ABSTRACT

Drawing on a wealth of medical and historical materials, Sander Gilman sketches details of the anti-Semitic rhetoric about the Jewish body and mind, including medical and popular depictions of the Jewish voice, feet, and nose. Case studies illustrate how Jews have responded to such public misconceptions as the myth of the cloven foot and Jewish flat-footedness, the proposed link between the Jewish mind and hysteria, and the Victorians' irrational connection between Jews and prostitutes. Gilman is especially concerned with the role of psychoanalysis in the construction of anti-Semitism, examining Freud's attitude towards his own Jewishness and its effect on his theories, as well as the supposed "objectiveness" of psychiatrists and social scientists.

chapter 1|28 pages

The Jewish Voice

Chicken Soup or the Penalties of Sounding Too Jewish

chapter 2|22 pages

The Jewish Foot

A Foot-Note to the Jewish Body

chapter 3|44 pages

The Jewish Psyche

Freud, Dora, and the Idea of the Hysteric

chapter 4|24 pages

The Jewish Murderer

Jack the Ripper, Race, and Gender

chapter 5|22 pages

The Jewish Genius

Freud and the Jewishness of the Creative

chapter 6|19 pages

The Jewish Reader

Freud reads Heine reads Freud

chapter 7|25 pages

The Jewish Nose

Are Jews White? Or, The History of the Nose Job

chapter 8|16 pages

The Jewish Essence

Anti-Semitism and the Body in Psychoanalysis

chapter 9|24 pages

The Jewish Disease

Plague in Germany 1939/1989

chapter 10|10 pages

Conclusion

Too black Jews and too white Blacks