Why a 100-year-old film about a 'City Without Jews' seems disturbingly prescient today

[Behind the Aegis]

The 1924 film ‘The City Without Jews’ was directed by Hans Karl Breslauer. Courtesy of Center for Jewish History

Make Utopia great again — by deporting the Jews.

That is the premise of the 1924 German silent film, The City Without Jews, which was screened most recently at the Center for Jewish History by the Jewish Music Forum, with live accompanying music provided by Klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and pianist Donald Sosin. The two composed the music during the COVID lockdown and have performed what they call “Cineconcerts” around the U.S., Canada and Austria, with more performances to come, including at New York City’s Anshe Chesed in May.

More than a century separates the film’s initial release from the audiences who view it today. But it remains contemporary in many ways. Incorporating Klezmer music “brings the score and the film squarely into the realm of Holocaust memory,” commented Frances Tanzer, Clark University professor and author of Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City. It is also, Svigals said, “an emotionally deep vision of what an expulsion is — how it’s one thing for a politician to placate their citizens….and then see people who are being expelled.”

The film opens with the announcement that “the legendary Republic of Utopia” (a stand-in for Vienna, the city in which the Jewish-born author Hugo Bettauer set his satiric, best-selling novel from 1922) is in turmoil. The stock market is flailing, and inflation has brought the price of eggs so high that disgruntled shoppers riotously hurl them at each other across the open-air markets. Meanwhile, mobs of protesters rowdily bear down on City Hall demanding change. There, the city’s cynical chancellor announces the solution: exile the Jews, including those who have been baptized.

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My husband is a HUGE cinephile. He saw this movie, a rarity, and bought it because he likes old movies and knows I will watch things like this in regard to anti-Semitism, Jewish life, or history. At the link is the YouTube version, but I will include it here:

Watch it.

[LiberalLoner]

1. Great movie, thanks for sharing! I was worried it would be really offensive, but it actually

Had a more positive message about tolerance than I expected from 1920s Germany.