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Oring presents a work of psychobiography which focuses on Freud's Jewish identity. The developmental shaping of this identity and the meaning of being Jewish for Freud are sought out by contextually analysing Freud's favourite Jewish jokes and integrating this analysis with Freud's writings, biographical data and dreams.
The jokes of Freud are divided into various categories which then become, respectively, keys to his identity. The schnorrer (the beggar), the schadchen (the marriage broker), the Ostjude (Eastern Jew), etc. Out of each of these joke groupings come component parts for the hypothesis that Freud was motivated by the antipathy toward his Jewishness and that his need to defend against this awareness explains much about his character and work.
The following is a summary of Oring's hypothesis. For many years Freud's economic position was tenuous, and he had to accept frequent loans and gifts from friends. Freud resented the feelings of dependence this induced in him, and he acted in a manner that tended to deny his indebtedness and dependence. Beyond intellectual and economic indebtedness, there is a deeper obligation which Freud is unconsciously denying, according to Oring, his debt to his Jewish heritage. Freud wished unconsciously to convert, but he could only get as far as changing his name from Sigismund to Sigmund, on the conscious level. Freud unconsciously identified with the figure of the schnorrer, the obligated panhandler who turns the tables on his benefactor and denies that he has any obligation, and thus comes his love for schnorrer jokes.
Freud's penchant for schadchen (marriage broker) jokes, coupled with biographical data, lead Oring to see Freud's unconscious hostile rejection of his wife, who as the lineal descendant from a long line of rabbis, symbolizes the Jewish identity from which he seeks to escape. Psychoanalysis is the substitute for Jewishness and for sexual passion in Freud's life.
The 'dirty' East-European Jew is another