Sidney Halpern (1927-94): Memoir of a Psychohistorian

Psychohistorians are remembered for the depth and originality of their thought, their publications, the people they teach and their contributions to society. The death of Professor Sidney Halpern of Temple University last July 11 leaves our field bereft of a man who excelled in all but one of these areas.

Let us start with a few of Halpern’s non-academic accomplishments. In 1953 he founded and was President of the Plymouth Mutual Life Insurance Company which had 100 employees and 1,000 agents when he left it to become a college professor. He served as Publisher of Mercury Books (publishers of JFK, Profiles in Courage and PT 109 as well as Weignall, Life and Times of Cleopatra). Also, he was on the editorial board of American Imago and was Business Manager of the same publication. Amidst many activities he earned a doctoral degree in classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His thesis, Caesar and the Aurelii Cottae, was done under the auspices of William MacDermott who, like so many other people he touched, became his friend. Halpern also had some training in psychoanalysis, but dropped out of it because he became too involved in the personal lives of his patients. Psychoanalytic detachment was not his forte. Some of the variety of his accomplishments are spelled out in his numerous listings in Who’s Who in the East as well as Who’s Who in the World.

In 1967 Halpern came to sit in the groves of academia at Temple University under the auspices of the History Department. In survey courses on Western Civilization and American History he delved into Freud, Marx, Einstein, Ancient Israel, liberty and the rise and fall of America as a great civilization. He was fascinated by Marxism and then Freudianism,

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but perhaps he may most accurately be called a Groddeckian. George Groddeck (1866­1934), like Nietzche, believed in the primacy of the “id,” an unstoppable unconscious force. Within four years he turned to academic administration, first as Director (1971) and then as Dean (1971­1982) of the previously sleepy Ambler campus where he did almost all of his teaching. In a short period he transformed it from a quiescent two-year operation with fewer than 600 students to a full­fledged extension campus with close to 7,000 full and part­time students. But his administrative experience was not all of growth, since he held significant responsibilities when Temple went into a crises of detenuring. Halpern’s own health deteriorated severely, along with the fiscal wellbeing and morale in the university he was trying to save from being severely weakened by the ethnic, “white flight” from Philadelphia to the suburbs. In 1982, though his health was broken, he returned to teaching which he continued until almost the end of his life. Though he protested that he was “ill, iller, illest” and “brain dead,” intellectual activity continued to give him some relief from his pain.

Halpern occasionally published brief articles, such as “Free Association in 423 B.C.” and “The Mother-Killer” in American Imago, “Thanatosis: Life’s Last Stand” in Imago, “A Classical Error in Freud’s `Interpretation of Dreams,’ in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, as well as impassioned letters to the editor of various publications. Yet, his major writings remain obstinately unpublished at his death. These unpublished manuscripts include The Passions of Caesar and Christ, Caesar as Flamen Dialis, and “Salvation is from the Jews,” as well as materials on genocidal anti-Semitism and the psychology of the Industrial Revolution. In the end he preferred helping other people to getting his own work into print. Psychohistory is poorer for this failure to publish.

Men are most remembered for their personal qualities. Halpern would mentor colleagues, giving freely of himself for extended periods. In a crisis he was readily available and felt most alive. A colleague from Temple remembered Sid “as the kindest man I ever knew as well as the most brilliant and interesting,” but was then quick to quote a former student’s assessment of him as “the most wrongheaded man in the world” on the basis of his defense of Richard Nixon during Watergate as a Christ-like martyr. Halpern was a natural contrarian, willing to argue any side of any issue, provided it produced thought. More than anything else, he enjoyed arguing, intellectual dueling, fencing, probing, and thinking with other people to help spur them and him on. He loved both to put a smile on people’s faces and to outrage them, just a bit. Clearly, Halpern was no simple man, but who better than psychohistorians to appreciate this brilliant, erudite, and generous individual in all his complexity.

The life of this son of immigrant Jews from the Russian Empire was shaped by anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the creation of Israel on the one hand and the idea of liberty on the other. And yet, his concern was always for the individual — how the individual would fare in the world.

Sidney Halpern was buried on Mount Olives in Jerusalem on Bastille Day. Since he noted all anniversaries and was an intellectual revolutionary, some friends enjoyed the coincidence of his internment last July 14. If he were writing this obituary he would be thinking of puns and asking what were the deceased person’s last words? Though he often quoted Winston Churchill’s “I’m bored,” his last reported words were the uncharacteristic “What happened?” Since he understood that most last words were fabrications, a loved one thinks he would prefer “Invent some famous last words for me!” This psychohistorian is survived by his son Baruch, daughter Nikki of Paris, three granddaughters, his sisters Claire Gold and Miriam Sacks of Philadelphia, and friends he laughed with and mentored. He will be missed.

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Editor’s Note: I met Sidney Halpern in 1968 when we were colleagues at the Ambler Campus of Temple University. As we became friends, he helped me overcome some difficulties I was facing in writing my doctoral dissertation on the workers in the English Industrial Revolution. I then audited his courses in Western Civilization and American History where I learned much about psychoanalysis, Freud, Darwin, Marx, capitalism, and Sidney Halpern. Under his tutelage, I learned to begin to think psychohistorically.

One of my last acts at Temple University was to serve on the committee that recommended this talented administrator to be the next director of the Ambler Campus. Helping to write this obituary was a sad duty which brought fond memories of a good friend to mind. Those wishing to contribute to the Sidney Halpern Award for the “Best Idea in a Published Article or Book in Psychohistory” should contact the Editor.