The Jewish 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Jews of All Time (38 page)

A
nna Freud was born in 1895, the youngest of Sigmund and Martha Freud’s six children. Her birth coincided with father Sigmund’s revolutionary discovery of the meaning of dreams, the lynchpin of his psychoanalytic theory. She grew up to become her father’s constant companion, assistant, and creative heir. With Melanie Klein, Anna Freud is widely regarded as the cofounder of psychoanalytic child psychology.

Like her father, Anna drew on the experiences of her childhood to develop her psychoanalytic theories. Although she was raised by her mother, Martha, and her aunt, Minna Bernays, her nanny, a Catholic nursemaid named Josefine Cihlarz, became what she would later call her “primary caretaker” or “psychological mother.” Once while at a fair in Vienna, the little Anna got lost. She bypassed her mother and aunt, who were plainly in sight, only to feel comforted when at last she rested in the arms of her beloved Josefine.

Sigmund Freud had a special feeling for his youngest child, whom he nicknamed in the Viennese fashion “Annerl.” She was to become the closest companion of his life (Anna never married), his personal assistant and secretary, the Cordelia to his King Lear, his Antigone. Under his strong influence, Anna in her late teens presented papers to the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society (her first paper was on beating fantasies and daydreams), was analyzed on Sigmund’s couch, and began to practice psychotherapy.

In the early 1920s she established a seminar on child behavior, the
Kindersemìnar,
which proved to be a seminal force in the training of well-known child analysts. These analysts included Erik Erikson, Dorothy Burlingham, Margaret Mahler, and others who in turn would teach several generations of students.

At this time the schism between two different theories of child analysis arose (and still divides many). The so-called British school, founded by Melanie Klein, applied established concepts of adult psychoanalysis to children without modification. Anna Freud’s “Continental” brand of child psychology urged an approach more tailored to children’s development.

Anna also spent the years between the two world wars assisting her father in perfecting his theories. Her study of the psychology of the ego, how our conscious defends itself from danger, has had lasting impact.

After the Anschluss, the Nazi invasion of Austria, in 1938, the Freud family fled to England. Sigmund died of cancer the following year. Anna and Burlingham began the Hampstead Child-Therapy Course and Clinic in England, which developed out of a nursery, started during the Second World War, for children separated from their parents or who had lost their homes during the bombings. The two women used their experiences at the Hampstead War Nursery to develop the new field of psychoanalytic child psychology, using original diagnostic tools in treating children, including the influential developmental profile.

Although she spent much of her professional life expanding and refining her father’s theories, Anna Freud also developed new approaches to the understanding of child development. Her concepts were derived not only from theoretical but also from clinical study.

Anna Freud’s profound concern with the best interests of children led her in the 1960s to develop at the Yale Law School guidelines for adoption, child custody, and divorce proceedings based on psychoanalytic research and clinical practice. Largely due to her influence, American courts now consider the importance of the
psychological
parent in adjudicating family disputes.

S
ome historians say she never existed. She was not noble but common (and a foreigner). The Greek historian Herodotus relates that King Xerxes (Ahasuerus in the Bible) married one “Amnestris” (close however in sound—a Babylonian Esther?). There is no mention of Esther in other ancient texts, except, of course, in the Scriptures and several holy scrolls.

Whether or not she lived, her story, celebrated annually on the festival of Purim, has instructed mankind for twenty-five hundred years. To hate people just because they are different is the most debased action, a sin only to be punished by the blackness of death.

The story of Esther is not only about anti-Semitism. It is a deceptively simple tale, almost a fable, in which good triumphs over evil through the wits of a great man and the charm and extraordinary courage of a beautiful woman. For centuries imaginative scholars have pondered the hidden meanings of the story.

Having either banished or killed his Queen Vashti for failing to dance naked for his friends, Ahasuerus sought a new consort from the young women of his realm. Esther became Ahasuerus’s favorite, a queen of all Babylon. Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, saved the king from murderous plotters. Haman, the Amalekite, rose to become prime minister. Insulted by Mordecai’s failure to bow, Haman convinced the king that there was a people in their midst, the captured Israelites, who obeyed their own laws, spoke their own language, ignored the rule of Ahasuerus, and that, therefore, they must die, must all be massacred. Esther, urged on by Mordecai and at enormous personal risk, gave a series of banquets for the king and Haman. She captured the full attention of her sovereign who ordered a royal tribute to Mordecai (for his uncovering of the plotters’ attempted coup) and granted Esther’s wish to halt Haman’s genocidal plot before it could start. Haman replaced Mordecai at the gallows and a bloodbath of Haman’s family and supporters followed, Old Testament retribution taken for the attempted annihilation of His chosen people.

We should always be reminded by the events of history since Esther that there was no courageous queen to save the Jewish multitudes from oppression and slaughter during the Roman wars, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland, the Russian pogroms, or the Nazi Holocaust. Titus, the Crusaders, Torquemada, the tsars, and Hitler did not heed the lesson taught by the Esther story to humanity. During their tyranny there was no ingenious palace intrigue to protect countless innocents from brutality. But their evil did play itself out, their initial triumphs shattered after exposure to the cold reality of a people forever unwilling to recognize an idol other than their one true God.

