Young scholars are re-exploring through contemporary thought, practice and tradition, politics,literature, film, and culture. Beth Elohim invites some of these scholars to discuss their cutting-edge work, in dialogue with Rabbi Daniel Bronstein, as part of our Bagel Brunch series

Racial Strangeness: Psychoanalysis and the Jewish Question
Dr. Eliza Slavet

The subject of Sigmund Freud’s Jewish identity has long been a subject for debate. From his book of (Jewish) jokes, to his identification with Moses, to the seemingly “Jewish” character of psychoanalysis, Freud seems the model of the modern secular Jew. What is less well-known is that he developed a “theory of Jewishness.” In his last book, Moses and Monotheism (1934-38), Freud re-wrote the biblical Moses story: Moses was an Egyptian (not an Israelite), and it was Moses (not God) who chose a rowdy band of Semites upon whom he imposed his intellectual-spiritual religion. While Freud’s Moses has often been read as an autobiographical curiosity, Dr. Slavet contextualizes this work as the culmination of Freud’s career. By exploring Freud’s “theory of Jewishness,” Dr. Slavet offers fresh perspectives on the relationships between memory and history, between race, religion and culture and between science and politics, both in Freud’s time and in our own.

$5 class fee