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36 | Entangled Entertainers
had originally applied for a position at the Otta kring Temple in the sixteenth
district of Vienna and had been invited to deliver a trial presentation. He amazed
the audience with his vocal virtuosity and was also invited to demonstrate his
skills in the second municipal district. Th
e sole deciding factor here was the
cantor’s artistic ability, which is precisely how synagogue visitors perceived the
performance. During the service, the audience members loudly expressed their
approval and applauded the Hungarian guest.116
At times, the organizers contributed to worship services featuring an illustrious
cantor being misunderstood as a special cultural event. Th
is misunderstanding
arose when they asked visitors for an entrance fee. Th
e atmosphere during some
cantor presentations was sometimes so exuberant that critics drew comparisons
between these performances and ancient Roman spectacles.117 Announcements
that well-known cantors were to sing attracted the masses, hence the comparsion
with Rome. In response to this phenomenon, Die Wahrheit reported in 1900
that “one [sees how] every Friday evening hundreds and thousands, not only
from the lower classes, but also from the middle and upper classes, rush to the
Leopoldstadt Temple . . . just in time to score a seat to enjoy the anticipated treat
for the ears.”118
Jewish newspapers objected to how these special cantor appearances ostensibly
neglected the religious dimension. Commentators criticized the tendency among
audience members to understand these events merely as entertainment, com-
parable to theatrical and similar performances. By contrast, non-Jewish media
viewed the cantor appearances as mere cultural events. We see this for example in
an announcement in the entertainment section of the Neues Wiener Tagblatt from
July 1901 advertising the Galician cantor Baru ch Schorr.119 In the opinion of Die
Wahrheit, Schorr’s performance was thereby reduced to a mere leisure activity,
one of many opportunities for amusement.
In the case of the cantor presentations, varying narratives collided. We can
understand the diff erent approaches to reporting the same event as a Jewi sh/
non-Jewish struggle for the interpretation of cultural events. At the same time,
we may also see it as further evidence of the coex
istence between Jews and non-
Jews. Th
e advertisement in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt may have addressed both
Jewish and non-Jewish readers as potential audience members for cantor perfor-
mances. We know that non-Jews sometimes attended Jewish services in order to
be edifi
ed by the cantors’ singing, as was the case when Salo
mon Sulzer appeared
in the Vien
nese City Temple.120
Th
roughout this study, I analyze archival evidence related to numerous in-
terpretations of the same event or, as in the instance just discussed, I investigate
how various newspaper articles portrayed the same occurrence. In particular, I
investigate the question of whether we can or must interpret certain acts and
occurrences as antisemitic or, on the other hand, as a characteristic of intimate
Jewish and non-Jewish contact. In doing so, I demonstrate to what degree a par-
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Entangled Entertainers
Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Title
- Entangled Entertainers
- Subtitle
- Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Author
- Klaus Hödl
- Publisher
- Berghahn Books
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-78920-031-7
- Size
- 14.86 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 196
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
- International
Table of contents
- Introduction 1
- 1. Jews in Viennese Popular Culture around 1900 as Research Topic 13
- 2. Jewish Volkssänger and Musical Performers in Vienna around 1900 44
- 3. Jewishness and the Viennese Volkssänger 78
- 4. Jewish Spaces of Retreat at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 121
- 5. From Difference to Similarity 148
- Conclusion 163
- Bibliography 166
- Index 179