Erzählungen aus dem jüdischen Familienleben by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, Ruth Klüger

Abstract

214 Reviews essays concerned somuch with history, little impression emerges of themodernity ofGrillparzer's plays. The volume isgenerally well presented, although even thenewer essays are in the old orthography, and there are a number of printing errors. A four-page bibliography lists items up to 1995 but isdominated, perhaps understandably, by earlier criticswho will have helped to shape Konrad Schaum's views (it is interesting that one of the two unpublished articles contains no footnotes or bibliographical references). University of Reading Ian F. Roe Erz?hlungen aus demj?dischen Familienleben. By Salomon Hermann Mosenthal and ed. by Ruth Kl?ger. G?ttingen: Wallstein. 2001. 218 pp. 22,00. isbn 3-89244-201-0. Salomon Hermann Mosenthal's life was one of the success stories of liberalAustria in the second half of the nineteenth century. His career also encapsulates and symbolizes the central tendencies of this century's history: born in 1821, in post Napoleonic, Metternichian times, when some of the improvements regarding, amongst many other things, the status ofJews in societywere being revised for the worse, Mosenthal came to prominence inVienna during the years of upheaval 1848/49 with the play Deborah, his treatment of the questions facing Jews and Christians during thisperiod, which was at the same time a tribute toJoseph IF s enlightened rule.Other successes followed, amongst them thepieces Der Sonnenwend hofand Pietra and the libretto toOtto Nicolai's operetta version ofTheMerry Wives of Windsor. His productivity dried up in the 1860s, but by thenhe had become a public figure upon whom many honours had been bestowed ? honorary doctorates, the title of KaiserlicherRat, headship of the library at the Education Ministry ? the pinnacle being his elevation to the title of Ritter von Mosenthal in 1871. In his standard work Literatur undLiberalismus.Zur Kultur derRingstra?enzeit in Wien (1992), Karlheinz Rossbacher reproduces Mosenthal's portrait alongside those ofAnzen gruber, Ebner-Eschenbach, Saar and Bauernfeld, thus defining him as one of the true representatives of the era. In some ways Mosenthal's life resembles that of Leopold Komp?rt, who was only one year his junior. However, while Komp?rt (also in the eventful years of 1848/49) established himself as an advocate ofJewish concerns and a chronicler of traditional Jewish life (cf.his collection Aus demGhetto and many subsequent works of ghetto fiction), Mosenthal, after Deborah, only revisited Jewish themes shortly before his death in 1877, when the five stories collected in thevolume under review firstappeared in theweekly ?ber Land und Meer in 1876/77. Surprisingly fora writer whose name is so intimately associated with theViennese cultural scene, all of the stories are set inMosenthal's native Kassel and the surrounding Upper Hessian region during the firstdecades of the nineteenth century. In his narratives, Mosenthal depicts incidents inwhich the process of modernization, i.e. the confrontation of the traditional Jewish community with increasingly seductive influences from thenon-Jewish environment, leads to conflict and thenecessity to react. One point inquestion is Raschelchen's musical career (in the storyofthat name), thepursuit ofwhich would have necessitated her conversion. AUSTRIAN STUDIES, II, 2OO3 215 The message of the text, evident in her sacrifice of fame beyond her native community, is not against progress as such, but against progress that would undermine the foundations of theJewish faith.To staywith themusical theme a little longer, progress that is reconcilable with Jewish lifeeven creates new heroes; theCantor who lives only forhis art, for themodern sacredmusic that, even though it was not part of traditional Jewish forms ofworship, could stillbe accommodated productively, isone of thefigures inquestion: 'Ch?re undMelodien f?r den neuen Tempel sollten systematisch aufNoten gesetzt werden und Herr Hornstein arbeitete unausgesetzt inFugen und Contrapunkten' (p. 133).Music isnot the only field in which some degree of openness is shown as beneficial and assisting the cautious transition of theJewish community: other examples are physical exercise, modern healthcare, secular education and tentative Gottesdienstreform. In the story 'Raaf's Mine' the new ideas are concentrated in thefigure of thenew temple's new Rabbi, Henoch, who (on pp. 74, 98 and elsewhere) gives passionate definitions of the role and responsibilities of themodern, educated Jewish Seelsorger, outlining the reasons for his preference for sermons inGerman, and addressing many...