Summary: In Moses and Monotheism, Freud advanced his theory of what makes Jews Jewish and how they managed to survive thousands of years of anti-Semitic persecution: he believed that certain events were so traumatic that their memories were inherited by successive generations. As Eliza Slavet argues in her new book, Racial Fever: Freud and the Jewish Question, this “racial theory of memory,” though bizarre, remains relevant to our understanding of the Jewish people. Slavet spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the famous shrink, identity, and the continuity of Jewishness. Your browser does not support the audio element.
