Before the outbreak of the First World War almost all plays at the Herrnfeld Theater and the Folies Caprice centered around one single leitmotif: the assimilation of German Jews. Subjects such as mixed marriages, religious devotion, dietary laws, Jewish names, economic success, education, the stigma of the parvenu, and relations to Germany's traditional elites were explored in these plays. The Jewish family and its immediate environment provided the setting in which these issues were negotiated, ridiculed or contested. Although plays at the Folies Caprice were more direct in their language and humor than plays at the more refined Herrnfeld Theater, their general thrust was similar. Plays produced in these theaters before the war assumed that Jews represented a religious denomination united by shared beliefs and practices that did not conflict with their allegiance to the German nation. The Jews who were depicted on the stages of Jargon theaters were German citizens of the Jewish faith (deutsche Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens). Just like Jewish circus families, Jewish performers in Jargon theaters took pride in their Germanness, but they did not ignore the continuing discrimination against Jews in many areas of public life. Jargon theaters problematized the ability and willingness of German Jews to assimilate middle-class norms and expectations as well as the difficulties experienced by the majority in accepting the Jewish minority unconditionally. Jargon theaters were sensitive to debates in the German press and streets.