ABSTRACT
Historical research in Austria has only recently turned its attention to the problematical issue of emigration and exile, or, to formulate it more concretely, the deportation of its Jewish population. This chapter traces the path of intellectual Jewish women from bourgeois backgrounds to the Socialist or Communist parties. This may essentially be regarded as the effort to achieve assimilation within non-Jewish society by means of culture and politics. The gradual renunciation of traditional Judaism through the acceptance and cultivation of German Kultur represented one possibility of acquiring a new Jewish consciousness and thereby gaining assimilation into non-Jewish society. Striving to immerse oneself in German Kultur was frequently coupled with the abnegation of traditional Judaism and the rejection of the Yiddish language and culture. It is very frequently brought out in biographical material that the exaltation of German Kultur displaced Jewish tradition and that the belief in progress became an ersatz religion.
