The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph
This highly acclaimed study depicts and evaluates in an original and imaginative fashion the 'Golden Age' of Viennese Jewry during the long reign of Emperor Franz Joseph II. Based on exhaustive and meticulous research, Professor Wistrich's reconstruction of the place of the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire provides a multitude of new insights not only into the factors that accompanied its rise, but also into the ideological conflicts that have marked the twentieth century.
About the author
Robert S. Wistrich holds the Neuberger Chair of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is also Director of its Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism. The recipient of many international awards, he is the author and editor of many books, including Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary (1984), published by the Littman Library, as well as Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, Understanding the Holocaust, Hitler and the Holocaust, Obsession: Radical Islam and the West, and Masters and Victims: Jewish Fate in Central Europe. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Oxford, and Brandeis universities and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.
Publication details
| Format | 21.5 x 13.5 cm / 5.5" x 8.5" |
| Pages | 712 pages, 8 pages plates, 3 text figures, map |
| ISBN | 978-1-904113-49-2 |
| Price | £27.95 / $45.00 |
| Date of publication | 1989; 1990 paperback, re-issued 2006 |
Contents
Preface
List of illustrations
Part 1 The Community
1 From the Ghetto to Revolution
2 Migration to the Kaiserstadt
3 Philanthropy,
Politics, and the Ostjuden
4 Three Viennese Preachers
5 Liberalism, Deutschtum,
and Assimilation
6 Parvenus, Patriots, and Protected Jews
Part 2 Self-Defence against Antiseimitism
7 The New Austrian Antisemitism
8 Adolf Jellinek and the Liberal Response
9
Joseph Bloch: Rabbi, Parliamentarian, and Publicist
10 The Austrian Israelite
Union
Part 3 The Rise of Zionism
11 Kadimah and Jewish Student Nationalism
12 The Metamorphoses of Nathan Birnbaum
13 Theodor Herzl: The Making of a Political Messiah
14 Zionism and its Jewish
Critics
Part 4 Culture and Identity
15 Prophets of Doom: Karl Kraus and Otto Weininger
16 The Jewish Identity of
Sigmund Freud
17 Arthur Schnitzler's Road to the Open
18 Imperial Sawn-Song:
From Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
Selected Bibliography
Glossary of terms not explained in the text
Index
Reviews
'Fascinating . . . both encyclopedic and brilliantly researched and beyond
question will remain, far longer than several other recent productions concerning
turn-of-the-century Viennese Jewry, both interesting to general readers and
useful to scholars . . . an important book.'
William McCagg, American Historical Review
'Parmi les plus récent ouvrages, signalons l'étude fondamentale
de Robert S. Wistrich . . .'
P. Ginewski, Diaspora
'Monumental . . . hugely informative.'
Norman Lebrecht, Jewish Chronicle
'Wistrich combines such a wealth of information, such elegance of style,
and such maturity of judgement, that one reads his book with considerable intellectual
pleasure. His final section, on culture and identity . . . is so enjoyable that
one regrets that Wistrich did not take the story down to 1938.'
Frank Field, English Historical Review
'Masterly'
John Warren, Immigrants and Minorities
'Masterly . . . He does indeed provide a detailed and multi-faceted picture,
highlighting the diversity of the community and its concomitant tensions. It
is a serious and detailed historical work . . . a book which has rightly been
described by Professor Peter Pulzer as "the standard work for some time to come".'
Alastair Falk, Le'Ela
'The excellence of his book lies . . . in the high quality of scholarship,
the sensivity to nuance, the desire to map the entire Jewish response to the
crisis of the empire in all its complexity.'
New York Review of Books
'Exemplary scholarly analysis . . . the first well-written, reliable study
of its kind, it vindicates the centrality of Jewishness and anti-semitism .
. . in the evolution of nineteenth-century Austro-German politics and culture.'
New York Times Book Review
'Comprehensive and detailed . . . at its best in recounting the internal
struggles within Viennese Jewry, and the second of its four parts, dealing with
the decline of liberalism, the rise of Zionism, and the campaigns of Bloch and
his Osterreichische-Israelitische Union can be particularly recommended.'
Peter Pulzer, Polin
Prizes
Arnold Wiznitzer Prize for Jewish History 1989
Anton Gindely Staatspreis for the History of the Danubian Monarchy 1992
