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Many contributors to psychoanalysis, particularly in its early days, were bohemian in outlook and eccentric in lifestyle. Few, however, can compare to Jiří . He was a mystic, a Chassid, a linguist, a translator, a homoerotic poet, a religious Zionist, a Freudian, to cite just some of his identities. Unlike other contributors, such as Theodor Reik (Reik, 1973) who wrote on the psychoanalytic meaning of Jewish symbols and rituals from the perspective of a nonbeliever, Langer did so within the frame of an observant and practising Chassid, probably the only one to publish in a psychoanalytic journal. What follows is a brief summary of his life and evolution from an assimilated Prague family, a product of the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah) to a Belzer Chassid.
He was born in Prague on 7 April 1894, the youngest of three boys. His eldest brother was the well-known Czech physician, writer and playwright František . His other brother, Josef, was a successful businessman who committed suicide rather than being sent to a concentration camp when the Nazis incorporated Czechoslovakia into the Reich. Langer's formal education was in the secular Czech school system. His brother František, in the Preface to the English edition of