Seite - 6 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

6 | Entangled Entertainers Fayershteyn and Joseph were not exceptions among Jews of the time. Crush- ing poverty and limited employment opportunities made the profession of per- former and entertainer an attractive niche occupation. More than a few were able to make their living solely with strange skills and by exhibiting peculiarities per- ceived as bizarre. By doing so, they joined a long history of Jewish entertainers, in particular magicians and trick artists, as well as “mentalists,” who had gained considerable fame.31 One of these was Samuel Th iersfeld (18 29–1918), born in the Galician town of Ja roslaw, who, on account of his skills, was invited to per- form for Emperor Franz Joseph, Wilhelm I, and the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. After training as a pastry chef and a short-lived stint in a military band, he decided to dedicate himself to the art of magic. From 1857 on, he appeared only under the stage name Professor St. Roman. His special attraction was that he was able to conjure ducks, without technical aids, while standing in the mid- dle of the auditorium.32 Another Jewish magician was Fred Roner from Lv ov, in Galicia. He settled in Vienna, where he soon succeeded in gaining membership in an association of magicians. With their recommendation, he no longer had to worry about securing performance opportunities. Roner mainly worked in variety shows, where he amazed the audience with his card tricks. He relied less on his dexterity than on his tremendous memory.33 Th iersfeld and Roner were not the fi rst Jewish magicians in Vienna. Th ere is record of Jewish magicians working in Vienna since the late eighteenth century. In the spring of 1774, for example, the Wiener Zeitung announced the arrival of Jacob Meyer, who was known by the stage name “Philadelphia.” He is said to have performed at the courts of various aristocrats in Europe since 1758. In Vi- enna, he performed his tricks for several weeks in an inn on th e Kärntnerstrasse.34 Just a few years later, some Jewish magicians settled permanently in the city. One of them was a man named Jonas, whose sleight-of-hand tricks made him so popular that in 1783 he was asked to give a performance in the Palais Auersperg for the Moroccan ambassador. Abraham Romaldi, another Jewish playwright, made his debut in Vienna in 1789. Like Jonas, he renounced performances on the Sabbath.35 Another famous Jewish magician paid his respects to Vienna around the mid- dle of the nineteenth century. His name was Carl Compars Herrmann (1816– 1887). He was likely born in a town somewhere on the Galician-Russian border. After a stay in Paris to study medicine and his fi rst appearances as a magician in London, he came to Austria via Germany, where he was celebrated in the Vien- nese Carl-Th eater in 1851 by an enthusiastic audience. Carl Compars Herrmann was a busy man. His performances took him to South America, and President Lincoln once even requested that he perform at the White House. Despite his many travels, he remained connected to Vienna. He assumed Austrian citizen- ship in 1865, counted among his many friends Adolf Jelinek, the preacher of the Isr aelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (the Vienna Jewish Community), and was This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.