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Jewishness and the Viennese Volkssänger | 107
garians renamed their ensemble the Original Folies Caprice in order to highlight
their “authenticity.”
Interpreting the Volkssänger Confl
ict
I began this chapter by asserting that there are often multiple ways to interpret
past events—in this case events from the Jewish past. I argued that we can view
the disputes among the Volkssänger as evidence of this multiplicity of interpre-
tive possibilities. Th
e question that arises from my discussion of this confl
ict is
whether I can substantiate my original thesis. Can we in fact interpret the Volks-
sänger war both in terms of antisemitism and its opposite, that is, as an example
of prosperous Jewish and non-Jewish cooperation?
Th
ree points seem undisputed when considering the tensions among the per-
forming musicians, and we must take them into account in an eff
ort to answer
this question. First, there were no measurable diff
erences between Jews and non-
Jews. To be sure, some Jews supported their fellow Jew, Albert Hirsch. Th
is was
especially noticeable in the case of Karl Kassina.112 Salomon Fischer, who was
admittedly not particularly active in the entire aff
air, at least advocated for a
revocation of the license requirement and took Hirsch’s side in this point. Other
Jews, however, such as Josef Modl, criticized Hirsch. Hirsch himself complained
about the behavior of the Budapest Orpheum Society. Th
e trenches that opened
up between the Volkssänger also existed between their Jewish members. Th
ere was
no dividing line according to religious or ethnic affi liation, but rather according
to specifi c professional interests.
Second, we cannot deny that Hirsch was guilty of disappointing many of his
fellow performers. He deceived them out of self-interest while simultaneously
declaring solidarity with them. His behavior had provoked the outrage over this
apparent betrayal as well as the hostility with which a number of the Viennese
Volkssänger reacted to him. Th
e court proceedings that represented the culmina-
tion of the confl ict put a strain fi
rst and foremost on Hirsch. Nevertheless, he was
not personally subjected to antisemitism.
At fi
rst glance, these two points seem to indicate that Jews enjoyed a solid po-
sition in the local Volkssänger scene. Th
ey seem to have been widely accepted by
their non-Jewish colleagues. Th
e Jewishness of Hirsch, Fischer, Armin, Heinrich
Eisenbach, Modl, and many others was not a reason for their fellow non-Jewish
Volkssänger either to be suspicious of or to reject them. However, this assertion—
and now I address the third point—runs contrary to Recher’s allusion to the
Lemberg Singspiel Society as somehow diff
erent, as not belonging to the group.
He evoked their Jewishness as a feature of their diff erence. Despite the fact that
many of his colleagues explicitly requested that he not refer to the “Polish” as
Jewish, Recher refused to relent. Th
e real target of his attack was not likely to be
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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