Realities:

The paper examines the interplay between eastern and central-European intellectual traditions in the establishment of psychoanalysis in Palestine/Israel. A special emphasis is laid on the role of Russian and German speaking émigré` psychoanalysts led by Max Eitingon – Freud's "Helmsman" (Steuerman) – in maintaining the Berlin tradition in the Jerusalem psychoanalytic institute after its establishment and during its formative years. The historical perspective developed here points up the elective affinity which early Zionists professed to find in psychoanalysis ’ revolutionary nature. While juxtaposing the “New Man ” of Zionist ideology and the “Freudian Man, ” Hebrew nation-builders developed a particular image which shaped the reception of Freud’s followers in educational, medical and scientific circles in Palestine. Hebrew culture facilitated a particular hybridization between the “Russian Freud ” – to whom constructivist-collectivistic aspirations have been ascribed – and the original “German Freud ” – notorious for his individualistic and pessimisti