“Vienna Is Different”: Jewish Writers in Austria from the Fin-de-Siècle to the Present by Hilary Hope Herzog (review)

Why is Vienna different? Is there something underlying the more visible grandeur of this Habsburg city that speaks to that difference? It is the complexity of this promotional slogan that spurred the author’s curiosity to delve deeper into this city whose culture was fostered and enhanced by its Jewish population. Indeed, the number of Jews in Vienna was highly disproportionate to the majority Christian population; however, the prolific influence cannot be denied. Using Carl Schorske’s definitive work Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture and Steven Beller’s Vienna and the Jews as springboards, Herzog looks deeper into the politics, social conditions, and psychological issues (identity, father-son relationships) that affected the direction of Jewish writers, who were wedged between their Jewish world and families and the more hostile yet culture-hungry Viennese population. Herzog follows this literary tradition from 1900 to the present era, giving the reader new insight into her chosen authors and the roadblocks they all had to face.

The questions of identity and acculturation are analyzed in this work using the city of Vienna as the backdrop, with a thorough analysis of the Jewish relationship to the city and the city’s culture. From their perch between cultures, the Jews had a unique vantage point, Herzog argues, and as a result, they were continually creating literature that went against mainstream norms. Herzog begins her work with an account of how Vienna came to be a center of Jewish life, from the Emancipation to the lifting of restrictions on occupation and residency. The burgeoning population of the urbanized Jew defined upward mobility. This desire to rise up in society, coupled with cultural and social factors, created a vibrant and lively intellectual center for the Viennese as a whole. Yet, anti-Semitism cannot be denied—its dark face had deep influence on the work of many writers, such as Arthur Schnitzler. The toll of anti-Semitism on Jewish writers is well documented by the author in chapters 1 and 2.

In addition to anti-Semitism, the author also tackles the problems associated with being caught between cultures without a collective identity. Neither wholly Jewish nor completely accepted as Austrian by Austrian society, Herzog asserts that this is perhaps the collective identity of the Jewish population. This was a phenomenon of the fin de siècle period and would lead the Jewish artists and writers into an even more volatile postwar experience later on. Using various writers such as Schnitzler, Herzl and Kraus, in addition to Beer-Hoffman and Hofmannsthal, Herzog draws upon her research to clarify the position of the Jew within the confines of the city. During the interwar period, the Jews are looked at as Austrian loyalists. “Austrian Jews were adherents of German culture, but they were not Germans [. . .] but it was not possible for Jews to similarly endorse a German identity defined in national and ethnic terms” (99). Herzog defines this as a new identity crisis for the Jews, as some, such as Beer-Hoffman, committ ed anew to their faith, while others began to refer more to old Jewish texts, canons, and legends in order to reinforce a Jewish identity not prominent during the fin de siècle period. Herzog brilliantly analyzes the emotions of the interwar period and reflects on Schnitzler’s and Salten’s works. She concludes that many Jews were presented with just two options: either Socialism or Jewish Nationalism. Anti-Semitism, therefore, seems to have reinforced the Jewishness that many Jews were not otherwise eager to embrace.

The most interesting part of the book, in this reviewer’s opinion, is the Jewish contribution to Austrian culture after the war. Despite decimation by emigration and the Holocaust, there was a small population of Jews leftin Vienna. For those who had emigrated, they were free to return...