In 1984, editing the late eminent philosopher of science Adolf Grünbaum, whose The Foundations of Psychoanalysis we were publishing at the University of California Press, I was taken aback one day at the vehemence of Adolf's defense of Philip Roth against the charge that he was a “self-hating Jew.” Grünbaum—born in Germany in 1923, emigrating with his family to the United States in 1938—had vivid and contemptuous recollections of how the Nazis had used the charge of “self-hating German” against any German who dared to challenge them. An uncompromising rationalist and universalist, Adolf would not stoop to changing his first name (“Why should I?”) simply because a vile dictator happened to bear it as well. In the same vein, he happily retained the umlaut in his last name. While not yet twenty years of age, he became one of the “Ritchie Boys,” German-speaking Americans, many of them Jews, who served...
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