Page - 67 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewish Volkssänger and Musical Performers in Vienna around 1900 | 67 Sylphe, the eccentrics Smith and Cook, as well as other internationally known vaudeville stars.116 Th e season premiere at the Apollo on 2 September 1904 pre- sented, among other attractions, the soubrette Adele Moraw, the “mulatto dan- dies” Johnson & Dean, the juggler Everhardt, the Patty Frank gymnast troupe from Vienna, and a “biotophon,” an invention from the early days of cinema that entertained audiences with “singing, talking, and musical photographs.”117 Th is colorful program once again demonstrates how diffi cult, if not impossible, it is to consider the Apollo, Danzer’s Orpheum, or even a number of other venues that existed in Vienna at this time as part of the “Jewish” entertainment industry. Th e fact that both Ben Tieber and Gabor Steiner left Judaism problematizes this categorization further still. Th is begs the question whether we can even re- gard the two to be Jewish directors. Some academic studies sidestep the question of whether converts can still be considered to be Jews by referring to their “ori- gin.”118 Th is kind of historical approach needn’t take into account religious affi lia- tion and can simply dismiss a biographical detail such as the rejection of Judaism. My approach in this study is altogether diff erent.119 I therefore attempt to answer the question of whether Ben Tieber and Gabor Steiner are examples of Jewish entrepreneurs in the Viennese entertainment industry using diff erent means. Establishing a Criterion for Jewish Diff erence In the following, I explore two aspects that will help us to characterize Ben Tieber and Gabor Steiner as Jewish without reference to their religious status. We can subsume these two aspects under the term “Jewish diff erence,” in that they draw a distinction between Jews and non-Jews. Th e characteristics are dependent upon context and usually contain a performative element.120 Th e fi rst aspect pertains to the choice of religion of the two converts. In 1887, Gabor Steiner married a former Catholic who had converted to Judaism. Th e fact the he remained faithful to Judaism and did not convert or agree to a civil wedding ceremony suggests that he saw himself as Jewish at the time. However, six years later, both Gabor Steiner and his wife converted from Judaism and became Protestants.121 Th ough we do not know their exact motivations for this decision, it may have been the result of professional considerations. In this con- text, we should mention that the Vienna Zoo was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1900 because it had failed to receive public subsidies. It is quite possible that the city government, with Karl Lueger as mayor at that time, refused to assist the failing enterprise due to antisemitic sentiment. Th e zoo was a large attraction in Vienna, and tens of thousands of people came to visit its exhibitions featuring indigenous peoples. Th e zoo’s provisional director was Richard Goldmann, who w as Jewish.122 Given the political climate in fi n-de-siècle Vienna, Gabor Steiner perhaps decided to offi cially renounce Judaism to attract paying customers with antisemitic inclinations who might have otherwise chosen other entertainment This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.