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The Jewish Thought and Psychoanalysis Lectures

Editor : Harvey Schwartz

Reviews and Endorsements

This fascinating collection analyzes aspects of Judaism and Jewish history from a perspective that is deeply informed and rich with psychoanalytic theory. The authors offer remarkably original insights about the nature of modern Jewish identity and subjectivity and also about the origins, development, and cultural significance of psychoanalytic treatment.
Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College

This is a rewarding series of lectures with rich and expert exegesis of both Biblical Judaism and psychoanalysis, the Jew as the symbolic feminine, forgiveness, spiritual, mystical, and unconscious communication, Israel, and Judaism. Harvey Schwartz’s introductions to each lecture are personal, intimate, and refreshing. The book poses many stimulating questions for the reader.
Peter Loewenberg, Professor of History and Political Psychology, Emeritus, UCLA; Training & Supervising Analyst and Past Dean, New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles

This collection provides a rich resource for expanding and deepening the dialogue between psychoanalysis and Judaism. The range of topics and approaches encourages more imaginative critical thinking about the diversity that is within both Judaism and psychoanalysis. The editor’s introductions and his own collaborative chapter, a dialogue between a psychoanalyst and a teacher of Talmud, make the volume readily accessible to readers more broadly interested in religions and depth psychology.
Bennett Simon, MD, Training and Supervising Analyst, Emeritus, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance

The various papers edited in the present book shed light on the interconnectedness between psychoanalysis and Jewish thought, exploring the rooted link between these two fields of wisdom and practice. It touches daringly upon the unconscious levels of Jewish-psychoanalytic theories about the mind, spirit, and body. It offers a mosaic of diverse, original perspectives illuminating this link through biblical, philosophical, psychoanalytic, social, and Talmudic texts. The Jewish influence on psychoanalysis is viewed through a historical perspective (anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, Zionism, and current history), as well as a religious and even a mystical viewpoint. In the book we meet familiar cultural heroes, such as the Biblical characters of Moses and Miriam, paradigmatic texts as The Dybbuk and great thinkers both in the psychoanalytic field and otherwise. In all the collection of papers, a fascinating inter-disciplinary encounter is created, which enriches the reader in an innovative and enlightening manner. As said by the Talmudist Ruth Calderon in the last chapter – “There’s a belief that the text is wait­ing for you personally and that God hid a little note with your name on it in the text.” I am certain that every reader will find the note waiting for his conscious and unconscious riddles regarding the relation between psychoanalysis and Jewish thought.
Merav Roth, PhD, training psychoanalyst, Israeli Psychoanalytic Society; chair, psychotherapy program, Tel Aviv University; author of A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Reading Literature

Encompassing contributions from leading thinkers in both fields, addressing topics from Moses to mysticism, trauma to forgiveness, hysteria to sexuality, this fine collection of lectures brings home the vast richness and continued vitality of the dialogue between Judaism and psychoanalysis. The sharpness and originality of the thinking presented here is fully matched by the liveliness and accessibility of the writing.
Josh Cohen, Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society; Professor of Modern Literary Theory, Goldsmiths University of London

Harvey Schwartz, the editor of the volume, writes erudite introductions to each chapter and … deserves our gratitude for organizing this lecture series and publishing the volume. It should be widely read
Arnold Richards, M.D., psychoanalyst and former editor of The American Psychoanalyst and Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association