VOLUME 13 NO.1 JANUARY 2013 The culture of Viennese Jewry at the fin de siècle he wealth of culture that the Jewish Hans Kelsen, Theodor Herzl, founder of assumed the leading role in the Holy community of Vienna developed in Zionism, and Sigmund Freud, founder Roman Empire of the German Nation. T the short period of its flourishing of psychoanalysis. Then there are the In 1521, the Austrian Duchies had come – between the middle of the nineteenth cabaret artists and university professors, under the rule of Ferdinand I, a staunch century and its destruction by the Nazis the journalists (not least Moritz Benedikt Catholic from Spain. Ferdinand and his – is the more astonishing as Vienna had of the Neue Freie Presse), the feminists successors proceeded against religious no Jewish community of any size before and photographers, the salonnières and dissenters with severe measures, aiming the mid-nineteenth century. Jews were sociologists … to squeeze Protestantism out of Viennese banned from what was then the imperial This cultural flowering took place public life. That process was largely capital until the revolution of 1848 and under historical and cultural conditions completed by the time of the second siege were not fully emancipated from all that were particular to Vienna. At the of Vienna by the Turks in 1683. restrictions of residence until 1867, as This had serious consequences for part of the reforms that followed Austria’s the character and quality of the civic life defeat by Prussia in the war of 1866. of Vienna. The city, like other European Viennese Jewry was a cultural centre cities in the later Middle Ages, had of European-wide significance in the begun to develop an autonomous urban later nineteenth and early twentieth civic and political life, centred on its centuries; the very concept of ‘fin-de-siècle burghers, merchants and traders. This Vienna’, with its avant-garde association segment of Viennese society, independent with the dislocations and dissonances of economically and in its politics, was also Modernism, was in very large measure independent-minded in its welcome of the dependent on Viennese Jewry. For it was reformed Protestant religion and of the that community which was responsible new ideas of humanism and rationalism for producing much of the city’s culture, that spread with the Renaissance. It was in the form of its artists, composers, that entire spectrum of independence that writers, theatre and film directors, as well Arthur Schnitzler, Vienna’s greatest playwright was repressed by the forces of the Counter- as providing a large part of the audiences, Reformation and by Habsburg power. readers, visitors to exhibitions and other time of the full emancipation of the Jews Protestantism disappeared, and with it consumers of culture, not to mention the of Austria in 1867, Vienna was still very went Viennese municipal self-government producers, impresarios, gallery owners much a city marked by the triumph of the and the budding free Viennese and art dealers who were the facilitators Counter-Reformation in the seventeenth Bürgertum, bearer of the values of sturdy of the cultural scene. century and the Baroque culture that it independence, free-thinking self-reliance The Jewish contribution to the culture produced there. This was most obviously and political autonomy. Instead, Vienna of Vienna in the late nineteenth and early true of the dominance of Catholicism was to become the seat of the imperial twentieth centuries extended across the and the Catholic Church, the religion court, where the high aristocracy held range of cultural and intellectual activity. of the Habsburg establishment, whose sway alongside the Catholic Church, with It encompassed a large number of famous buildings and monuments occupied a its overriding hostility to modern trends of names, as in the field of literature, to take prominent place on the city’s skyline, as thought. Vienna only regained its civic self- just one example: Arthur Schnitzler, Karl it was of the influence of Catholicism on government in the mid-nineteenth century. Kraus, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Felix Vienna’s popular and high culture. Yet in The resurgence of Catholicism had Salten, Hermann Broch, Franz Werfel, the sixteenth century Vienna had been negative consequences for the Jews. The Elias Canetti, Friedrich Torberg, Hilde very receptive to the Reformation and a Jews of Vienna had experienced periodic Spiel, Hugo Bettauer, Joseph Roth, Peter significant proportion of its citizens had bouts of persecution and expulsion over Altenberg, Stefan Zweig, Vicki Baum been Protestants. the centuries: the city’s great Catholic and Richard Beer Hoffmann. No list of The triumph of the Counter-Reformation preachers, from Johannes Capistranus Vienna’s Jews can omit the composers in the seventeenth century also saw in the fifteenth century to Abraham a Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, the triumph of the Catholic house of Sancta Clara in