Waltzing on Ringstrasse

An exhibition shows how Jews were involved in Emperor Franz Josef I’s grand scheme to invigorate Vienna.

By MICHAL LEVERTOV
Visitors at the Ringstrasse exhibition, Jewish Museum Vienna (photo credit: COURTESY JEWISH MUSEUM VIENNA / EVA KELETY)
Visitors at the Ringstrasse exhibition, Jewish Museum Vienna
(photo credit: COURTESY JEWISH MUSEUM VIENNA / EVA KELETY)
At the entrance to the “Ringstrasse – A Jewish boulevard” exhibition at the Jewish Museum Vienna, a huge poster awaits visitors.
Its main feature is an old photograph of an actress wearing an unusual outfit: a dress and headwear in the form of the façade of the Austrian capital’s beautiful neo-Gothic city hall.
The building, constructed in 1872, is one of the predominant public edifices on this wide, ring-shaped boulevard, built in the second half of the 19th century around the old court city. The Ringstrasse’s 150th anniversary, which is being marked this year, is the reason for this exhibition, open until October 4 at the museum’s Dorotheergasse site, and similar commemoration projects around the city.
The poster, the exhibition’s curator, Dr. Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz explains to The Jerusalem Report, portrays a costume from a satirical cabaret show run in the 1920s by two of the city’s most successful comedians, Karl Farkas and Fritz Grunbaum, both Jews. Grunbaum was murdered in 1941 in Munich’s Dachau concentration camp. Farkas managed to flee to the US, returning to Vienna in 1946 to reunite with his wife and son.
The photo was taken by Studio D’Ora-Benda, founded by Dora Kallmus, known as Madame D’Ora ‒ a leading Viennese photographer whose groundbreaking work and international acclaim paved the way for many other female photographers, like her many of them Jewish. But the Nazis put an end to her glamorous career as an art and fashion photographer. Surviving the war in the south of France, she turned her artistic interests toward the gloomy subjects of the destruction of flesh and spirit, focusing on documenting homeless people, refugees and Paris slaughter houses.
The fact that the artifacts in this exhibition contain such interconnected backgrounds is not incidental. Being an intersection of art, culture, politics and history is a distinctive trait of the Ringstrasse’s history. And from its very beginning, the Ringstrasse story is interlaced with the country’s Jews and, to a larger extent, with the wider history of European Jewry.
The Ringstrasse project was the brainchild of the young Emperor Franz Josef I. In 1857, he announced his desire to connect the inner city with the outer districts of Vienna. The 27-year-old emperor’s vision was to demolish the medieval walls and fortifications surrounding the inner city, and build on the cleared land a splendid boulevard along which major administrative and cultural buildings of the monarchy and the city would be erected, as well as parks and squares. Eight years later, in May 1865, the opening ceremony of the Ringstrasse took place.
The transformation of the city center from an aloof, fortified area occupied by a privileged elite to an open urban hub in which interconnections and a somewhat greater degree of accessibility to the state’s political, cultural and economic engines was possible for ordinary citizens, was a belated result of the 1848 revolution and its demand for individual and collective liberties. Following 10 years of post-revolution conservatism, the Ringstrasse was the harbinger of a new, liberal epoch.
FOR THE country’s Jews, both the 1848 revolution and the construction of the Ringstrasse were life-changing developments.
As Kohlbauer-Fritz notes, “Before the 1848 revolution, Jews who wished to reside in Vienna had to pay a ‘tolerance tax’ and had no rights whatsoever. The revolution launched a new era.”
In February 1860, exactly three months before the newly cleared lots went on sale, Franz Josef issued a decree permitting Jews to purchase and own land and homes. Apart from the brief period of the 1848 revolution, it was the first time the Austrian Empire granted its Jewish inhabitants such a right.
