Page - 3 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Introduction | 3 this diff erence may have been living conditions so miserable that aligning herself with bourgeois values seemed impossible. Her daily routine was much like that of the impoverished non-Jewish population in Vienna, which included quite a few peddlers.13 Th e scant information that exists about Anna Katz’s life portrays a woman who moved in the cultural fabric of the Vienna of her time. It seems that her everyday life was largely similar to that of non-Jewish women. Th is does not mean that she identifi ed fi rst and foremost with non-Jews nor that she was unconnected to any sense of Jewish identity. It also does not mean that her social interactions failed to include other Viennese Jews. Th e fact that the fi nancial support that she received following the public petition for help in the aftermath of her suicide attempt came from Jews suggests that she maintained ties with the Jewish community.14 Anna Katz may have been at home in both Jewish and non-Jewish spheres. She led an existence that was likely commonplace in Vienna—indeed, much more ordinary than what most of the scholarship available on the topic refl ects. Th e fact that such evidence seems rare is probably due to the fact that historians have thus far scarcely researched and investigated them.15 It is diffi cult to insert them into or even allow them to contradict the dominant historical narrative regarding Jews. According to this narrative, Jews are either part of a largely closed, mostly religiously Jewish world, or they leave it behind by “assimilating” or “acculturat- ing” into non-Jewish society. Th e idea that Jewish and non-Jewish spheres over- lap and that the boundaries between them are more permeable than sometimes believed—and at the same time constantly change and must be renegotiated—is scarcely mentioned in the prevalent historiographical accounts.16 An example of an interaction between Jews and non-Jews that dissolves clear distinctions between them (and at the same time speaks to Anna Katz’s pro- fession) can be seen in a situation involving a Jewish peddler named Samuel Scholder. In December 1896, he was selling toys on the Rotenturmstrasse, when an employee of a nearby business approached him. At fi rst, this employee only verbally accosted Scholder, but then proceeded to attack him physically.17 At fi rst glance, we might assume that this instance serves as further evidence of Jewish peddlers struggling to eke out a living in Vienna. Th e general argument that one encounters in scholarly literature, to a large extent undoubtedly correct, is that these peddlers drew the envy of other tradespeople and represented the impov- erished eastern European Jew in the eyes of the non-Jewish population. Jewish peddlers were often scorned, a target for antisemitic projections.18 Th ere is vir- tually no counter-narrative to this, no available evidence that would emphasize the fruitful coexistence between them and non-Jews. However, the case involving Scholder deviates from the widespread depictions of Jewish peddlers, as the rest of this story of aggression seems to indicate: Th e attacker, a man named Joseph Knot, fl ed the scene following the altercation, but he did not get far. “A crowd of people” chased after the assailant and caught up to him. Th e pursuit had worked This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.