BOOKS
303
of trying
to
" reenlist" Freud JS a Jew , implying that he WJS essentially
calling Freud J IiJr. None of this fu ss would have ensued were it not for
the fac t that Freud did write
!\,[oscs
al/{I
i\1ollotli risllI ,
which Ri ce sees as
both "a love sto ry , in aggressive gJrb, between fJther and son," and, most
pointedly, "an Jttempt to come home to his Jewi sh roots."
From its inceptioJl ,
/'v[o.\('s alld l'viOIlOllicislIl
troubled Freud as well as his
critics. In Freud's version of bibliCJI events, Moses was an Egyptian who
derived the idea of monotheism from Egyptian co ncepts . After Moses
passed on the idea of mOJlothei sm to the Jews, the Jews murdered him ,
th en sought to repress thi s horrific deed in their co ll ec tive memory .
Yerushalmi stresses:
whatever
on l"~ ~t.lIIce
o n
lit~ 1
tortuous
issue~,
,\1oses
a//d
,\1o//o llle;';I//
rel1la ins, at its co re , a dclibnatl'ly J ewish book. .. If the book ca n be
read as a fillal cll.1ptn ill Freud's lifelo ng case hi ,tory, it is also a public
statement about Ill,lttcrs of comider.lbly wider conseq uen ce - the na–
ture ofJ ewish history, re li gio n and peoplehood, C hristi anity and an ti–
Semitism - written at a tragic histori cal juncture.
Yerushalmi 's interest in Freud , he insists persuJsivciy,
docs no t sten t from an y need to claim him for an already crowded
Jewish pantheon. Long ,tgo I sere nely relinquished Co lumbus to Italy
and Santa T eresa of Avila, despite her J ewish grandf.1ther, to Spain. I
could yield Freud wi th equal equanimiry , but the nature of his life and
work will not all ow it.
Yerushalmi 's overridin g cOJl ce rn is Freud's intentionality: why did he
publish such an iJlfl ammatory book in 1939, just as the Na zis' wish to be
rid of Jews was so vcry obvious, despite an avalanche of entreaties from
his colleagues not to go through with it, knowing "that Jewry will be
very offended") Yerushalmi suggests that it WJS, for Freud ,
the shock of anti-J ewish barbarism Ith atl bro ught the question
to
a
new existe nti al urgency, Ipro vidi ngl the immediate impulse
to
the
actual w riting of
A/oses
il//d
!\[0// 0Illei51110
.
In
1933
the f.1te of psy–
choanalysis had intertwined directl y w ith the actual fate of the Jewish
people. For a man of Freud's intell ectu al intensity the ea rlier vague
phrases about Jewish identity could no lo nger suffice . H e had finally to
confro nt w hat he would soo n ca ll " the fateful co ntent of the religi o us
history o f the J ews."
