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The historical origins of psychoanalysis lay firmly with Jews, at least in its initial Central European heartland. As is well established, Freud's initial forays into explaining his new science were largely undertaken in the company of Jewish colleagues, whether within the welcoming arms of the Vienna B'nai B'rith or the Wednesday meetings that became the first Psychoanalytic Society (Diller, 1991; Frosh, 2005). Freud's own genealogy, which included hassidism in his father's family and immense Jewish learning in that of his wife, has led to many speculative attempts to claim for him Jewish religious knowledge of the kind that he may have either unconsciously allowed to flow, or consciously secreted, into his psychoanalytic ideas. Amongst the most enlightening and provoking narratives of this kind have been Yerushalmi's Freud's Moses, which constructs psychoanalysis as as a new form of Judaism; Roith's (1987) The Riddle of Freud, which reads rabbinic influences into Freud's account of feminine sexuality; and Bakan's (1958) Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition. The last of these is probably the most relevant for this context, because it locates Freud within a tradition of mystical thought that might have influenced his ideas simply because it formed a background to the Judaism of his time; on the other hand, Bakan, whilst providing plenty of associations and parallels between psychoanalysis and Jewish mysticism, offers no real evidence that Freud was aware of them nor that they have any specific connection with one another. Indeed, this is one of the recurrent issues in this field. Whilst there can be little doubt that psychoanalysis was profoundly shaped by the experiences of its Jewish originators, especially