Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship: Translated to Hebrew by Stav Zeitouni
The essay "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship" was originally prepared by Arendt as the basis for a public address. A shorter version was recorded and published in 1964 in The Listener, and the full version on which the present translation is based was published in 2003 in the book Responsibility and Judgement (edited by Jerome Kohn). This essay, which concerns the relationship between judgement and responsibility, is particularly relevant for the current issue of Iyyun, since it is the law that governs adjudication and therefore enables the societal imposition of responsibility (and liability) on individuals. The present essay was written in response to the reactions to Arendt's report on the Eichmann trial, which itself raised many questions concerning both judgement and responsibility. Arendt continued deal with these and with broader questions of judgement and adjudication until the end of her life.
*An unedited version of the manuscript can be found as part of the Library of Congress' Hannah Arendt Papers collection, digitally available here: https://www.loc.gov/item/mss1105601271/
Stav Zeitouni is a doctoral candidate at New York University School of Law and a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research concerns the psycho-legal relationship between privacy and property.
