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tury, th
e Judenplatz is described as an example of Old Vienna that has endured in
the midst of new Viennese (ne u-Wiener) surroundings.12 An article on sections of
Leopoldstadt, the Prater and what is today the third district, or th e Landstrasse,
provides further documentation thereof. Among other things, the article goes
back to the seventeenth century and mentions a house located on th e Unterer
Werd, which later became Leopoldstadt. It was torn down in 1901. Th
e article
specifi es that it had been known as a Jewish tavern since 1623. Th
e building
was situated on a street that was named He rrengasse three hundred years prior
and was known as the seat of wealthy Jewish merchants.13 However, the article
does not acknowledge that this circumscribed area was in fact the Jewish ghetto
(1625–70) and that Jews were forbidden from occupying the city long after it
was abolished.14 Nevertheless, it gives the impression that there was a continuous
Jewish presence well into the twentieth century.
Th
e International Exhibition of Music and Th
eater (Internationale Ausstel-
lung für Musik- und Th
eaterwesen), which took place from May to October
1892 at th
e Wiener Prater, illustrates a “Jewish” eff
ort to present Jews as an
integral part of Old Viennese society. One of the event’s most popular attrac-
tions was the representation of Old Vienna, with a reconstruction of the Hoher
Markt, a square in Vienna’s city center, as the centerpiece.15 Osk ar Marmorek,
a well-known Jewish architect, was commissioned for the project. To that end,
he studied building plans from the seventeenth century. Nonetheless, these only
served as rough guidelines for his work. To design the buildings, he relied upon
his imagination, by means of which he “‘understood’ the historical square.”16
To a certain extent, he played with and constructed the past. Marmorek, who
was familiar with Zionism and had a keen sense of Jewishness, did not miss the
opportunity to reveal the historical existence of Jews through his work. We may
observe this in the fact that he included the Judengasse among the few side streets
that led to his reconstruction of the Hoher Markt.17 Marmorek constructed a
notion of the past that was also marked by Jews. In this manner, the exhibition
conveyed to viewers that Jews belonged to Vienna’s past. 18
Th
e second diff erence between the Jewish and the general constructions of
Old Vienna was directly tied to the emphasis placed on a Jewish presence in the
city’s past. Th
is emphasis did not lie in the representation of the city itself, but
rather in showing Jews in peaceful interaction with non-Jews.
Albert Hirsch’s work serves as a signifi cant example of this manner of portray-
ing Jewish existence. At the beginning of 1902, his troupe performed a burlesque
that he had written entitled Der Apostel vom Schottenfeld (Th
e apostle of Schot-
tenfeld).19 On the one hand, newspaper advertisements demonstrate its ties to
the city’s past, as they market it as an old Viennese play. On the other, this con-
nection would have been apparent to many contemporaries from the title itself.20
Although Sch ottenfeld was not on Vienna’s periphery, after it was incorporated
into the seventh district in 1850, it stood in close relationship to the outskirts and
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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