Countering Anti-Semitism and Religious Violence

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud developed an influential and highly controversial theory for understanding anti-Semitism as blowback against monotheism, specifically against the Jewish people's form of Geistigkeit (intellectuality/spirituality) and the notion of exclusive chosenness. Against the backdrop of the recent global rise of anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and violence in the name of religion, this essay reviews a collection of nine fresh perspectives on Freud's text in Freud and Monotheism by authors from a cross section of the humanities. They critically engage Freud's seminal thoughts on the nature of religion and violence, tradition and history, trauma and repression, hermeneutics and the transgenerational transmission of identity. Connecting with Freud's ideas on Geistigkeit, the chosen people, the superego, and sublimation, and Drewermann's insights into the historical connection between monotheism and the development of the human sense of personhood, the essay concludes with a proposal for countering anti-Semitism and religious violence through a reinterpretation of the meaning of monotheism.