Antisemitism by Rosine Jozef Perelberg

Antisemitism by Rosine Jozef Perelberg

In this book, Rosine Jozef Perelberg offers a profound psychoanalytic exploration of antisemitism, revealing how unconscious mechanisms such as projection, splitting and the uncanny have contributed to historical prejudice.

Drawing on Freud's concepts of the murdered father and the dead father, Perelberg introduces the notion of the "murder of the dead father" to illuminate how antisemitism targets not merely individuals but the very foundations of symbolic order. Through her rigorous analysis of historical antisemitism and the Holocaust, readers gain insight into the psychic mechanisms underlying prejudice and the destruction of temporality and filiation. Perelberg traces the persistence of these mechanisms from historical prejudice to contemporary political discourse, showing how projection, splitting, and envy converge in antisemitic formations. By integrating psychoanalytic theory with historical evidence, literary interpretation, and survivor testimony, Perelberg reveals the profound connections between individual psychic life and collective violence, making complex ideas accessible to both specialists and general readers interested in psychology, history, and social justice.

This book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, historians, scholars of Jewish studies and students of Holocaust studies seeking to understand the psychological dimensions of prejudice, racism, and contemporary antisemitism through a rigorous theoretical lens.

‘At last, we have a work that illuminates the enduring psychic structures of antisemitism from antiquity to the presentRosine Perelberg shows how “the Jew” has been experienced as simultaneously strange and familiar, weak and powerful, evoking Freud’s concept of the uncanny. She argues that antisemitism attacks the internalised paternal law—the symbolic presence of the “dead father”—and thus the very conditions of thought, transmission, and symbolic life. This is a courageous and intellectually compelling book that creates precisely the reflective space it advocates, offering profound scholarship and moral clarity at a time when both are urgently needed.’

Harvey Schwartz, Training Analyst, Psychoanalytic Association of New York and Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia

‘Rosine Perelberg offers a remarkably illuminating exploration of antisemitism and its relationship to psychoanalysis. Drawing on personal experience, a historical examination of antisemitism from its earliest origins, and close readings of literature and cinema, she uncovers the multiple representations of the father that have shaped the antisemitic imagination. Through a psychoanalytic interpretation of the contradictory images projected onto Jews, she argues that antisemitism is structured around a system of oppositions: stranger and familiar, weak and powerful, both the embodiment of symbolic law and the victim of the most savage attacks. The father thus emerges as an uncanny figure at the heart of the human condition.’

Catherine Chabert, Training Analyst, French Psychoanalytic Association, and Professor in Psychopathology of the Paris-Cité University.

Rosine Perelberg is a Distinguished Fellow, Training Analyst, former President of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London and Corresponding Member of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society. She was awarded the Sigourney Award in 2023. She is the author of Sexuality, Excess, and Representation: A Psychoanalytic Clinical and Theoretical Perspective (2020), Psychic Bisexuality: A British-French Dialogue (2018), Murdered Father, Dead Father: Revisiting the Oedipus Complex (2015), Time, Space and Phantasy (2008).