You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The literature is replete with authors attempting to prove and/or disprove Freud's knowledge of the Hebrew language and Jewish primary sources: Talmudic, Midrashic and Jewish mystical literature.1 There is new evidence which indicates that Freud had a considerable interest in and knowledge of Jewish religious texts. This is demonstrated in an exchange of letters that has recently come to light between the Los Angeles psychoanalyst, Dr Samuel Eisenstein, and the prominent Kabbalist and Chief Rabbi of Geneva, Rabbi Dr Alexandre Safran. Their correspondence mentions a meeting that took place at Freud's request at his home in Vienna in 1934 to discuss ‘the relation between psychoanalysis and Judaism’. The authors have included the letters exchanged between Eisenstein and Safran in Appendices A and B.
Alexandre Safran was born in Bacǎu, Romania, in 1910, and died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2006. He had studied philosophy at Vienna University, in the years 1930-1933, receiving his doctorate in 1933. In 1940,