2005/12/24 by Jay Geller · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #American Jewish Fiction Analysis #Art #Art history #Classics #Jewish Identity and Society #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Jewish literature #Jewish studies #Judaism #Philosophy #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Religious studies #Sociology #Theology
paper · doi:10.1093/mj/kjj001
openalex publication_date 2005/12/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
My fellow unbeliever Spinoza. —Heinrich Heine, cited in Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious I too should credit the believer’s solution with containing the truth; it is not, however, the material truth, but a historical truth. —Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism Search in press and house. —The Diary of Sigmund Freud The title for this article takes its lead from Freud’s famous self-description in his October 1918 letter to the Swiss Analyst-Pastor Oskar Pfister: “Quite by the way, why did none of the devout create psychoanalysis? Why did one have to wait for a completely godless Jew—einen ganz gottlosen Juden?”1 Numerous analysts, scholars, theologians, and commentators have endeavored to parse the meanings of and relationships between Godless and Jew in Freud’s pithy phrase and no-less pithy life. Their efforts have led to a plethora of sequels to Freud’s own self-description: non-Jewish Jew, secular Jew, modern Jew, psychological Jew, self-hating Jew, renegade Jew, ambivalent Jew. After detailing some of Freud’s own explicit assertions of Jewish identity, this essay will examine some of the ways and whys Freud’s Jewishness has become a major focus of contemporary reflections on the man, his writings, and his legacy.