Jewish women in the Habsburg Monarchy experienced the stresses and strains of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish life as Jews, as women of their particular social classes, and as inhabitants of the different regions of the Monarchy. In some regions, they modernized and acculturated, but the overwhelming majority remained deeply pious, traditional Jews.

Felicie Bernstein was one of the last Berlin salonnières, a patron of modern art and artists, and a philanthropist who supported early feminism.

The Berlin salons that developed in the late eighteenth century owed both their existence and the form of their development to Jewish women. These salons have variously been criticized as a symptom of failing Jewish tradition or welcomed as a phenomenon of emancipation and acculturation. Regardless, their importance as highlights of the salon culture and for the process of women’s emancipation in Germany cannot be denied.

Fanny von Arnstein, who rose to the rank of baroness, navigated the artistic and political upheaval of the Napoleonic Era as a hostess of salons that welcomed celebrities, artists, musicians, and politicians. The respect she garnered fostered the growing acceptance of Jewish in Viennese high society. During the Napoleonic Wars, she aided the sick and wounded and advocated unsuccessfully for the equal rights of Jews at the Congress of Vienna.