The clash between the political and the unpolitical drives the narrative of Hannah Arendt’s influential
report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Determined to make visible the justice that was (and was not)
done in Jerusalem, Arendt concludes her Epilogue to Eichmann in Jerusalem by providing her readers
with an alternative formulation of the verdict handed down by the judges. The point of this exercise
is twofold: to reveal the political “ground” of (and motivation for) the trial and the verdict it
produced; and to alert her readers to the unpolitical (or extra-political) expression of justice that
remains to be realized. According to Arendt, the provisional character of the justice that was done in
Jerusalem may yet inspire her best readers to develop a more fully civilized practice of jurisprudence.
