Almost from the moment Sigmund Freud rose to fame in Europe, he encountered fellow Jews who were curious about the extent and nature of his Jewish upbringing, education, and commitments, and whether Jewish religious text shaped his ideas about psychoanalysis. Since his death, numerous books have been written trying to answer these questions. Naomi Seidman—who herself believes that such concepts as sublimation have clear talmudic antecedents—poses a slightly different question: why do Jews care so much about whether Freud’s ideas had a Jewish genealogy? In her forthcoming book, she finds a partial answer to this question in the first Hebrew and Yiddish translations of Freud’s work, which mined traditional religious vocabulary to find equivalents for such terms as id and psyche. She discusses her research with J.J. Kimche. (Audio, 72 minutes.)

How did Qatar, an American ally, become the nerve center of the leading Palestinian jihadist organization? Natalie Ecanow explains.

When Jordan expelled Hamas in 1999, Qatar offered sanctuary to the group, which had already become notorious for using suicide-bombing attacks over the previous decade. . . . Hamas chose to relocate to Syria. However, that arrangement lasted for only a decade. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the terror group found its way back to Qatar.

In 2003, Hamas leaders reportedly convened in Qatar after the IDF attempted to eliminate Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed seven people, including two American citizens. This episode led to one of the first efforts by Qatar to advocate for its terror proxy.

Thirteen years and five wars between Hamas and Israel later, Qatar’s support for Hamas has not waned. . . . To this day, Qatari officials maintain that the office came at the “request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, an Obama White House official asserted that there was never any request from Washington. . . . Inexplicably, the United States government continues to rely on Qatar to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, even as the regime hosts the terror group’s political elite.

A reckoning is needed between our two countries. Congressional hearings, legislation, executive orders, and other measures to regulate relations between our countries are long overdue.