaning prejudices arising from the historical conflicts of religions. Jabari’s central claim was that Heidegger’s critique, at least in the interpretation he offered, belongs to none of these three levels, but is instead formulated at the level of metaphysics.

This interpretation also requires distinguishing between two German words: Juden, meaning Jewish persons, and Judentum, meaning Judaism as a structure or mode of thought. Referring to Heidegger’s Jewish friends, colleagues, and students, Jabari argued that attributing a simple and uniform personal hostility toward Jews to him is inconsistent with the range of his intellectual and human relationships. In his view, the main subject of Heidegger’s notes is not individuals’ biological ancestry, but a mode of thinking Heidegger regarded as calculative, profit-oriented, and disconnected from humanity’s authentic relation to Being.

The History of the Critique of Judaism in Modern Philosophy

To show that the critique of Judaism is not unique to Heidegger, Jabari referred to a number of modern philosophers. In his account, Kant criticized Judaism from the standpoint that it cast morality in the form of an external law and religious code, whereas for Kant morality must arise from within the subject and from moral will. Hegel, too, in some of his writings linked Judaism to a form of human alienation from nature, the world, and the other.

He then turned to Marx’s essay “On the Jewish Question.” Jabari explained that Marx, despite his own Jewish ancestry, distinguished political emancipation from human emancipation and believed that the establishment of a secular state, by itself, does not free human beings from economic alienation and the commodification of social relations. Nietzsche, he said, sometimes praised Jews in various passages and at other times criticized Judaism as a system of thought. Jabari concluded that, in the post-Hegelian tradition, every closed structure that confines reality within a pre-determined system becomes an object of critique—whether that structure is religious, philosophical, or political.

Worldlessness: What Does “World” Mean?

One of the session’s central concepts was “worldlessness” (Weltlosigkeit). Jabari read a passage from volume 95 of Heidegger’s collected works, page 97, which speaks of “a tenacious skill in calculation, profiteering, and entanglement,” and its relation to the “worldlessness of Judaism.”

He explained that “world” in Heidegger’s language does not mean the globe or a physical collection of objects. The world is a horizon and network of meanings and relations within which objects and human actions acquire significance. Everything is understood in relation to a meaningful whole; but when beings are regarded merely as resources for calculation, storage, exchange, and consumption, this fabric of meaning collapses and “worldlessness” occurs.

From this perspective, Jabari regarded Heidegger’s expression not as a geographical description of a landless people, but as a name for a kind of existential homelessness and rupture from the horizon of meaning. He nevertheless explained that Heidegger himself also connected this concept with the historical experience of the Jewish people, the question of land, and their transnational presence—a connection that forms one of the most contentious aspects of these notes.

Machenschaft and the Dominion of Calculative Thinking

Another important concept was “Machenschaft,” which Jabari explained in terms of calculation, manipulation, profiteering, and the will to dominate beings. According to this reading, modern humanity sees the world as a collection of ready-to-use resources and measures the value of everything by its utility and susceptibility to appropriation. For Heidegger, the essence of technology is not simply technical tools and devices; it is a mode of the world’s disclosure and a form of humanity’s relation to Being.

In explaining the expression “metaphysical Judaism,” Jabari said that Heidegger used this term for a pervasive form of calculative thinking—a form not limited to followers of the Jewish religion, and one within which Muslims, Christians, or non-religious people may equally live. With the phrase “in a Heideggerian sense, we are all Jews,” he sought to show that, in this interpretation, the name Judaism refers to a global condition: a condition in which almost all decisions, relationships, and choices in life are ruled by calculation.

He went on to cite a passage from volume 97, page 20, according to which, when “the Jewish in the metaphysical sense” fights “that which is Jewish,” historical self-destruction reaches its peak. Jabari interpreted this passage to mean that even the Nazis, while fighting Jews, were themselves caught in a technical, instrumental, and calculative logic. Thus, biological Nazi racism, from Heidegger’s perspective, was not an alternative to the technological world, but one of that world’s most violent manifestations.

Heidegger, Nazism, and the Danger of Anachronism

Another part of the lecture was devoted to Heidegger’s membership in and political collaboration with the Nazi regime. Jabari recalled that Heidegger accepted the rectorship of the University of Freiburg in 1933 and placed his hopes in National Socialism. In his account, Heidegger initially thought that this movement might be able to stand against global technology, Americanism, and Bolshevism, and might create the conditions for a kind of spiritual renewal; but after a short time he resigned from the rectorship and realized that Nazism itself was caught in the logic of technology and Western nihilism.