Kohlbauer-Fritz points out the direct link between the events. The emperor needed cash to finance the project, she says. Affluent Jews were quick to buy lots and invested fortunes in erecting palaces to manifest their presence in the city. They were, she explains, inspired by the belief that this was the beginning of a new era, where the hopes kindled during the 1848 revolution for cooperation between Jews and Christians could materialize.
“It was also the first time that rich Jewish families could build palaces for themselves, just like the nobility from the inner city they aspired to belong to,” she remarks.
During its numerous phases of construction – the last lots were sold in 1914 ‒ the Ringstrasse indeed displayed the prosperity of its occupants, Jews and non-Jews alike, and was a major status symbol reflecting the rise of the grand bourgeoisie and its upward move into the circle of the gentry. A good number of Jewish families based in the Ringstrasse was ennobled during the boulevard’s heyday.
It was also the home for abundant public and private institutions. Among them, the Parliament and City Hall, Vienna’s university, museums, hotels, cafés, offices and commercial venues, opera houses and theaters, and later cinemas. The novelty of an urban space accessible to all layers of society – at least to those with time and money – became for the Jews an environment where they could belong while still keeping their Jewish identity.
“The Ringstrasse’s story is an exception within Jewish history, which is mainly burdened with traumatic events,” historian Dr.
Louise Hecht tells The Report. “It is unique in the sense that, for once in this grim history, an era of innovative thinking and artistic creativity emerged out of a positive look into the future.”
Georg Gaugusch is the owner of a highend fabric store in Vienna’s first district.
Since discovering the Jewish past of the firm and of much of its prewar clientele, he has dedicated his time and resources to genealogy research of the Central European grand bourgeoisie of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and published a praised book on this topic. His recent research, focusing on the Ringstrasse Jewish families, is published in the exhibition’s catalogue.
According to his findings, of the private individuals who accounted for the purchase of 55 percent of the lots, 44 percent were Jewish ‒ far beyond their tiny segment in the wider population. Considering the fact that until then only rich Jews could afford to live in Vienna and that they were the only wealthy families in the city who until then had no real-estate holdings, this high proportion is hardly surprising,” remarks Kohlbauer-Fritz.
The earlier banning of Jews from holding land and real estate ‒ even court Jews were not granted this privilege in Vienna ‒ and the exclusion of Jews from all classic trades and handicrafts, Gaugusch explains in his essay, made the Jewish population of pre-revolution Austria the only group obliged to embark on new paths. The relatively late arrival of industrialization to Austria during the first half of the 19th century opened those paths. “And because of this,” his essay clarifies, “they benefited disproportionately from these developments.” In turn, the huge contribution of industrial production and commerce to the Austrian economy encouraged the eventual decision to allow Jews to acquire property.
The Ringstrasse’s Jewish families were keen not only to proudly and visibly integrate into the aristocracy, but also to demonstrate the interactive nature of their acculturation.
Their Jewish narratives were, therefore, implemented through all possible stratums of culture, art, science, and social and educational activities ‒ including, as the exhibition makes sure to emphasize, the formation of welfare institutions.
THE ARCHITECTURAL design of their edifices, for instance, reflected the manner with which they sought to create a dialogue with both Jewish and non-Jewish societies, as well as their interpretation of their identity as European Jews. One fascinating example is the contrast between the half-naked male sculptures on the façade of the Goldschmidt Palais ‒ one of which clearly alludes to Michelangelo’s Moses ‒ and the dressed female caryatids decorating the palaces built by Todesco, Ephrussi and Epstein.
In a fascinating essay in the exhibition’s catalogue, Dr. Elana Shapira points out how while the latter “are recognizable as a proud representation of their link to the Hellenistic- Jewish heritage,” Goldschmidt’s façade reflects “a proud reclamation of the heritage of the national heroes of the Old Testament.”
The choice for such a representation – Goldschmidt’s palace was designed by the Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny who among his many activities, was also one of the founders of Vienna’s first Jewish museum in 1897 – was hardly mere inter-Jewish dialogue.
“Given the prejudice that Jewish men are ugly,” Shapira writes, “it was not common to exhibit nudes of partly dressed Jewish male models as erotic symbols in public.”
