Yechezkel kluger Centennial
September 5th, 2011
Jungian analyst Dr. Yechezkel Kluger
was born in Yonkers, New York, September 5th 1911. He died in Haifa,
December 21st 1995, after a full life of varied experiences and focused
aim in study and teaching. He was known as a born student and teacher,
and a genuine devotee of ideals.
Yechezkel Kluger served as President
of the Los Angeles Jung Institute, 1967-1969, and later as President of
the Israel Association for Analytical Psychology. Up to the time of his
death he kept up a steady practice as analyst, supervisor, teacher of
candidates in training, and writing.
Yechezkel Kluger came from an
orthodox Hassidic background. His mother and father came to America in
the late 1800s from Dobczyce, Poland but his grandfather, Rabbi Reuven
Kluger, remained, heading a small group of devotees. Yechezkel never met
his grandfather but it is told that Reb Reuven was a scholar, a poet
and a mystic. Yechezkel himself was, as well, both a scholar and a poet.
The mystic in him found embodiment in his wives, particularly as it was
articulated in thought by his second wife, Rivkah Schärf. The spirit of
Hassidism was a strong element in Yechezkel Kluger’s make-up and for
those who knew him intimately, it could be heard not only in the formal
prayers, but seen clearly in his dancing, singing zmirot (songs
and melodies) on Shabbat and in his playing the clarinet. He may have
left orthodoxy and violin behind, but the spirit remained.
Interestingly enough, the fire of
Zionism was lit by a gentile, the famous Socialist Norman Thomas. After
attending a large rally in Madison Square Garden in New York, with his
fiancée Tovah, the two were moved by hearing Thomas speak so fervently
of the need for Jews to settle in Israel, stating that they (the Jews)
had so many doctors and lawyers that it was now a time to "return" to
being farmers in their own land. Soon thereafter Yechezkel left his
medical studies (much to the dismay of his parents), and shortly after
marrying Tovah in a large orthodox ceremony (he was 21 and she 19), they
both joined the Hechalutz organization in New York. They spent two
years on Hachshara (training) for life on the farm, in
Hightstown New Jersey and in Wisconsin. Eventually they were granted
certificates by the British to enter the mandated territory of
Palestine.
Thus, he settled with his first wife
on kibbutz Na’an, in 1935. After a mere but intense two years of
farming and nightly vigils during the meura’ot, the Arab revolt
beginning in 1936 – and after the birth of their daughter Nomi – the
Klugers were cajoled by family in New York into paying a visit with the
promise of a return ticket ... which promise was not kept. With no hope
of returning, he, his wife and daughter spent four years in New York.
Yechezkel returned to his studies, narrowing his field to optometry. In
1940 the Klugers moved to Los Angeles where he opened a practice in
optometry and launched the Los Angeles branch of the League for Labor
Palestine. There he was active as president of Zionist organizations.
He had already become interested in
Jung's school of thought when in 1942 he met Jungian analyst James
Kirsch, who had come to him to get his eyes examined. They began a
friendship based on their common interest in Judaism and Israel. It was
not long before they switched roles, as James became his analyst and
teacher in his and Hilde Kirsch’s burgeoning Jung group of Los Angeles,
later to become the Los Angeles Institute. When in analytic sessions
Kluger would speak of his yearning to return to Israel, Kirsch would
tell him “your Israel is an internal Israel.” This collided with his
inner calling, which was corroborated by dreams of the importance of the
land itself, the Land of Israel. Kluger was, in his words, driven to
“dig into the earth” (cf. interview, Spring 60, below), which he was
able to realize years later by returning to live in Israel. With his second wife, Rivkah Schärf Kluger, he settled in Haifa in 1969 … some thirty long years after his departure.
Kluger had been strongly encouraged
by James and Hilde Kirsch to study with Jung in the newly established
Jung Institute in Zurich. He had met Dr. Rivkah Schärf when she spoke in
Los Angeles at the invitation of the Kirsches, but it was in her
capacity as his teacher in Zürich that he came to admire her deeply.
Their mutual passion for Judaism, Zionism and Jung's psychology
eventually bonded them into a love, culminating in a marriage that was
to endure for the remainder of their lives. Their marriage took place in
a large ceremony attended by Jung and officiated by Zwi Werblowsky in
Zurich, 1954.
