Jewish Origins of Freud's Interpretations of Dreams

Abstract

For many years, it was assumed that Sigmund Freud was never exposed to Jewish religious education and had no knowledge of the Hebrew language, the Bible or Jewish history. Freud himself considered this a neglected part of his education which he regretted. But the research of people such as Rainey reveals that Freud actually attended Jewish religious schools which offered intense religious education that included Hebrew language, the Bible and the Talmud, and Freud himself was an honor student in these subjects. The implications of this for our understanding of Freud's theory of dreams are explored.