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Because the Nazis claimed that psychoanalysis was a Jewish conspiracy to corrupt the German spirit, and because they burned Freud's books, the examination of Freud's relationship to his Jewish roots was for a long time a taboo subject. The appearance of this book indicates that this period is happily behind us. The author examines Freud without the customary idealization.
In his preface to the Hebrew translation of Totem and Taboo in 1930, Freud stated that he was ignorant of the language of the Holy Writ and completely estranged from the religion of his fathers. This disclosure was followed by a statement that only Freud could have written.
If the question were put to him: 'Since you have abandoned all these common characteristics of your countrymen, what is there left to you that is Jewish?', he would reply: 'A very great deal, and probably its very essence.' He could not now express that essence clearly in words; but someday no doubt, it will become accessible to the scientific mind (1913, p. xv).
The author, however, believes that Sigmund Freud had a more traditional upbringing than he openly admitted and that both he and his family
either through misinterpretations, unawareness or even possibly conscious misrepresentations, were less than open about the extent of the Jewishness or religiousness of his background and created an impression of assimilated status that was not quite in accord with reality (p. 7).
Two arguments are advanced to support this claim. As a student during the Austrian monarchy Freud in his elementary school as well as during the gymnasium must have attended religious classes. The religious curriculum of these classes is reproduced in the book. Since Freud was what was called in Europe a 'primus', i.e. the best student in class, he must have absorbed more Jewish education than he acknowledged.
The second argument is more complex. In 1891, on the occasion of Freud's 35th birthday, his father Jacob Freud presented him with a newly bound c