ABSTRACT
This chapter describes Jung and his relationship to Jews and Judaism. In James Kirsch's extensive correspondence with Jung, he questioned Jung's relationship to Jews and was aghast when he read what Jung had said about the Jews needing a "host culture". Jung spoke about his relationship to Jews and Judaism in an interview that he did with the psychoanalyst Kurt Eissler. Jung's most profound experience of Judaism came in 1944 after he broke his foot and then had a heart attack. His nurse became an old Jewish woman. Jung had a prolonged recovery from this illness and basically retired from his clinical practice. He did see old patients from time to time, but spent most of his final fifteen years writing. In his writings, he referred to Jewish mystical sources with great frequency as he had experienced the mystical tradition in his 1944 vision. So a profound change had occurred in Jung's psyche toward Judaism.
