Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis, developing influential theories about the unconscious mind, dream interpretation, and human sexuality. Born as Sigismund Schlomo Freud in Freiberg to a Jewish family, he spent most of his life in Vienna, where he pursued medicine, worked with leading neurologists, and eventually created the psychoanalytic method. His major works — including The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and The Ego and the Id (1923) — reshaped modern psychology and Western thought.

Freud’s Jewish identity played a significant role throughout his life. He was given a Jewish name at birth, educated in Hebrew and the Bible, and maintained ties to Jewish cultural institutions such as B’nai Brith, which he attended regularly between 1897 and 1907. Although not strictly religious, Freud respected Jewish traditions and continued to identify as a Jew, even as rising antisemitism shaped his worldview.

His works contain hundreds of biblical references, and scholars note that his interpretive methods echo traditional Judaic textual analysis. Freud’s family suffered greatly under Nazism — four of his sisters were murdered in extermination camps — and he himself fled Vienna for London in 1938.