To the Editor: Aaron H. Esman’s angry ad hominem denunciation (1) of my review of Breger’s Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision(2) represents a case of shooting the messenger. His argument is with Breger, not with me. Breger contended that Freud, despite not having encountered it personally, used claims of anti-Semitism to his own advantage. This was at a time when

Given these claims and many other statements made by Breger—all of which were cited by page number in my review—about the milieu in which Freud developed his views and about Jewish life, including Jewish life in post–World War I Austria, it is difficult to conclude that anti-Semitism played much of a role, if any, in shaping Freud’s weltanschauung.

Dr. Esman faults me for not acknowledging the rise of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s. However, while Breger had many things to say about the conditions that might have engendered growing anti-Semitism after World War I, this issue was tangential to his main thesis about the "darkness in the midst" of Freud’s vision.

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