Page - 25 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jews in Viennese Popular Culture around 1900 as Research Topic | 25 that appeared in Jewish media within the larger framework of the reception of newspaper media among the Viennese Jewish population. Diff erentiating between Jewish and Non-Jewish Newspapers Scholarly focus on Jewish newspapers, or even on high-brow general newspa- pers, does not necessarily lead to incorrect assertions about the life of Viennese Jews. Th e most accomplished studies undertaken thus far have not incorpo- rated insights available in the Viennese popular press, which advertised the per- formances of Jewish popular artists.61 If we are to be critical of this approach, however, we might point out that it has led to the assumption that there was no connection between Jews and Viennese popular culture and that there is there- fore no need to research this particular aspect of Jewish history.62 As a result, there have been few scholarly studies dedicated to this topic, which in turn has strengthened the idea that Jews were generally disinterested in popular culture. It is a classic case of circular logic that has only served to cement misconcep- tions. Due to this oversight, at least an entire aspect of the history of Viennese Jews remains unexplored. Investigating Jewish newspapers inevitably raises the question of how to defi ne them. What exactly distinguishes Jewish newspapers from non-Jewish media, and does a juxtaposition between the Jewish and non-Jewish press even do the topic justice? In the following, I consider Jewish newspapers and magazines, in- cluding Die Wahrheit, Bloch’s Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, the (Neue) National- Zeitung, Die Welt, and other print media that were dedicated to strengthening Jewish ethnic and cultural awareness, to promoting Jewish religious concerns, and to communicating news of particular interest to the majority of Jews. Th e particular orientation of the Jewish media outlets thus distinguished them from the general (non-Jewish) press. Occasionally, non-Jewish media also reported on events that were primarily relevant for a Jewish readership. Such events include, for example, elections to the executive committee of the Jewish communities in Hernals, Ottakring, and Neulerchenfeld, which appeared in print in the Wiener Vororte-Zeitung (Newspaper of the outlying districts of Vienna).63 However, the reporting of such information in non-Jewish media was more likely to be the exception rather than the rule in communicating the news.64 In referencing the specifi c focus of their reporting, I call attention to the widely accepted circumscription of Jewish newspapers.65 We can trace this idea back to an article by Margaret T. Edelheim-Muehsam, published in the fi rst edi- tion of the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook in 1956. She asserts, “If we speak of the German-Jewish press, we refer to the periodicals published by Jews for Jewish readers, with special emphasis on Jewish problems. Th is does not exclude that any paper may have occasionally been published by non-Jewish authors, nor that non-Jews read the paper.”66 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.