Changes

Rudolf M. [[Loewenstein ]] began this [[work ]] in [[France ]] during "the wretched year of 1941"; he finished it ten years later in the [[United States ]] and dedicated it to "the Christians who sacrificed themselves to [[defend ]] the persecuted [[Jews]]" (1952). Loewenstein, who would become one of the founders of ego [[psychology ]] in the United States, was then director of a [[psychoanalytic ]] journal financed by [[Marie Bonaparte]], with whom he began to discuss aspects of the anti-Semitic [[environment ]] in France. "We are in a revolutionary period ...," he wrote. "Blood has not yet been spilled. . . . But the [[people ]] [[need ]] to grapple with someone, they need victims. . . . Hence, the Jews."

More personal motives also compelled Loewenstein to write Christians and Jews. [[Born ]] in [[Russia]], he was a [[citizen ]] of several nations before, having settled in France and [[identified ]] himself entirely with the [[French]], he suddenly found himself scorned and rejected by his adopted country because he was [[Jewish]]. He believed that [[psychoanalysis ]] could contribute to some better [[understanding ]] of anti-Semitic attitudes and might even offer a solution.

Loewenstein began by reviewing the known causes of [[anti-Semitism]], citing various works and historical documentation. He then offered examples from his [[experience ]] as an [[analyst]]; he believed that [[therapy ]] represented "a [[good ]] opportunity for a kind of experimental study in the incipient and [[developmental ]] [[stages ]] of anti-Semitism" (p. 30). Citing Leon Pinsker, the Russian physician and [[author ]] of Auto-Emancipation (1882 [1916]), Loewenstein discussed "judeophobia" as a type of demonophobia, a near-[[psychosis ]] that incorporates [[feelings ]] of [[fear]], [[hatred]], and disgust. Certain forms of anti-Semitism [[represent ]] aspects of [[paranoia]], such as xenophobia, revulsion over circumcision, and [[projection ]] of [[self]]-hatred, while [[other ]] characteristics, such as [[religious ]] [[intolerance ]] and [[economic ]] [[rivalry]], have an opportunistic appeal.

Loewenstein's hypothesis, based on Gustave Le Bon's [[theory ]] of collective psychology, is that anti-Semitic tendencies, [[latent ]] in individuals, suddenly metamorphose in groups into violent attitudes that spread like an epidemic. [[Hitler]]'s anti-Semitic laws and his [[persecution ]] of Jews, for example, enabled latent anti-Semitism in [[individual ]] Germans to [[manifest ]] itself. The underlying mechanisms rely on [[irrational ]] and absurd medieval beliefs, such as the putatively peculiar anatomy of the Jew (a hidden tail, menstrual periods in males) and his supposedly demonic [[character ]] (engagement in [[ritual ]] [[murder]], [[sexual ]] perversions), as well as modern beliefs (Jewish culpability in starting wars, international financial cabals, Jewish-Masonic conspiracies). Loewenstein also suggested [[another]], more [[oedipal ]] level to anti-Semitism, as reflected in [[Freud]]'s [[Moses ]] and [[Monotheism]], viewing the [[struggle ]] of the early Christians, with their hatred of the old [[religion]], as a means of avoiding the "[[return ]] of the [[repressed]]"—the [[recollection ]] of their own [[revolt ]] against imposed religion. Finally, Loewenstein questions whether the Jews do not themselves aid in perpetuating anti-Semitic reactions, in a chapter titled "On 'Jewish' Character Traits and [[Social ]] [[Structure]]."

Skeptical of Zionism as a [[political ]] solution because it might provoke anti-Semitism, Loewenstein called for a pedagogical solution. He proposed teaching sacred [[history ]] in a less anti-Semitic spirit and, always [[philosophical]], he suggested a mutual [[search ]] for understanding between Christians and Jews for the good of mankind.

A courageous book, Christians and Jews, together with works by Imre Hermann (1945) and Ernst Simmel (1946), was among the earliest psychoanalytically-informed works on the [[subject]]. It is not a landmark work, however. Loewenstein's use of a medical [[model]], with its description of [[symptoms]], etiology, and finally [[treatment]], is inadequate to [[understand ]] the modern antipathy and [[negative ]] attitudes toward Jews known as anti-Semitism.

See also: Loewenstein, Rudolf M.; [[Racism]], anti-Semitism and psychoanalysis.