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THAT FREUD WAS A MEMBER of the B'nai B'rith is known from his letters to Fliess (Freud, 1887-1902) and from Jones's biography (1953, 1955, 1957). The extent to which he participated in the society and his relations to it are probably less well known.
The order B'nai B'rith—the name means Sons of the Covenant—was founded by German immigrants in New York in 1843 and spread over the entire United States during the next three decades. Its aim has been both educational and caritative—to unite, without taking sides in religious controversies, Jewish immigrants of different origins and traditions and to develop their intellectual and moral level in the spirit of humanism and American idealism (Gruzd, 1966). Late in the nineteenth century the order spread to Europe, the Vienna lodge (Wien) being established in 1895 when anti-Semitism was rampant.
The Wien, founded by a group of intellectuals and merchants, had a somewhat different character from most present-day B'nai B'rith lodges; it was described at the time as an "ethical society on the basis and in the frame of Judaism" (Jerusalem, 1920). It applied strict ethical standards in selecting its members, and to maintain membership required considerable sacrifice of time and money. Presence at the biweekly meetings—every second Tuesday—was mandatory. The meetings were solemn affairs and required formal attire,