ARENDT,HANNAH AND THE EICHMANN CONTROVERSY - CULTURAL TABOOS AGAINST FEMALE ANGER

This is a study of gender bias in the controversy over Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt was excoriated by prominent members of the international Jewish community, in both Israel and New York, who a ccused her of public betrayal of the Jewish people when the book was p ublished. While the controversy was infamous, it has never been regard ed as gendered. This essay argues that the Jewish rage directed at Are ndt was prompted at least in part by the fact that she was a woman spe aking out critically about the entirely male Jewish leadership during the Holocaust. The Eichmann controversy is used here as a case study t o demonstrate the unacceptability of any public display of female ange r; the fact that most female criticism is heard only as anger and reac ted to irrationally and the fact that female criticism of a beleaguere d ethnic or racial minority is silenced with the accusation that it en dangers the community and constitutes ''race betrayal.'' The gendered dimension to this refusal to hear women's criticism is hidden because the taboo against public displays of female anger is not acknowledged and the inability to hear women's criticism as anything besides anger goes unrecognized. The case of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas is utili zed for comparative purposes.