On Jews and property in provincial Central Europe: Leopold Kompert’s 1848 publications

ABSTRACT

Bohemian-born Jewish author Leopold Kompert (1822–1886) is best known for Aus dem Ghetto (1848), his popular tales of provincial Jewish life featuring pious men and women who eke out a living and try to maintain religious traditions amid the temptations of modernity. However, at the same time he also wrote a number of newspaper articles, among them a biography of Jewish tobacco and wax merchant and financier Israel Hönig von Hönigsberg (1724–1808). Considered together, Kompert’s fiction and non-fiction suggest that owning property played a significant – if at times conflicted – role for Jews in the decades preceding emancipation. Analyzing these texts helps show how property, both literal and symbolic, could be used to clarify and critique Jews’ experiences of acculturation, migration, and secularization in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Lisa Silverman is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Contributing Editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year-Book. She is author of Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars (Oxford University Press, 2012) and co-author with Daniel H. Magilow of Holocaust Representations in History: an Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2015, 2nd edition forthcoming 2019).

Notes

1 According to Karl Emil Franzos, Kompert claimed that the stories in Aus dem Ghetto are autobiographical: See “Leopold Kompert,” December 3, 1886. See also von Glasenapp, Aus der Judengasse, 111n 55. The common view of Kompert’s literature is that he idealized premodern Jewish life, in contrast to the more negative depictions of Franzos. See. Cohen, “Nostalgia,” 130–55; here 145–6.

2 Kompert was the first among to become famous for writing in this genre, which was understood as referring to the entirety of premodern Jewish life rather than actual, walled ghettos in which few Central European Jews actually lived. See Hess, Middlebrow Literature, 75. See also Krobb, “‘Durch heutige Sprache’,” 159–70.

3 See Gollance, “Harmonious Instability.”

4 Although the narrator refers to the setting as a “ghetto,” it is actually more likely a Judengasse or specific area where Jews lived in a market town. Indeed, “ghetto literature” reached its high point at the moment when Bohemian ghettos were dissolving. See Winkelbauer, “Leopold Kompert und die böhmischen Landjuden,” 190–217.

5 On the schlemiel in literature, see Wisse, The Schlemiel as Modern Hero; Pinsker, The Schlemiel as Metaphor; Sazaki, “The Assimilating Fool?” 1–14.

6 Kompert, “Schlemiel,” 4.

7 See Friesel, “The Oesterreichisches Central-organ,” 117–49 and Hecht, “Self-assertion in the Public Sphere.” According to Hecht, it was the most important Jewish periodical in Vienna in 1848.

8 Both the Centralorgan and the Kalender (also called Almanach) were edited by Isidor Busch (1822–1898). Israel Hönig von Hönigsberg was Busch’s great-grandfather. See Hecht, “Self-assertion in the Public Sphere,” 2.

9 See Hecht, “‘Geschichte der Großen Israels’,” 85–109; 105–6 and Jeitteles, “Israel Hönig Edler,” 335–41.

10 Kompert, “Israel Hönig Edler von Hönigsberg,” 120–44; 136.

11 In the market towns of eighteenth-century Habsburg lands, Jews’ ability to settle, trade, and enjoy some communal autonomy and religious freedom depended upon whether they were issued the charters or privileges to do so by the local aristocracy. Once they were granted community rights, they were allowed to own property. After 1726 in Bohemia and Moravia, some Jewish houses were even relocated in order to segregate them from those of Christians, thus creating true Judengassen (Jewish streets). On the other hand, Jews in Hungary and Galicia were not subjected to such restrictions. See Silber, “Habsburg Jewry,” 769–71.

12 See, for example, Abrams, “Bookends of Bohemian Jewish Identity,” 282–98.

13 Sperber, Property and Civil Society, 255.

14 Ibid., 255.

15 Sorkin, “Emancipation.”

16 Rechter, “Western and Central European Jewry,” 376–95; 387.

17 On Bohemian Jews’ ownership and acquisition of immovable property, see Leininger, Auszug aus dem Ghetto, 103–18.

18 Kieval, Languages of Community, 65–6.

19 Abrams, “Bookends of Bohemian Jewish Identity,” 282–98; 284.

20 Hecht, “Self-assertion in the Public Sphere,” 6.

21 Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna, 21–2.

22 Kompert, “Für unsere arme Juden,” 19–20 and 36–7.

23 Translation of Kompert, “Für unsere arme Juden,” cited in Shatzky, “Jewish Ideologies in Austria,” 413–37; here 434.

24 Shatzky, “Jewish Ideologies in Austria,” 435.

25 Friesel, “The Oesterreichisches Central-organ,” 125.

26 Krobb, Selbstdarstellungen, 87.

27 Kompert, “Schlemiel,” 8.

28 Ibid., 34–5.

29 Ibid., 11.

30 Ibid., 12.

31 “Baal-Bayit,” which means home-owner in Yiddish and modern Hebrew, actually implies “wealthy,” “from a good family,” and even “employer,” associations that stem from this early connection. See Kestenberg-Gladstein, Neuere Geschichte der Juden, 15–19, esp. 19. Many thanks to Louise Hecht for this reference.

