Judaism

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Judaism is a monotheistic religion.


Jewish identity, a subjective culture and experience, are part and parcel of the history of psychoanalysis.


Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg. His father gave him the Jewish name Schlomo and the Christian name Sigmund. Freud was partly reared by a catholic nanny, Monica Zadjic. Jakob taught him to read the family Bible, which he continued to read in Jewish primary school and later in the gymnasium. Unlike the family of his wife, Martha, Freud's family neglected religious practices but respected traditions, particularly the principal holidays of Jewish life. Freud was circumcised on May 13, 1866. Freud was confronted with the question of his Jewish identity—an affective dimension of Freud better reflected in his correspondence than in his scientific works.

"[H]ow comes it that none of the godly ever devised psychoanalysis and that one had to wait for a godless Jew?" Freud wrote to Oskar Pfister on October 9, 1918 (quoted in Grollman, 1965, p. 115).

In this question he attributed his discovery, the only one capable of promoting a "new science," to a Jew whose lack of faith contested religion and its taboos.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud questioned the "enigmas" surrounding Moses' place and role in history and the survival of the Jewish people, the special target of centuries-old anti-Semitic hatred.

See Also

References

  • Freud, Sigmund. (1939). Moses and monotheism: three essays. SE, 23: 1-137.
  • ——. (1950c [1895]). Project for a scientific psychology. SE, 1: 281-387
  • Freud, Sigmund. (1939). Moses and monotheism: three essays. SE, 23: 1-137.
  • ——. (1950c [1895]). Project for a scientific psychology. SE, 1: 281-387.