Page - 112 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

112 | Entangled Entertainers organized relief eff orts for people in need who were not Jewish and were not Volks- sänger. Nevertheless, he did come to the aid of Jews such as Anna Katz, who wanted to commit suicide by plunging into the Danube Canal along with her children (see the introduction to this book). In order to alleviate the family’s misery and give them a new lease on life, Hirsch organized a collection for Katz at his New Year’s performance on 1 January 1901.132 It is interesting to note that other Jews, such as the Zionist Reichsrat member Heinrich Spitzer, also tried to help Anna Katz by collecting donations.133 Hirsch and Spitzer may have been motivated by their sense of Jewishness to intervene on behalf of the suicidal woman and her children. Th eir actions may have been based on a particular feeling of empathy for other Jews and can be understood as a commitment to “Jewish solidarity.” We can deduce another indication regarding Hirsch’s Jewish self-conception from his performance repertoire. In this sense, I refer not only to his farces, which were usually set in a Jewish milieu or at least included Jewish protagonists, but also to the remarkable similarities between the performances that Hirsch’s en- semble off ered and other Jewish Volkssänger groups. It is probably no accident that certain plays that they all staged (albeit in diff erent versions) have markedly Jewish content. Th e Volkssänger thus formed a “Jewish performance community.” One of the plays that illustrates this connection among Jewish performing musi- cians was Die Klabriaspartie (see chapter 2). Georg Wacks argues that this work brought Jewish expressions to the stage for the fi rst time.134 Although Wacks’s as- sertion seems doubtful, the version of the play that was performed in Vienna was closely linked to the everyday culture of the Jews in the Habsburg capital.135 We identify this overlap between the play and everyday Jewish life fi rst and foremost in the location where the card game takes place. Vienna’s Café A beles located in Salzgrie s, a meeting place for mainly Jewish immigrants from the East, likely served as a model for the play’s setting.136 Furthermore, Klabrias was an actual card game that was very popular among Jews. We see the game’s popularity not least in the numerous court cases that were the result of card-playing disputes.137 Th is prompted a judge in March 1900 to proclaim that it was strange that many Klabrias games held in Leopoldstadt were properly concluded only in court.138 In addition to the Budapest Orpheum Society’s performance of Klabriaspartie, the S. Fischer Society performed the play in April 1904 at the Prater Orpheum, announcing it as Soirée bei Dalles.139 In August of the same year, Fischer staged the Original Budapester Klabrias-Partie.140 Around the same time, the Kassi na Singspiel Hall off ered a production of Die Klabriaspartie im Olymp (Th e Klabrias game on Olympus).141 Th e Halls of Nestroy performed Die Klabriaspartie auf der Reise nach Chicago (Th e Klabrias game on a trip to Chicago).142 And the Hirsch Society in turn produced Die Klabriaspartie vor Gericht (Th e Klabrias game goes to court).143 A fi nal clue that speaks to Hirsch’s identifi cation with Judaism relates to his interactions with Jewish celebrations and festival culture. To be sure, it appears This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.