Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna Composing Compassion in Music and Biblical Theater

"Caroline A. Kita offers fascinating discussions of dissonance and cacophony andhow they are associated with Jews. She sheds new light on how Viennese Jewish composers used musical and narrative strategies to generate models of compassionate community that recognize and overcome this dissonance to envision new forms of religious understanding for the modern era."-Jonathan M. Hess, author of Deborah and Her Sisters
"Caroline A. Kita's book brings to life a circle of writers and composers, with analyses of their major, minor, fragmentary, and forgotten works of Jewish music theater, who lived and wrote in early-20th century Vienna. . . . unexpected and original."-Abigail Gillman, author of Viennese Jewish Modernism
"Given the variety of artistic works examined, this will surely be useful to the likely graduate students who will use this work."-Association of Jewish Libraries
"In her epilogue, Kita makes a convincing case for the continued need for compas- sionate art in our own time, as the works explored in this volume serve as testaments of the transformative potential of such art, ultimately "offering hope and comfort in our shared humanity" (166). In addition to serving as a valuable contribution to German Jewish studies, Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna offers a new framework for reading fin-de-siècle Viennese literature and culture and will thus be of interest to Germanists and musicologists alike."-German Studies Review
"This book is a true testament to the idea that the musical notes on a page are the result of a human story. In this case, the human story behind the works of these composers is both complicated and compassionate in a variety of ways."-Karen L. Uslin - Rowan University, AJS Review