Sigmund Freud, along with Albert Einstein, was among the first Governors (Trustees) of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem at the time of its inauguration in 1925. How closely Freud identified with the Hebrew University is clear from a letter written on November 17, 1933 to Judah Magnes, then Chancellor of the Hebrew University. Freud speaks of “our university” and goes on to say: “You will understand if I admit that such an association [the teaching of Psychoanalysis at the University] would mean a great satisfaction for me personally. But quite apart from myself, I believe that it would also be of advantage to the University. For today already Psychoanalysis is significant for the humanities … and if some time a medical faculty will be opened at our university, Psychoanalysis must not be absent among the teaching subjects.” (Milton Rosenbaum, Freud-Eitingon-Magnes Correspondence: Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew University. JAMPSA, 1954, 2, 311-317.)
The historical setting of this exchange of correspondence was as follows: Eitingon, the Founder and Director of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute, had left for Jerusalem. The year was 1933, the year of Hitler's accession to power. Bookburning, Gleichschaltung and arrests foreshadowed the end of free science and art in Europe and the destruction of European Jewry. Eitingon was determined to build a new home for psychoanalysis in Jerusalem. He naturally addressed himself to “our university” and Freud's letter was in response to an inquiry by the University.
When the Trustees gave precedence to a Chair in Academic Psychology, Freud was quite disappointed and wrote on December 5, 1933: “All applications of psychology to medicine and to the humanities originate from the profound depths of psychoanalysis.” There the matter rested.
Today the Hebrew University—having grown to world renown and possessing an excellent school of medicine—would, in the words of its President, Mr. Harman, “feel itself privileged to have a Sigmund Freud Chair in Psychoanalysis.” Such a Chair, to be inaugurated when the Thirtieth Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association will be held in Jerusalem in August 1977, would have interdisciplinary functions.
The Chair is to be occupied by a psychoanalytic scholar of highest repute. Martin Wangh, in behalf of the Committee for the Sigmund Freud Chair, and Dr. Rafael Moses, President of the Israel Psychoanalytical Society, specifically discussed this point with Mr. Harman, President of the Hebrew University. On July 30, 1976, he gave us written assurance that the Israel Psychoanalytical Society together with the International Psychoanalytical Association will participate in the selection of the Chair holder. In light of the usual University stance on “academic freedom” this was an important concession.
The minimum amount necessary for the perpetual endowment of the Chair is $250,000. Of course, we must aim beyond that amount if we wish to make available a research staff, funds for guest lecturers, scholarships, etc. to the Sigmund Freud Professor.
For Freud, there was no doubt that psychoanalysis was of prime importance for the study of Man. He had the wish that it be taught on a broad humanistic basis in the halls of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the ancient seat of human ethics and religion, which now has a population carrying cultural imprints from nearly all the world, is the most apt center for research into human motivation and action. As Freud and Einstein foresaw in their 1932 correspondence (Why War?, S.E. 22, 197-215), never before in the life of human civilization has there been a greater urgency for Man to know about himself, his impulses and controls. Freud's discoveries are indispensible for the acquisition of this knowledge.
An appeal has gone out to all those whose lives have been touched by psychoanalytic thought, and especially to psychoanalysts themselves to contribute financially to the Fund for the establishment of the Sigmund Freud Chair in Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew University on the occasion of the Thirtieth IPA Congress in Jerusalem. If not now—when? And, if not we—who?
—Martin Wangh