The shaping of Jewish presence in Vienna’s domestic and public spheres during the Ringstrasse era is also at the center of Louise Hecht’s essay published in the catalogue.
Through the story of the Schey Palais, built in 1863 by the Hungarian-born wholesale merchant and banker Friedrich Schey, she illustrates the innovative paths chosen by the Ringstrasse Jews to mold an environment that would contain and develop their identity as Jews committed to their heritage and community; as rising high bourgeoisie seeking to strengthen their class’s standing and economic interests while adopting aristocratic practices; as founders of their recently ennobled families’ legacies, and as self-confident members of Austrian society.
Thus, for example, to build his palace, Schey consciously commissioned a couple of non-Jewish architects who had formerly designed a synagogue in Brno. “Despite hampering restrictions at the time on buildings for Jewish worship, these architects succeeded in lending the synagogue a uniquely Jewish atmosphere. An achievement Schey was undoubtedly well aware of,” says Hecht.
Another important feature in Schey’s legacy, she points out, was donating the palais’s top apartment as lifelong accommodation for accomplished Viennese writers and poets. The first resident was Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, who resided there until his death in 1877. Mosenthal was a known Jewish playwright whose work, despite presentindividuals who accounted for the purchase of 55 percent of the lots, 44 percent were Jewish ‒ far beyond their tiny segment in the wider population. Considering the fact that until then only rich Jews could afford to live in Vienna and that they were the only wealthy families in the city who until then had no real-estate holdings, this high proportion is hardly surprising,” remarks Kohlbauer-Fritz.
The earlier banning of Jews from holding land and real estate ‒ even court Jews were not granted this privilege in Vienna ‒ and the exclusion of Jews from all classic trades and handicrafts, Gaugusch explains in his essay, made the Jewish population of pre-revolution Austria the only group obliged to embark on new paths. The relatively late arrival of industrialization to Austria during the first half of the 19th century opened those paths. “And because of this,” his essay clarifies, “they benefited disproportionately from these developments.” In turn, the huge contribution of industrial production and commerce to the Austrian economy encouraged the eventual decision to allow Jews to acquire property.
The Ringstrasse’s Jewish families were keen not only to proudly and visibly integrate into the aristocracy, but also to demonstrate the interactive nature of their acculturation.
Their Jewish narratives were, therefore, implemented through all possible stratums of culture, art, science, and social and educational activities ‒ including, as the exhibition makes sure to emphasize, the formation of welfare institutions.
THE ARCHITECTURAL design of their edifices, for instance, reflected the manner with which they sought to create a dialogue with both Jewish and non-Jewish societies, as well as their interpretation of their identity as European Jews. One fascinating example is the contrast between the half-naked male sculptures on the façade of the Goldschmidt Palais ‒ one of which clearly alludes to Michelangelo’s Moses ‒ and the dressed female caryatids decorating the palaces built by Todesco, Ephrussi and Epstein.
In a fascinating essay in the exhibition’s catalogue, Dr. Elana Shapira points out how while the latter “are recognizable as a proud representation of their link to the Hellenistic- Jewish heritage,” Goldschmidt’s façade reflects “a proud reclamation of the heritage of the national heroes of the Old Testament.”
The choice for such a representation – Goldschmidt’s palace was designed by the Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny who among his many activities, was also one of the founders of Vienna’s first Jewish museum in 1897 – was hardly mere inter-Jewish dialogue.
“Given the prejudice that Jewish men are ugly,” Shapira writes, “it was not common to exhibit nudes of partly dressed Jewish male models as erotic symbols in public.”
The shaping of Jewish presence in Vienna’s domestic and public spheres during the Ringstrasse era is also at the center of Louise Hecht’s essay published in the catalogue.
