Schematic representation of European Jewry

Arnold Schönberg Estate.

Schönberg concerned himself for almost 30 years with questions of Jewish politics, his own Jewish identity, and religion. The question of what makes Jews into a people represents a constant theme in his writings, an engagement that began to intensify before emigrating to the United States in 1933.

In written glosses and commentaries Schönberg in 1923 begins to occupy himself with questions of anti-Semitism and the Jewish religion, as well as with the principles of Jewish politics, which he later develops systematically. At the center of his deliberations are questions of assimilation and of the peculiarities of the Jewish notion of ethics. In a graphic classification of Judaism Schönberg tried to design a visual image of inner-Jewish divisions.

The Arnold Schönberg Estate contains the records of Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), a composer, painter, teacher, theoretician, and innovator who is ranked amongst the prominent artistic figures in the history of western culture. His writings, apart from his compositions, are valuable documents for the musical, intellectual, and cultural history of the first half of the 20th century, as well as for exile studies, and thus for contemporary history. They are evidence of the multifaceted interests of an eminent artistic personality, and also address questions of aesthetics, Jewish affairs, politics, and religion.