During his years of study at the
Jung Institute, he was in analysis with C. A. Meier and Emma Jung, with a
couple of sessions with C. G. Jung when called for. He was among the
first graduates of the C. G. Jung Institute with, among others, James
Hillman. Along with a few others, they were charter members of AGAP, which charter Kluger was instrumental in writing.
Due to his playful "demand" made to Jung he was the only one to have
Jung's signature ('Honorary President, C. G. Jung') on his diploma. At
the Institute, the students were fortunate to study under scholars in
related fields to Jung's psychology, such as the Indologist Heinrich
Zimmer, the Greek scholar Karl Kerényi, the Zen teacher Daisetsu Suzuki, and Hans Jonas, the teacher of Gnosticism, as well as other luminaries.
After returning to Los Angeles, he
attained a doctorate in academic psychology from Claremont College where
his thesis was a statistical study showing the occurrence and validity
of archetypal dreams.
Upon moving to Haifa in 1969, he and
Rivkah continued their practices as analysts and teachers. Together
with Zürich-trained Jungian analyst Gustav Dreifuss, he worked on the
further development of the Israel Association of Analytical Psychology,
which had been founded by Erich Neumann (the Israel Association was a
charter member from the first Jungian congress in 1958), and the
training of analysts.
Although Yechezkel Kluger had an
orthodox Jewish upbringing, he came to feel his lack of a deep education
in Judaic thought and history as tragically missing. He quoted Jung as
having told his wife, Rivkah, that it is for the Jewish analysts to
study intricately and interpret Judaism, their own heritage, as he,
Jung, had been doing in his Christian background. The goal is for each
to bring to light, into consciousness, the ground from which they had
sprung. (Cf. "Remembering Jung; A Conversation about C.G. Jung and his
Work with Rivkah Kluger & Yechezkel Kluger," Suzanne and George
Wagner, DVD, Jung Institute-Film Project).
In light of this, and inspired by
Rivkah Schärf's classes in the “Old Testament,” Yechezkel wrote his
diploma thesis on the Book of Ruth. This was later published as 'Ruth – A
Contribution to the Study of the Feminine Principle in the Old
Testament' (Spring, 1957). He completed an updated version shortly before his death, published posthumously by Daimon Press in 1999 as A Psychological Interpretation of Ruth; In the Light of Mythology, Legend and Kabbalah. Included is the companion essay, Standing In The Sandals of Naomi, written by his daughter Nomi Kluger-Nash, who had worked on editing his manuscript with him shortly before he died.
His theme was the return of the
feminine principle as a necessary rounding out, and ultimately the
fulfillment of what had become the one-sidedly patriarchal standpoint in
the land of Judah. It is a myth of redemption. This is shown in an
analogy with agricultural seasonal myths. The famine in the earth serves
as the symbolic image of the cast out feminine, which feminine material
reality, as lover and mother, had to return to achieve an equal balance
with the masculine, purely spiritual, invisible God. The goal and
result of this process is seen as the redemption of the feminine which
forms an equally balanced totality conjoining spirit and matter.
After the death of his wife, Kluger
devoted himself to editing her seminars and manuscripts on the Gilgamesh
Epic, which she had been held back from completing due to her illness. The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh was published in 1991 by Daimon, and he saw to the publication of her updated book, Psyche and Bible, which was republished as Psyche in Scripture by Inner City Books in 1995.
An interview with Yechezkel Kluger and Gustav Dreifuss, by Erel Shalit, appeared in Spring 60,
1996. James Hillman, to whom we send our prayers wishing him well,
asked Erel Shalit to publish this recorded interview. Hillman's
grandfather had translated the book of Ruth from Hebrew for the Jewish
Publication Society. He, James, had been in analysis with Rivkah Schärf
Kluger, and came to Yechezkel "to learn how to say Kiddush
(sanctification) on Friday nights." These apparently disparate incidents
may be viewed as an image of how life can weave her intricate web into a
pattern. We leave the meaning of the pattern up to you, the readers,
in honor of the truth-seeking Yechezkel Kluger.
Nomi Kluger-Nash and Erel Shalit
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Daimon
Publishers
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