Seite - 108 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

108 | Entangled Entertainers the Lemberg Singspiel Society, but rather Hirsch. Th is is also apparent in that at the end of December 1901 Recher emphasized that the “Polish” should not be disadvantaged as compared to the Viennese Volkssänger. I have identifi ed no subsequent event that might have served to contradict this fi nding. Th e Lemberg Singspiel Society probably only served Recher as a means to threaten Hirsch, suggesting the possibility that his Jewishness could be used against him. Th e reason why Recher did not make an antisemitic attack on Hirsch may have been rooted in his popularity. He was an integral member of the Viennese Volkssänger, and as one of their most important representatives he enjoyed great prestige among the population. Th e Viennese probably would not have favored anti-Jewish attacks directed against him. Th e Lemberg Singspiel Society, however, was a diff erent matter. As Galician Jews, the members of the Lemberg ensemble were categorized as immigrants, whom the Viennese population already treated with deep-seated hostility.113 In addition, they avoided participating in the social activities of the Volkssänger, and their performances in (Jewish) jargon did little to help establish the “Polish” as an integral part of the Viennese Volkssänger milieu. Recher therefore assumed that discriminating the group by calling them “Jewish” would be greeted with little objection. However, he was wrong in this assumption. Let us return to my initial question concerning the historical evaluation of the Volkssänger war. Whether the confl ict serves as evidence of an ineradicable antisemitism or whether we observe the relative lack of antisemitic sentiment undoubtedly depends on the interpretive lens we bring to the topic. On the one hand, the “war” revealed anti-Jewish sentiments, but on the other hand, it allows us to see that the Jewish and non-Jewish Volkssänger also prospered together. If historians focus on antisemitism, however, they should not only look for explicit antisemitic formulations, which were altogether scarce. Historians must also con- sider that the Volkssänger war took place in a city with a pronounced antisemitic climate.114 Antisemitic clichés and stereotypes were part of its cultural texture. In this context, all one had to do was portray a person as having attributes that, according to widespread understanding, characterized Jews in order to brand that person as “Jewish.” Th e accusation that Hirsch was characterless and sacrifi ced solidarity for the sake of profi t may well have been one of these codes used to characterize someone implicitly as Jewish. Despite Lueger’s antisemitism, however, Jews were better off than ever during his time as mayor of Vienna.115 Th is was partly due to favorable economic devel- opments. On the other hand, the impression that conditions for Jews in fi n-de- siècle Vienna were altogether favorable was also probably connected to the sheer number of Jewish and non-Jewish interactions that made the existing hostility toward Jews to a certain extent tolerable, sometimes even ignorable. Th e mayor himself embodied this paradox in that he was a rabid antisemite but also had Jewish friends.116 He acted according to the motto he had formulated: “I decide who is Jewish.”117 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.