New Approaches to a History of Jews in Vienna around 1900

The scope of the proposed project is to write a history of Jews in Vienna around 1900 that is conceived as an integral component of general history. This proposal stems from the observation that current narratives regarding the Jewish past, as with any other ethnic-cultural group, are predominantly narratives of particularity. In this project, we, Susanne Korbel and Klaus Hödl, argue that this emphasis on particularity often leads to a one-sided, somewhat distorted, historical account, and we seek to revise and modify this distorted account by writing an integrative narrative. We plan to undertake this project, which is principally located at the intersection of history and Jewish Studies (but is relevant to other related disciplines as well), through the use of new analytical concepts. The central questions posed here refer to the complex network of relationships that have historically connected Jews and non-Jews, taking into account not only their cultural differences but also their similarities.

In our project New Approaches to a History of Jews in Vienna around 1900 (P31036), we researched social interactions between Jews and non-Jews. We began this project with the primary hypothesis that the everyday lives of Jews and non-Jews in the Habsburg capital at the beginning of the twentieth century were characterized by a wide array of points of contact. Our project's findings indicate that Jews and non-Jews interacted with each other in school, at work, while shopping, on the street, and at many other places and in many other contexts. As a result of the source material identified in our study, we seek to revise the hitherto dominant scholarly conclusion that most Jews and non-Jews had little to no contact with one another during the activities that made up their daily lives. Indeed, the data that we gathered during our study reveal that it was impossible to conduct one's daily life in early twentieth-century Vienna without participating in the public sphere; therefore, Jews and non-Jews must have had a continuous stream of contact with one another. Our project findings thus correct the prevailing historical narrative by convincingly demonstrating that Jews did not live isolated in separate districts of the city, apart from non-Jews. This insight in turn prompted a series of research questions that were particularly relevant for our project: Is it necessary to differentiate between the effects of brief, fleeting interactions on the one hand, and more meaningful connections on the other? What kinds of spaces and circumstances nurtured lasting contacts between Jews and non-Jews? While we are not yet able to provide unequivocal answers to these and other related questions, we can, however, draw preliminary conclusions. The most revelatory conclusion of our work thus far is that regular contacts between Jews and non-Jews, as they occurred at the workplace, in school, or during various leisure activities, did not always lead the Viennese to dismantle prejudices; nevertheless, the development of crisis-resistant relationships served to significantly minimize predominant negative preconceptions. As a result of our work, we also concluded that the prevailing historical assertion that divisions between Jews and non-Jews contributed to antisemitism requires further investigation. Because we have ascertained that Jews and non-Jews in fact lived in perpetual contact with each other, we have concluded along similar lines that the Viennese did not see themselves first and foremost as Jews or non-Jews, but rather in terms of gender, employment, or belonging to a particular city district. For this reason, we will have to return to the question of what caused antisemitism in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century. A conclusive answer to this question will require further research within the scope of a future project.