ABSTRACT
In his essay Semi deals with a particular aspect of anti-Jewish prejudice, the kind that is expressed in little gestures—gestures that are perhaps quite 'innocent' and abound in everyday life; not outright antisemitism, but the off-hand remarks and misunderstandings that may derive from the fact that a non-Jew bears an evocative surname; antisemitism as the expression of a desired inconfrontability between the two sexes, between different generations, and different cultures. Freud's theory that In antisemitism there lies an unresolved phantasm regarding origins, more specifically regarding the question of parricide, is examined and tested here in some clinical situations characterized by the emergence of the phantasm of Jewishness and anti-Jewishness in connection with unresolved Oedipus and pre-Oedipus problems, and by the attempt to avoid conflict by renouncing thought and the setting up of 'sado-masochistic' relationships.
[ED.]
