Psychoanalysis, Jewishness and progressiveness seem to be components of the same cultural system. Freud, the liberal Jew, invented a system of thought that was perceived by many as a ‘Jewish science’. Not only were elements of the Jewish culture prominent in the development of Freud's ideas, but he himself was worried by the fact that psychoanalysis could be perceived as a ‘Jewish national affair’. This is why he was so keen to anoint an Arian ‘dauphin’ (C. G. Jung) for the young psychoanalytic movement. Freud's own Jewish identity has been much debated. Although he never denied his (secular and godless) Jewish identity - quite the opposite - in his ‘public’ writings (such as his autobiographical pieces), he nonetheless emphasized his distance from the Jewish tradition. Yosef Yerushalmi, however, has imaginatively explored Freud's proximity to Jewish traditions, a proximity apparent in Freud's ‘private’ writings and in his