Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars

by Lisa Silverman

The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and economic turmoil, but Jews in particular found their lives shaken to the core. Although Jews' former comfort zone suddenly disappeared, the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy also created plenty of room for innovation and change in the realm of culture. Jews eagerly took up the challenge to fill this void, and they became heavily invested in culture as a way to shape their new, but also vexed, self-understandings.

By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds.

But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kaesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was obviously pretty heavy and dealt a lot with antisemitism, so it wasn't generally a fun read, but it was interesting, and it certainly wasn't all doom and gloom; there was plenty of discussion of people who were proud of or joyful in being Jewish, which is something I'm realizing I wish I read about more. (Also, unrelatedly, I would like to read about more stagecraft involving use of incidental pigeons in public squares.)

It was incredibly academic at times, and often referred to Jewish identity in terms borrowed from or related to gender identity and gender theory, which made some things click in my head, definitely, but if you're unfamiliar with that kind of terminology and also have relatively few weird and heavy experiences living as a person with a non-default/marked identity of any kind, it might be confusing.

Anyway, I found parts of it a bit dull but a lot of it was absolutely fascinating, sometimes in a morbid way and sometimes just "damn, I would never have learned anything about this very specific historical thing had I not picked up this book, but I'm glad I know now."

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. I’d really like to read more about Jewish constructions of identity and experience under the Austro-Hungarian empire- there’s a wealth of information to explore.