Freud and Moses: The Long Journey Home

Rice tells of the geographic, intellectual, and religious journey that the Freud family, like thousands of other Jews, made out of the ghettos of Eastern Europe, and how the vicissitudes of this odyssey affected Sigmund Freud, his character, genius, and creativity. Annotation copyright Book News, In

Table of Contents:
Illustrations

Preface

1. Introduction

2. Sigmund Freud's Jewish Identity

3. The Freud Family Bible

4. Sigmund Freud's Knowledge of Hebrew

5. Jacob and Amalia Freud—Orthodox or Reform Jews?

6. The Biblical Sources of the Hebrew Dedication

7. The Latent Content of the Birthday Benediction

8. Jacob Freud, Leopold Breuer, and Isaac Bernays—Divergent Approaches to the 'Haskalah'

9. 'One Must Close the Eyes'

10. Sigmund Freud—Theism vs. Atheism

11. Freud and Moses—The Long Journey Home

12. The Last Chapter

Appendix I: Sigmund Freud's Formal Education

Appendix II: Higher Biblical Criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis

Appendix III: Review and Furthur Elaboration of Freud's Mosaic Hypothesis

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Index of References

About the Author :
Dr. Emanuel Rice is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine of The City University of New York, and Associate Attending in Psychiatry at The Mount Sinai Hospital. He is also engaged in private practice and lives in New York City.

Review :
"Dr. Rice's work on Freud and Moses is a thorough and pellucid work on the bedrock of ancient Judaism. It should be required reading for anyone working in the history of ancient religion and culture. It is hard to believe that at this point in our culture anyone could shed fresh light on Freud's life and his connection with ancient culture, but Dr. Rice has done so." — Rabbi Gerson D. Cohen, Chancellor Emeritus and Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Jewish History, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America

"This book is a solid piece of scholarship that digs in detail into the Jewish background of Freud's family and his own education in religious matters. This is the first time I have seen this material developed in such detail and specificity, so that it provides a meaningful backdrop for a deeper understanding of Freud's religious ambivalence.

"I think this is an important contribution, particularly insofar as it mobilizes important information that has hitherto not come to light, or has not been sufficiently clarified and focused to provide us with a better understanding of Freud's Jewish origins. The documentation of the more orthodox aspects in Freud's family background, the information regarding the degree of Talmudic sophistication attained by his father, and the details of Freud's own Jewish training and education are extremely important for the understanding of Freud's own life and of his contributions to the understanding of religious experience." — W.W. Meissner, S.J., M.D., Boston Psychoanalytic Institute; Professor, Boston College; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard University

"The scholarship is impressive. Dr. Rice demonstrates deep and wide knowledge of Jewish literature and history. As a psychiatrist, he is deeply schooled in Freud's thought, including its historical development. He brings the practitioner's insights, sensitivities, and interpretive skills to the work of examining Freud's biography and reading Freud's writings on Jewish themes." — Anne Golomb Hoffman, Comparative Literature, Fordham University, the College at Lincoln Center