ABSTRACT
The development of Jung’s ideas in Palestine, a mandate of the United Kingdom which – in 1948 – became Israel, is an important piece of the overall history of analytical psychology. In the early 1930s the rise of Nazism in Germany, combined with the growth of the Zionist movement, influenced many German Jews to emigrate to Palestine. James Kirsch arrived in Tel Aviv in 1933, and he encouraged all his family, friends, and Jewish patients to leave Germany as well. One of them was a recently widowed patient, Hilde Silber, who followed him to Tel Aviv. James opened a practice there; Hilde was not an analyst at that time. In the 1930s the conditions in Palestine were difficult. The country had not yet been built up, sanitation was poor, desert conditions existed for water, and the battles between Arabs and Jews were fierce. It was not an easy transition for Jews coming from developed Europe. Those who had a strong Zionist ideology were able to overcome the hardships of living in Palestine and make a new life there. Others, including James Kitsch, whose commitment to Zionism waned, did not want to stay. In 1935 he and Hilde migrated to England, and finally to Los Angeles, California in 1940. Two other Berlin Jews, Erich and Julia Neumann, who had arrived in Palestine in 1934, remained and became the founders of the Israel Association of Analytical Psychology. There has been an uninterrupted Jungian presence in Israel from 1933 until today, which gives an interesting perspective to the anti-Semitic charges leveled against Jung in the 1930s. Erich Neumann was not only the leader of the Israel Jungians, he played an important role in the history of analytical psychology, and many considered him to be Jung’s most creative student.
