Page - 103 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewishness and the Viennese Volkssänger | 103 with a performative community, which presupposes the active engagement of its members in solidarity-building actions and knows no exclusion rituals. In this context, we can now make sense of Hirsch’s reference during the Seifert’s Saal meeting to the fact that Rötzer had dined in his home in the recent past.97 Invit- ing his opponent into his home is indicative of close social relationships that do not recognize primordial distinctions and related taboos regarding food. Hirsch’s argument during the meeting at Seifert’s Saal that group belonging is performatively constituted does not seem to have merely been the result of his eff orts to justify his behavior toward his peers. Rather, his argument seems to have corresponded to his true understanding of community. He also expresses his commitment to a conception of coexistence that is not based on essentialist features in several of his performances. As an example, let us consider his farce Ein riskirtes Geschäft (A risky business).98 Th e plot of the piece seems quite sim- ple: Gottfried Säufer (literally “drunkard”) fi nds himself in a precarious situation due to his extraordinary alcohol consumption. In order to master it, he borrows 8,000 gulden from Salomon Teitelbaum. Th e two parties agree that Gottfried will repay 2,000 gulden annually over the next fi ve years. Th ey decide on a high interest rate because in the event of Gottfried’s demise, Salomon would lose out on the outstanding sum of money before the end of the repayment period. To prevent this from happening, Salomon cares for the health of his debtor with great zeal. He follows him at every turn and tries to prevent him from engaging in unadvised activities and protect him from unpredictable situations. Gottfried, in turn, is interested in Salomon’s well-being because he might need him again as a lender in the future. Th e non-Jew Gottfried and the Jew Salomon are thereby bound up in a kind of symbiotic community. Th ey are to some degree dependent on each other and appear in public almost only together. At one point, the two go to a tavern, where they run into the butcher Eulalie Schinkenbein, a former lover of Gottfried’s. She is deeply upset over his broken promise to marry her. Over the course of their verbal exchange, she goes so far as to threaten to kill him with a knife. When Salomon tries to intervene to set- tle the dispute, she warns him to butt out, otherwise she will “stab [him] like a pig.”99 Salomon now faces a considerable dilemma: If he tries to help Gottfried, he puts himself in mortal danger. If he does not intervene, he could possibly lose Gottfried as well as the money he has lent him. Th us, the harmony gained through their mutual interest in caring for one another is lost. Despite its simple plot, the play treats a controversial topic by portraying pos- sibilities of coexistence between Jews and non-Jews. Th e Jewish Salomon and the non-Jewish Gottfried both mutually profi t from one another as long as they take care of each other and coordinate their activities. Salomon’s Jewishness does not interfere with their interactions. Th eir two-person Jewish–non-Jewish commu- nity is not based on noble ideals but is created by practical action. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.