Page - 235 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 6 ♦  235 In the 1850s and 1860s, scholars of Jewish confession had almost no chance of teaching at a university, although Privatdozenten for Hebrew and rabbinic languages were allowed from 1848 on in Vienna, Prague, and L’viv.95 Of those, only one gained a full professorship, shortly after Thun-Hohenstein resigned, while the other scholars received only associate professorships, even though the Viennese philosophical faculty strove for several years to obtain a full professorship in this discipline.96 In other subjects, as well as professorships in general, the effect of a scholar’s confession was more complicated. Here, the university was subor- dinated to more external legal factors, because professors were state officials. Also, the choice of the dean or rector was an issue; this was problematic for Protestants. The discrimination against non-Catholics also applied to schools in general, which were to remain Catholic, according to the Concordat, al- though the universities were exempted from this.97 Until 1867–68 other forms of political discrimination also remained in effect for Jews, including limitations on residency rights and accumulation of property, additional taxes, and so on. The legal confirmation of these discriminatory measures in 1853 caused almost instant protests but also resulted in a falling number of Jewish students at universities, since, given these obstacles, studying constituted a less attractive vehicle for social mo- bility.98 The atmosphere of confessional discrimination, especially after the Concordat, was such that, to use Theodor Gomperz’s words, the “path to professorships has been closed for the Jews.”99 This discouraged Jews from applying for Privatdozent positions, including in medical studies, the field where a scholar of Jewish confession first attained an associate professorship (in 1861).100 Anti-Semitic ideas were present in influential media as well. For example, Sebastian Brunner’s Wiener Kirchenzeitung (Viennese church journal) and the writings of conservative Galician ideologists, which were published more frequently around the 1860s as a reaction to rumors about the legal emancipation of Jews, were ideologically influential in academic and ministerial circles.101 Given that rabbinic education took place outside of Habsburg universi- ties,102 the discipline of Hebrew language and philology entered universities only around 1900; it was separated from the main field of Indo-Germanic oriental languages even later than Sanskrit was, and it also had fewer ha- bilitations than other philological subjects. Consistent with the typical practice for the introduction of new disciplines in the empire, the first full