32 Kompert, “Schlemiel,” 51.

33 On the relationship between the author/poet and the schlemiel, including Heinrich Heine’s literary example in his poem “Jehuda ben Halevy,” in Romancero (1851), see Sazaki, “The Assimilating Fool,” 9.

34 Kompert, “Schlemiel,” 14.

35 As well as conferring special rights, Kestenberg-Gladstein suggests that ownership or partial ownership of a house served as a factor in social distinction among Jews. See Neuere Geschichte, 15–19; “Differences of Estates,” 156–66; “The Home as a Pillar of Support 176–90,” 282–94.

36 Iggers, “Leopold Kompert, Romancier of the Bohemian Ghetto,” 117–38; 130. See also Glasenapp and Horch, Ghettoliteratur.

37 See “Am Pflug,” 372 in Leopold Komperts Sämtliche Werke. Cited in Kestenberg-Gladstein, Heraus aus der ‘Gasse.’ 102 n.37. See also Leininger, Auszug aus dem Ghetto, 118.

38 Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna, 25–6.

39 Kisch, “The Revolution of 1848,” 185–234; 187.

40 Hecht, “Self-assertion in the Public Sphere,” 6.

41 Kompert, “‘Aufruf’ and ‘Auf, nach Amerika!’” 89–90, reprinted in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 38 (1948/1949): 198–201 and 203–6).

42 Kompert, “‘Aufruf’ and ‘Auf, nach Amerika!’” 205.

43 As Dieter Hecht points out, Isidor Busch, editor of both the Österreichische Centralorgan and the Kalender, chose to emigrate to America. See Hecht, “Self-assertion in the Public Sphere,” 6.

44 Morais, “Leopold Kompert,” 10

45 Kompert, “Israel Hönig Edler von Hönigsberg,” 120–1.

46 Hecht, “Von jüdischen Tabakbaronen,” 203–23; 203.

47 Ibid., 206.

48 Ibid., 207.

49 Ibid., 213.

50 Löbel Hönig died in 1768. See Ibid., 215.

51 Ibid., 215–6.

52 Lohrmann, Zwischen Finanz und Toleranz, 30, 37, 38. Joseph II would later abolish these laws. See Silber, “Habsburg Jewry,” 783–4.

53 Hainisch, “Das österreichische Tabakmonopol,” 394–444.

54 Louise Hecht also points out that that the company only included Löbel in name. See Hecht, “Von jüdischen Tabakbaronen,” 216.

55 Ibid., 216.

56 Ibid., 217.

57 Hecht, “Jewish Families.”

58 The Mauerbach Monastery took ownership of the property in 1371, but in 1366 previous owner Konrad von Velm of the Deutschen Ritterorden had leased a portion to Viennese Jews. See http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/noe-burgen-online/result/burgid/1300. It is not clear whether this fact played a role in the hostility Hönigsberg faced from the Estates at the end of the eighteenth century.

59 Mittenzwei, “Das stille Ringen,” 691–706; 695, n 27.

60 Lind, “Juden in den habsburgischen Ländern,” 339–445; 432.

61 Mittenzwei, “Das stille Ringen,” 696.

62 Burger, Heimatrecht und Staatsbürgerschaft, 49.

63 Hecht, “Between Toleration and Emancipation,” 5.

64 Katz, Out of the Ghetto, 184. Katz notes that this was also common practice in Bavaria, where a non-Jew was often used as a silent partner because Jews could not buy and resell property. See Katz, Out of the Ghetto, 253n 36.

65 Zimmermann, Wilhelm Marr, 122.

66 Godsey, The Sinews of Habsburg Power, 297.

67 There were two Estates of the nobility in Lower Austria – lords (Herrenstand) and knights (Ritterstand). These continued to be the only two political Estates through the nineteenth century. See Godsey, The Sinews of Habsburg Power, 9 and Godsey, “Nation, Government,” 49–85; 55.

68 Ibid., 66.

69 Godsey, The Sinews of Habsburg Power, 297.

70 Kompert, “Israel Hönig Edler von Hönigsberg,” 137–8.

71 Godsey, “Nation, Government,” 69, esp. n.97.

72 Ibid., 69.

73 Ibid., 55.

74 Kompert, “Israel Hönig Edler von Hönigsberg,” 136.

75 Mittenzwei, “Das stille Ringen,” 691–706; 701.

76 Lind, “Juden in den habsburgischen Ländern,” 432, n 488. Lind also notes that at least one baptized Jew, whose wife and son did not convert, was able to purchase land in 1778.

77 Godsey, “Nation, Government” 71.

78 Lind, “Juden in den habsburgischen Ländern,” 428.

79 Ibid., 349.

80 Hess, Middlebrow Literature, 90.

81 Ibid. Hess also notes that the protagonist of “Die Kinder des Randars,” a better-known story from Aus dem Ghetto, also remains trapped in the ghetto at the end. See Hess, Middlebrow Literature, 90.

82 Kompert, “Israel Hönig Edler von Hönigsberg,”127.

83 Hecht, “Von jüdischen Tabakbaronen,” 203–23; 220–1.