Through the story of the Schey Palais, built in 1863 by the Hungarian-born wholesale merchant and banker Friedrich Schey, she illustrates the innovative paths chosen by the Ringstrasse Jews to mold an environment that would contain and develop their identity as Jews committed to their heritage and community; as rising high bourgeoisie seeking to strengthen their class’s standing and economic interests while adopting aristocratic practices; as founders of their recently ennobled families’ legacies, and as self-confident members of Austrian society.
Thus, for example, to build his palace, Schey consciously commissioned a couple of non-Jewish architects who had formerly designed a synagogue in Brno. “Despite hampering restrictions at the time on buildings for Jewish worship, these architects succeeded in lending the synagogue a uniquely Jewish atmosphere. An achievement Schey was undoubtedly well aware of,” says Hecht.
Another important feature in Schey’s legacy, she points out, was donating the palais’s top apartment as lifelong accommodation for accomplished Viennese writers and poets. The first resident was Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, who resided there until his death in 1877. Mosenthal was a known Jewish playwright whose work, despite presentindividuals who accounted for the purchase of 55 percent of the lots, 44 percent were Jewish ‒ far beyond their tiny segment in the wider population. Considering the fact that until then only rich Jews could afford to live in Vienna and that they were the only wealthy families in the city who until then had no real-estate holdings, this high proportion is hardly surprising,” remarks Kohlbauer-Fritz.
The earlier banning of Jews from holding land and real estate ‒ even court Jews were not granted this privilege in Vienna ‒ and the exclusion of Jews from all classic trades and handicrafts, Gaugusch explains in his essay, made the Jewish population of pre-revolution Austria the only group obliged to embark on new paths. The relatively late arrival of industrialization to Austria during the first half of the 19th century opened those paths. “And because of this,” his essay clarifies, “they benefited disproportionately from these developments.” In turn, the huge contribution of industrial production and commerce to the Austrian economy encouraged the eventual decision to allow Jews to acquire property.
The Ringstrasse’s Jewish families were keen not only to proudly and visibly integrate into the aristocracy, but also to demonstrate the interactive nature of their acculturation.
Their Jewish narratives were, therefore, implemented through all possible stratums of culture, art, science, and social and educational activities ‒ including, as the exhibition makes sure to emphasize, the formation of welfare institutions.
THE ARCHITECTURAL design of their edifices, for instance, reflected the manner with which they sought to create a dialogue with both Jewish and non-Jewish societies, as well as their interpretation of their identity as European Jews. One fascinating example is the contrast between the half-naked male sculptures on the façade of the Goldschmidt Palais ‒ one of which clearly alludes to Michelangelo’s Moses ‒ and the dressed female caryatids decorating the palaces built by Todesco, Ephrussi and Epstein.
In a fascinating essay in the exhibition’s catalogue, Dr. Elana Shapira points out how while the latter “are recognizable as a proud representation of their link to the Hellenistic- Jewish heritage,” Goldschmidt’s façade reflects “a proud reclamation of the heritage of the national heroes of the Old Testament.”
The choice for such a representation – Goldschmidt’s palace was designed by the Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny who among his many activities, was also one of the founders of Vienna’s first Jewish museum in 1897 – was hardly mere inter-Jewish dialogue.
“Given the prejudice that Jewish men are ugly,” Shapira writes, “it was not common to exhibit nudes of partly dressed Jewish male models as erotic symbols in public.”
The shaping of Jewish presence in Vienna’s domestic and public spheres during the Ringstrasse era is also at the center of Louise Hecht’s essay published in the catalogue.
Through the story of the Schey Palais, built in 1863 by the Hungarian-born wholesale merchant and banker Friedrich Schey, she illustrates the innovative paths chosen by the Ringstrasse Jews to mold an environment that would contain and develop their identity as Jews committed to their heritage and community; as rising high bourgeoisie seeking to strengthen their class’s standing and economic interests while adopting aristocratic practices; as founders of their recently ennobled families’ legacies, and as self-confident members of Austrian society.