Jabari stressed that this explanation does not mean denying Heidegger’s political error. In his words, “a philosopher is not a saint,” and Heidegger’s support for Hitler was an error that must be acknowledged; yet that error, too, must be studied within the historical atmosphere of the 1930s. He warned that judging the actors of that period solely through the image of Nazism formed after the war, the Holocaust, and decades of cultural representation may lead to anachronism.

In this context, Jabari referred to Victor Farias’s book on Heidegger and Nazism, describing it as a turning point in the new wave of controversy in the late 1980s. He raised doubts about the motivations and standing of this work, and said that after its publication, Heidegger’s relation to Nazism once again became a central subject in public and academic circles.

Earth, Rootedness, and the Homelessness of Contemporary Humanity

Jabari then moved from the historical controversy over Judaism to the question of human rootedness. In his view, the idea of cosmopolitanism can, in Heidegger’s thought, lead to humanity’s rupture from earth, language, history, and tradition. Here, “earth” does not mean merely geographical soil or political nationalism; it is a historical and linguistic ground in which human beings dwell and through which meaning becomes possible for them.

Referring to Ehsan Yarshater, he said that someone may live geographically far from Iran yet still dwell in the “Iranian world” through a deep connection with the Persian language and Iranian culture. Conversely, a person may be in Iran yet feel no relation to its intellectual and cultural heritage. To explain this rupture, Jabari referred to such concepts as “giving and generosity” in the Shahnameh, the “rind” in Hafez, and the “reed” in Rumi, arguing that this heritage should not merely be a means of pleasure or consolation, but should become material for thinking and living.

He also described the condition of people today as one of a constant search for calm alongside an inability to endure silence, solitude, and slowness. In his view, the speed of the technological world does not allow people to rest “in the neighbourhood of Being.” In this way, Jabari’s discussion of Judaism developed into a broader critique of contemporary life: a critique of a world in which almost everything has become an instrument, a number, a benefit, and an object of appropriation.

Controversial Passages and the Limits of This Interpretation

At the end of his lecture, Jabari also read several more explicit passages from the “Black Notebooks,” including a sentence on the relation of Jews to the principle of race and a passage from volume 96, page 262, concerning “world Judaism,” Jewish migrants, and the sacrifice of young Germans in war. He interpreted these passages within the same distinction between Jewish persons, historical Judaism, and “world or metaphysical Judaism,” and again stated that Heidegger’s critique was directed at calculative logic and the indirect mechanisms of power.

Nevertheless, these very passages are the central focus of the controversy surrounding the “Black Notebooks,” and a conceptual distinction between people, religion, and metaphysics does not necessarily resolve all the ethical and historical questions concerning Heidegger’s language. At this session, Jabari’s defensive, or at least mitigating, reading was presented in detail; but the interpretation of critics who regard the use of terms such as “world Judaism,” “worldlessness,” and “the aptitude for calculation” as carrying historical antisemitic stereotypes was not independently presented with the same detail. This report may therefore be regarded as an exposition of one particular position in a controversy that remains open, rather than a final judgment on it.

Questions and Answers: Why the Focus on Heidegger?

During the question-and-answer session, one attendee noted that negative images of Jews had a history in Western culture and literature even before Heidegger. Referring to Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” as well as the positions of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, he asked why, among so many figures, Heidegger receives this degree of attention. Jabari replied that Heidegger’s foundational place in contemporary philosophy and his profound influence on later thinkers, including Derrida, have made sensitivity to his political past and his remarks all the greater.

Another question concerned the place of Judaism in the history of the Abrahamic religions and the origin of distinctions that have taken shape around it in religious and historical texts. This question once again showed that the subject of the session is not confined to a few statements in the notes of one philosopher, but lies at the boundary of philosophy, theology, European history, modern politics, and the ethics of interpretation.

Conclusion

The session “Heidegger and the Jewish Question” was an attempt to move the discussion from the level of political labelling to a conceptual reading of the “Black Notebooks.” Akbar Jabari sought to show that the term “Judaism” in some of Heidegger’s notes acquires its meaning within his broader critique of metaphysics, technology, calculation, and the homelessness of modern humanity, and that it cannot be directly identified with the racial antisemitism of the Nazis. At the same time, the passages quoted from Heidegger leave open the question of whether the name and historical stereotypes associated with a people can be turned into a philosophical metaphor without the political and ethical weight of those names settling into the argument.

Perhaps the significance of the session lies above all in highlighting this very knot: neither erasing Heidegger’s political past nor reducing his entire philosophy to that past is sufficient for confronting Heidegger. Understanding this relation requires a close reading of the text, attention to the historical context, knowledge of Heidegger’s conceptual framework, and a serious hearing of both sides of the controversy.