the seventeenth, had the conductor Bruno Walter, the director Habsburg, which, apart from its hereditary been notably hostile to Jews. In 1669, Max Reinhardt, the philosophers Ludwig rule over its Austrian lands, also held the Emperor Leopold I set about expelling Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the lawyer office of Holy Roman Emperor and thus continued overleaf AJR JOURNAL JANUARY 2013 The culture of Viennese Jewry continued AJR HOLOCAUST the Jews from Vienna, a prohibition that prestige from their position at the head MEMORIAL DAY SERVICE was not formally overturned for nearly of the Holy Roman Empire. But dynastic 'Communities Together: 200 years. The Habsburgs needed Jews tradition and religious sanction could Build a Bridge’ to finance their wars but treated them not supply the efficiency and cohesion Thursday 24 January 2013 with scant respect once they had outlived required of a modern state. Austria never 2.00 pm their usefulness. Samuel Oppenheimer, succeeded in meeting the challenges of at Belsize Square Synagogue, Leopold I’s court banker from 1680 to the modern era. In the late eighteenth 51 Belsize Square, 1703, acted as both financier and military century, the reforms of Emperor Joseph London, NW3 4HX contractor, making possible the war that II, which included the first declaration of Guest Speaker: saved Christendom from the infidel Turk tolerance for Jews, ended in failure. After Sir Andrew Burns, UK Envoy in 1683. But when he died, the regime 1789, the French Revolution confronted for Post-Holocaust Issues cancelled its debts to him and declared the Habsburg Empire with demands for Rabbi Stuart Altshuler will lead the his bank bankrupt. popular democracy and for autonomous service, during which AJR members The culture into which the Jewish self-government for national groups; but will light memorial candles and community of Vienna developed after the Habsburg autocracy never conceded Kaddish will be recited. The Akiva 1867 still contained defining elements the first demand, while the second would School Choir will participate. from the Baroque. The lavish ostentation have spelt the break-up of the multi-ethnic Please bring your children and of Baroque Catholic religious architecture Empire. The defeat of Napoleon in 1815 grandchildren, who will be very and decoration helped to create a highly was followed by a long period of reaction welcome. visual culture that appealed strongly to under the chancellorship of Metternich, Light Refreshments will be provided the senses, unlike the modest austerity broken only by the revolution of 1848. after the service. that marked Protestant, and in its way But that revolution failed. Its For catering purposes, please also Jewish culture. The sensuous aspect suppression was followed by another reserve a seat by contacting Karin of Vienna was noted by all observers, with decade of absolute rule under the new Pereira on 020 8385 3070 or at its visual pageantry, its artistic pretensions emperor, Francis Joseph, until defeat in [email protected] and its sheer love of enjoyment and self- the Italian war of 1859 forced the start indulgence, which was assisted not a little of constitutional reform, a process that by the city’s centuries-old association with culminated in the instalment of a liberal its vineyards and their products. parliamentary regime after Austria’s NATIONAL HOLOCAUST But this pleasure-loving front concealed defeat by Prussia in 1866. Even that, MEMORIAL DAY SERVICE a profound awareness of the transitory and however, proved to be a false dawn. After Monday 28 January 2012 illusory nature of existence, which found the economic crash of 1873, the liberals 3.30 pm expression in the Baroque metaphor were forced into retreat; in the 1890s, they at The Queen Elizabeth II of life as a dream. The Viennese were lost control of Vienna, their stronghold, Conference Centre, famed for their light-hearted charm, to the avowedly anti-liberal and anti- Broad Sanctuary, Westminster but that apparent frivolity contained Semitic Christian Socials. The growth There is a strictly limited number an underlying element of fatalism, of radical nationalism and the failure of of places, offered on a first-come- deriving from a sense of the unreality liberalism formed the background to first-served basis, on coaches from and impermanent insubstantiality of life, the development of Viennese Jewry in locations in North-West London and as well as an alarming propensity for the decades before 1914; along with the Ilford for refugees and survivors. brutality. It was, appropriately, in Vienna glittering prospects opened up to Jews Please contact Karin Pereira on that Sigmund Freud conceived his project by the modern metropolis, these factors 020 8385 3070 or at of the interpretation of dreams and his created the matrix from which Viennese [email protected] if you would like exploration of the influence of instinctive Jewish culture emerged. to attend and/or would like drives on the human mind.