Thus, for example, to build his palace, Schey consciously commissioned a couple of non-Jewish architects who had formerly designed a synagogue in Brno. “Despite hampering restrictions at the time on buildings for Jewish worship, these architects succeeded in lending the synagogue a uniquely Jewish atmosphere. An achievement Schey was undoubtedly well aware of,” says Hecht.
Another important feature in Schey’s legacy, she points out, was donating the palais’s top apartment as lifelong accommodation for accomplished Viennese writers and poets. The first resident was Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, who resided there until his death in 1877. Mosenthal was a known Jewish playwright whose work, despite presenting a controversial take on assimilation, was condoned by Jews and non-Jews alike; an impressive achievement in a city so famous for its tendency toward conformism.
THE NEXT owner of Schey Palais, Jacob Rapoport, kept the tradition and hosted Ludwig August Frankl, a renowned writer and journalist and a prominent leader in Vienna’s Jewish community. Frankl took an active part in the 1848 revolution, drafting his cultural journal to promote revolutionary calls for freedom of speech and emancipation for Jews. He founded the secular Lemel School in Jerusalem, and established a school for blind Jewish children in Vienna – the country’s most progressive institute of its time and the first institution in the monarchy to address blind Jewish girls and boys, who were categorically rejected from the existing imperial and royal schools for reasons of “dietary laws.”
Frankl was an avid campaigner for the erection of monuments to cultural heroes.
“Frankl’s politics of memorialization first and foremost intended to promote the cultural heroes of Vienna’s bourgeoisies and to appropriate public space that until then had been the exclusive enclave of the aristocracy,” Hecht explains. Endorsing the memory of Beethoven, Gluck, Schiller and others through monuments, she adds, ultimately immortalized the initiator of this campaign and further enriched the public Jewish presence in the city.
The Jewish burghers of Ringstrasse embodied their enthusiasm for creating Jewish- Christian shared space through culture and science by patronage and financing of theaters, museums and academic institutions, as well as “low culture” projects such as the Prater amusement park on the other side of the Danube Canal (its Ferris wheel is a known Viennese landmark).
They collected and donated artworks and – true to their period – ethnographic artifacts from around the world. They conducted vivacious salon meetings at their homes, with mixed participants and subjects of interest.
The exhibition also addresses the suppressive nature of the salon culture, where women, expected to dedicate themselves to the domestic role of the attentive hostess, were deprived of the opportunity to realize their own artistic aspirations. Their undeniable contribution to the Ringstrasse collective cultural project, therefore, in many cases came at the expense of their own mental and physical health.
In the 1980s, the Schey Palais was used as a shooting location for a highly popular Austrian TV series “Ringstrassenpalais.”
The drama series followed the family history of a fictional Ringstrasse magnate with Jewish roots. Hecht points out that the series hardly refers to the Jewishness of the protagonists or the increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere in Vienna toward the end of the 19th century, especially after the 1873 crash of the city’s stock exchange. Rather, she says, the series not only promoted the misperception of assimilation as an attempt to hide Jewish identity, but also belittled the role of anti-Semitism in the country’s history.
“The opening scene of the series refers to Austria’s defeat by the Prussian army in 1866 and to the consequent weakening of the monarchy, but it fails to mention the positive result of this political weakness: the liberal constitution from 1867 that granted a high degree of personal freedom and that abolished legal discrimination against Jews.
‘Ringstrassenpalais’ adopts the victim narrative, which dominated Austria’s conception of history until the late 1980s and allowed Austrians to reject responsibility for their political actions,” she writes.
Historian Dr. Dieter J. Hecht, Louise’s husband, who recently co-published a new book titled “The Topography of the Shoah” about destroyed Jewish sites in Vienna, remarks that the Ringstrasse “has turned into a non-authentic place.”
Today, summarizes Hecht, whose essay in the exhibition’s catalogue researches the Aryanization of the Ringstrasse’s Jewish assets during the Nazi era and the fate of some of their owners, “the Ringstrasse is preserved as a fossilized monument, a setting for chain hotels and ticket sellers dressed like Mozart.”