B'nai B'rith

B'nai B'rith is discussed through its Vienna Branch, which hosted an address by Freud on his seventieth birthday. The book draws on that occasion to present Freud's distrust of national identification as a counterpoint to political appeals grounded in national belonging.

The Vienna Branch and Freud's Address

The specific institutional detail supplied is B'nai B'rith's Vienna Branch: Freud addressed it on his seventieth birthday. The branch thus enters the discussion not through a broader account of the organization's structure or activities, but as the setting for a speech whose argument bears on national identity.

National Enthusiasm and Identification

In the address, Freud described suppressing his own inclination toward national enthusiasm because he regarded it as harmful and wrong: “Whenever I felt an inclination to national enthusiasm, I strove to suppress it as being harmful and wrong. . . .” The book uses this statement to characterize his mistrust of national identification and to set that position against forms of politics that make national belonging decisive.

Significance in the Discussion

The reference gives B'nai B'rith a precise role in the book's argument: its Vienna Branch is the occasion for Freud's public articulation of a cosmopolitan stance. The address supports the book's contrast between national enthusiasm and a Jewish cosmopolitan spirit; the passage identifies the setting and the argument, without providing further institutional history.