Sigmund Freud's Jewish Identity

The early stage of Freud’s life was a confusing time where his Jewish identity interfered with his goals and dreams due to the society Freud lived in. In the 1860s, under the Hapsburg monarchy, it was not an issue for Freud to grow up with a Jewish identity. Freud could be successful in the Austrian society as long as he would obtain German values as well as German identities along side his Jewish identity. Nevertheless, in the 1870s there was a contradictory pressure of assimilation to German culture, which meant that Freud’s ideas of social radicalism as well as a rising anti-Semitism meant that Freud’s Jewish identity was a problem and Freud would lose the ability to have an equal participation in the society. Freud’s identity as a Jew became …show more content…
After a time of concealing his Jewish identity Freud found a new desire to reveal his real identity. Freud published the essay “The Moses of Michelangelo”, in which Freud identifies himself with Moses, anonymously in 1914 because he wanted to hide his Jewish identity. Nevertheless, by 1924 Freud acknowledged the essay as well as his Jewish identity and a Jewish pride, which was not seen in the middle stage of his life. Freud went from an early stage of a naïve Jewish identity to the middle stage of an oppressed Jewish identification to openly confronting the world with his Jewish pride and identity. The difference between the early stage and the late stage is the fact that Freud goes from being insecure about his Jewish identity, trying to fit into the norms of society, to proudly being secure about his Jewish identity with a desire to reveal his real identity and stop the oppression of his Jewish identity. In Freud’s late stage, Freud becomes a proud Jew resenting the Nazis for oppressing his people and wanting to speak up. The way Freud approached anti-Semitism was much more mature in the late stage of his life compared to the early stages. In the early stage, Freud was prone to become violent if he encountered anti-Semitism. However, in the late stage, Freud was more mature in his way of approaching his feelings of being an oppressed Jew. Instead of seeking to recklessness, Freud write his own cultural defense in form of “Moses and