Address of Welcome, Jerusalem Congress

Mr President, Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Let me tell you a few words about the beginnings of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society. Its roots go back to December 1906, when a 25-year-old medical student working under Bleuler at Burghölzli asked Freud for permission to visit him and to learn as much as possible about psychoanalysis. He was Max Eitingon. His attendance, in January 1907, at the Psychological Wednesday Society was the beginning of a profound relationship between the master and his ardent disciple, the creator of psychoanalysis and his enthusiastic follower, between colleague and friend, the great father and his most loyal and devoted son. For the rest of his life, psychoanalysis became Eitingon's vocation. Yet he had another affection: the love of his people and of the land of his forefathers. It was such that, in the summer of 1910, he visited Palestine. Freud wished him to have the most beautiful impressions in the remarkable mother-country of the religions. At that time Palestine offered no chance for psychoanalysis. Eitingon went back to Berlin to take up his illustrious career in the psychoanalytical movement. He became a member of the Inner Committee of the ring-bearers. He founded and directed the first Psychoanalytic Institute in Berlin. He was President of the I.P.A., controller of the Publishing House, and Chairman of the International Training Committee.

Then came Hitler, 1933. Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in Europe were exposed to persecution, destruction and annihilation. It was a time of utter shock and pain. Eitingon turned it into a new achievement, combining his two great affections and realizing his highest aspirations: to live in Jerusalem and to introduce psychoanalysis to Palestine.

In the autumn of 1933 six analysts met here and founded the Palestine Psychoanalytical Society. Four of them were originally from Russia and came via Berlin: Eitingon, who had lived in Germany from childhood; Moshe Wul