Seite - 102 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

102 | Entangled Entertainers At the same time, Modl emphasized that the community of artists was inter- national. He thus supported Hirsch’s line of argument and positioned himself in opposition to Recher’s attempts to nationalize the Volkssänger and pit them against Jews.93 Identity as Performance While Modl was very careful to distance himself from Recher, Hirsch reacted much more directly to Recher’s anti-Jewish jibes. He explicitly addressed the topic of his Jewishness and contrasted it with common anti-Jewish stereotypes. As he had done a few days before in the letter to the editor he had written, he now attempted during the meeting to style himself as an authentic Wiener (Viennese person) who was diff erent from the members of “foreign ensembles.” He again criticized the Budapest Orpheum Society, in particular their absence from important activities involving the Viennese Volkssänger. In this context, he referenced the inauguration of a Volkssänger fl ag that had taken place two years previously.94 He emphasized that the “Budapester” had not been present at this ceremonial event. But he highlighted his own participation in the event, explain- ing, “In the church, I, Hirsch the Jew, stood next to the mayor. Gentlemen, you couldn’t very well expect me to say, ‘All hail Lueger,’ [because] I’m Jewish, but it was still nice of him to show up. Do you know who didn’t show up? Th e Budapester.”95 For Hirsch, being Jewish was no reason to be absent from a Christian ritual held in a church. It also does not seem to have bothered him that he had to stand in close proximity to Vienna’s antisemitic mayor. Rather, Hirsch used this coincidence as an opportunity to show that he was very much a part of the Vi- ennese Volkssänger community. For Hirsch, the crucial criterion that determines belonging to a particular group, in this case the Volkssänger, is neither ethnicity nor religious affi liation, but rather participation in common activities. As he sees it, group solidarity is the result of a performative act. During the fl ag ceremony, this included, however temporarily, both the antisemite Lueger and the Jewish performer Hirsch. If ethnicity and race are considered prerequisites for belonging to the Volkssänger community (echoing national myths of origin), Jews can easily be excluded from belonging to the larger social group. Recher did just this, explic- itly excluding the Lemberg Singspiel Society and implicitly shutting out Hirsch. With so-called primordial codes, the constructed body is the decisive criterion for inclusion in a group, which does not allow freedom of choice.96 Although participation in a primordial community is established from birth, those who belong assure themselves of their belonging and diff erence from outsiders by way of various rules of conduct. I argue that Hirsch sought to replace the primordial This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.