ABSTRACT
The problem of links and connections in Freud's work with the original Jewish cultural hinterland of the founder of psychoanalysis is dealt with in this chapter with reference to the long-term cultural history. The birth of psychoanalysis is considered here as a cultural event within Judaism and as a sublimated answer to the problems posed by secularization and the rejection of an authentic integration of Jews into Christian-European society. In the words of Kafka, psychoanalysis is a comment by Rashi on the present generation of Judaism, on its joy and suffering. In these pages Freud's work Itself appears as a metaphor for the long historical journey of 58Judaism from a place of 'non-existence', which, however, offers its members warmth and the certainty of belonging, to a wider and more living reality, where the ego expands and also exposes itself to the danger of becoming lost in a world without sense. The exploration of the 'mystery' of how the Jews preserved themselves as a people and why they attracted 'such inextinguishable hatred' is looked at again here in the light of a powerful need for re-appropriation of identity, which for Freud was never lost but was still operating and should be positively revindicated in order to face up to the necessities of the moment. From this point of view Freud's work and his reflections on Judaism might be better understood with reference to the other analogous attempts to find answers to the dilemmas of contemporary Jewish life, from Rozenzweig to Kafka, from Schoenberg to Buber and Einstein.
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