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Jews in Viennese Popular Culture around 1900 as Research Topic | 27
the situation might have been considered an “intra-Jewish aff
air,” the Jewish
media ignored this case.
Th
e self-proclaimed scope of the Jewish press helps explain why they ignored
the Löwy aff air. But their declaration of scope and intent does not answer the
question why Jewish media devoted themselves to such a specifi
c policy and thus
chose a very restrictive line of reporting. What moved these Jewish newspapers to
ignore some of the everyday experiences of Jews, and thus also popular cultural
entertainment culture? Th
ere are essentially two reasons for this phenomenon.
Th
e fi rst reason may have been the desire to halt or even reverse the clearly
discernible decline in traditional forms of Jewishness and the diminishing obser-
vance of Jewish religious rules and customs.70 It was believed that this trend was
the result of various infl
uences, such as interdenominational marriage.71 To be
sure, the press was not the only medium that made it its task to counteract this
development. Both the Viennese Jewish Museum and Jewish folk culture were
committed to a goal similar to that of Jewish newspapers.72 All of them were con-
cerned, among other goals, with conveying so-called Jewish values and attitudes
to those Jews who had already distanced themselves from Judaism or were on the
verge of doing so.73 Th e intent was to make their readers familiar with a sense of
Jewishness with which they could identify. At a time when newspapers became
increasingly aff
ordable and, as a result, a mass medium, they became a key com-
ponent of an extremely attractive and likely eff
ective strategy for pursuing this
goal.74
Given that many Jews were fi
rmly rooted in their surroundings, were in close
contact with non-Jews, had non-Jewish neighbors and colleagues, attended events
and frequented coff eehouses and engaged in other leisure activities with them,
and were often as aff ected by everyday occurrences as non-Jews, the attempt on
the part of Jewish newspapers to connect Jews to their religion and culture would
have probably been more successful if they had not simply ignored everyday life,
but rather had presented it from a Jewish perspective and reconciled them with
Jewish values.75 Some Jewish physicians adopted this approach at about the same
time, as they interpreted the observance of Jewish religious rites and practices
as benefi
cial to one’s health. In doing so, they combined Jewish practices with a
value of central importance to the middle class (bourgeoisie) at the time.76 Jews
who felt that they belonged to the middle class and had alienated themselves from
their religion on account of this allegiance were able to return to Judaism without
having to abandon a secular lifestyle. Th
e Jewish press could—and perhaps even
should—have followed in the footsteps of these Jewish doctors in order to reach
Jews who were indiff
erent to Judaism.77 Th e Jewish media, however, failed to
do so.
If the narrowly focused reporting undertaken by Jewish media contributed
little to strengthening Jewish self-understanding, we may reasonably assume that
there were reasons for the oversight. We may infer this from the fact that the Jew-
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Entangled Entertainers
Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Titel
- Entangled Entertainers
- Untertitel
- Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Autor
- Klaus Hödl
- Verlag
- Berghahn Books
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-78920-031-7
- Abmessungen
- 14.86 x 23.2 cm
- Seiten
- 196
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Vor 1918
- International
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 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