Jacob Kolloman Freud (; 18 December 1815 – 23 October 1896) was the father of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
Born in town of Tysmenytsia in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (now in Ukraine), and from a Hasidic background though himself an enlightened Jew of the Haskalah,Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 599-600 he mainly earned his living as a wool merchant.Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (964) p. 32
Families
Jacob Freud was the son of Schlomo Freud and Pepi, née Hoffmann. Jacob Freud married three times, with two children coming from his first marriage, and eight children from his third marriage to Amalia Freud, twenty years his junior. His first wife was Sally, and his second wife was Rebecca. Jacob's eldest son from his first marriage became a father a year before Sigmund - the first son of Jacob's third marriage - was born; so that Sigmund was an uncle at birth, with his nephew John a constant (and older) playmate in his early years.Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 5-6 Ernest Jones speculates that the unusual family background may have prompted Sigmund - the eldest but third son - into an early interest in family dynamics.Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (964) p. 37-40
Character By all accounts, Jacob Freud was a genial, unassuming character with a "Micawberish" streak of optimism:Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (964) p. 32 Sigmund would write warmly of "his characteristic mixture of deep wisdom and fantastic lightheartedness".Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 88 Yet Jacob's meekness in the face of antisemitic bullying also disturbed Sigmund profoundly.Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 11-2 Much of the latter's ambition, his combativeness, and his subsequent quest for powerful father figures such as Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke and Josef Breuer,Peter Gay, Reading Freud (1990) p. 63-5 may be traced back to his ambivalence about his own yielding and 'vague' father.Peter Homans, Jung in Context (1979) p. 149
See also Father complex Family nexus Freud family Wilhelm Fliess
References
Further reading Marianne Krüll, Freud and his Father (1979) Leonard Shengold, 'Freud and Josef', in M. Kanzer ed, The Unconscious Today (1971)