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Conclusion | 165
Just as the Volkssänger take up the notions of a Jewish nose and Jewish speech
patterns and attempt to strip them of their antisemitic sentiment, the distorted
portrayal of the Jewish man was intended to dissolve the widespread prejudice
of his eff
eminacy into laughter. Th e frequent reference to the feeble Jewish man
underscores that Viennese Jews were preoccupied with the stereotype of the ef-
feminate Jew and endeavored to respond to it. An analysis of Volkssänger plays, I
have argued throughout this study, allows us insight into the everyday life of the
Jews around 1900, their sensitivities, problems, and concerns.
Th
e explorations I have undertaken in this book began with the question why
the topic of Jews in the general Viennese popular culture around 1900 has re-
mained relatively unexplored. One of the reasons for this neglect may be the
analytical tools that historians use. In the following chapters, I have introduced
Jewish Volkssänger groups and a series of plays that they produced and performed.
By analyzing these works and their historical contexts, I have deduced several
features that constituted Jewishness among the Jewish Volkssänger. Th
eir relations
with non-Jewish colleagues, in summary, were notably complex and interwoven.
Dichotomous categorizations cannot account for this complexity. Th
ese Jewish–
non-Jewish interactions were also fraught with tension, and anti-Jewish hostility
sometimes expressed itself. Antisemitic sentiment, however, was likely less pro-
nounced among the Volkssänger than in other areas of Viennese society.
Notes
1. Hannes Leidinger, Die Bedeutung der Selbstauslöschung: Aspekte der Suizidproblematik in
Österreich von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Zweiten Republik (Innsbruck: Studien-
Verlag, 2012).
2. Because many scholars have already written about the prejudice of the “eff
eminate Jew”
based on physical and medical characteristics, I do not discuss it in detail here. On this,
see in particular Sander L. Gilman, Th e Jew’s Body (New York: Routledge, 1991); Klaus
Hödl, Die Pathologisierung des jüdischen Körpers: Antisemitismus, Geschlecht und Medizin
im Fin de Siècle (Vienna: Picus Verlag, 1997), 164–314.
3. Albert Hirsch, “Der Apostel vom Schottenfeld,” Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv
[NÖLA in subsequent citations] (Th
eaterzensur), Box 21/22 (1902), 51.
4. Bernhard Haskel, Im schwarzen Rössl, NÖLA (Zensur), Box 115/35 (1898), 81.
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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