The absence of any reference to a deity in the Esther story was noticed by the Jewish sages. In the midst of great oppression Jews have often asked why God did not reveal Himself to save His people, to show some sign of His favor. The Talmudic commentator Rashi noted that when Esther lived there was a holy eclipse, that God retreated from human affairs, but still motivated and permitted people to suffer their own consequences.

Elie Wiesel, the profoundly humane novelist and voice for justice, in his
Sages and Dreamers
feels anguish when recounting Esther’s tale. He finds the story enchanting in its naiveté, but is troubled by the many meanings of the plot and the motivations of the characters. To Wiesel the story of Purim is not simply about persecution. Rather, he celebrates its call to our memory. We must always remember what it is about and learn from its message to preserve our future.

After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Jews in the ghettoes of Europe continually asked themselves why their people did not stand up to the cruelty of the Inquisition. Mordecai did not bow to Haman. Yet the rabbis reminded them that Mordecai advised Esther to conceal her Jewish origin. Purim with all its giddy happiness and drunken revelry carried a potent message. Haman had sought to destroy all Jews. As the Jews had been scattered throughout the Babylonian Empire, making them easier to prey upon, so were they scattered throughout Europe during the Diaspora. One of the prime reasons for the founding of the State of Israel was to unify the Jewish people in their own homeland, never again to be prey for the Hamans of Berlin or St. Petersburg.

Today, Esther’s message must be understood by all peoples. Whether Armenians are marched into death by Turks, Cambodians stripped of their dignity and eliminated in killing fields, or South Africans robbed of their futures in vicious apartheid, Haman is still with us.

D
avid Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, called Martin Buber “a metaphysical entity in his own class, a true man of the spirit.” Born in Vienna during the reign of Emperor Franz Josef; trained in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany; a professor of higher learning at universities in Frankfurt and Jerusalem; Zionist; journalist; theologian; expert on Hasidism; patron saint to Jewish and Christian intellectuals; biblical scholar; political leader—Mordecai Martin Buber, as he was known to Israelis, was the foremost Jewish philosopher of the twentieth century. At his death the great writer and teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel described Buber’s “very being” as his “greatest contribution.” His distinguished biographer, Maurice Friedman, noted that Buber dealt with “meaninglessness, sustaining in the darkness the living substance of faith.” He was a man beloved.

Buber’s greatest gift to mankind was his concept of dialogue. Born more out of religious feeling than abstract philosophy, Buber’s expressive book
/ and Thou
(1923) set forth how man relates to his world. He presented two forms of relationships, I-Thou and I-It. The I-Thou relationship is the only truly open means of communication. Everything seen or felt, spoken or heard, is mutual, interconnected, there. It is a true dialogue “spoken with the whole being.” The I-It nexus has none of these attributes. It is restricted to the object, never a true dialogue, closed. The quantity of technical knowledge is increased materially through the I-It relation. I-It is not necessarily evil, but is selfish in its accumulation of data. The I-It relationship spawns knowledge, but I-Thou is purest revelation.

Buber’s philosophy of dialogue led to his “Hebrew Humanism,” which stressed the divine role of the Jewish people among nations. When they communicate wholly with and directly to each other and with the “Eternal Thou,” God, people have realized what is holy in their everyday lives. In the heat of factional hatred, Jews and Arabs must work out their problems for the common good, liberated through understanding to develop as they individually wish. Buber’s politics of cooperation and understanding with Israel’s Arab neighbors was controversial during his time, but has been proven correct by history.

He came from a background of commitment and scholarship. Buber was raised by his grandfather, Solomon Buber, a notable rabbinic scholar. After studies in Vienna, Leipzig, Zurich, and Berlin, Buber became an active Zionist. He attended the third Zionist congress in 1898 and became known as a proponent of education to promulgate Zionist ideals. For a brief time he served as editor of the Zionist weekly
Die Welt,
resigning when his ideas on cultural development were rejected by the more politically minded followers of Theodor Herzl. Buber then founded a Jewish publication society and began the study of Hasidism.

He was first drawn to the ecstatic Hasidic movement by its colorful folk tales and rich history. His
Tales of Rabbi Nachman
(1906) and
The Legend of the Baal-Shem
(1908) are literary classics. Buber was the first to bring to world attention the beauties and majesty of the mystical wonders of the early Hasids. Later in
For the Sake of Heaven
(1941),
Hasidism and Modern Man
(1943), and
The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism
(1945), Buber would shift his attention from legend to its relevance in contemporary life.

After the exhilaration of the first Hasidic retellings, Buber was prepared to return to public life. In a time of rapid assimilation in Germany he gave lectures to students on returning to Jewish life, influencing a generation (and most notably, the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig). Although supportive of the national war movement, Buber created a Jewish National Committee to help Jewish people in countries in Eastern Europe under German occupation. At this time Buber also began to preach his special brand of Hebrew Humanism. He stressed the importance of creating a society in Palestine committed to ideals of sharing, peace, and life-giving values. His friend Gustav Landauer, the minister of culture and education in the Bavarian Socialist Republic after the First World War, shared many of Buber’s thoughts. Landauer, however, was assassinated by counterrevolutionary soldiers. During the 1920s idealistic German politics were rapidly consumed by the madness of Nazi tyranny.