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History of the Jews in Austria

The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation.[2][3][4][5][6] There have been Jews in Austria since the 3rd century CE. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality, and during other periods it suffered pogroms, deportations to concentration camps and mass murder, and antisemitism. The Holocaust drastically reduced the Jewish community in Austria and only 8,140 Jews remained in Austria according to the 2001 census. Today, Austria has a Jewish population of 10,300 which extends to 33,000 if Law of Return is accounted for, meaning having at least one Jewish grandparent.[1]

Antiquity[edit]

Jews have been in Austria since at least the 3rd century CE. In 2008 a team of archeologists discovered a third-century CE amulet in the form of a gold scroll with the words of the Jewish prayer Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one) inscribed on it in the grave of a Jewish infant in Halbturn.[7] It is considered to be the earliest surviving evidence of a Jewish presence in what is now Austria.[8] It is hypothesized that the first Jews immigrated to Austria following the Roman legions after the Roman occupation of Israel. It is theorized that the Roman legions who participated in the occupation and came back after the First Jewish–Roman War brought back Jewish prisoners.[9]

Chorus Master and Conductor Metropolitan Opera New York

Kurt Adler

writer and poet[39]

Peter Altenberg

politician, founder of Austromarxism, Foreign Minister of Austria[40]

Otto Bauer

composer and pianist[41]

Ignaz Brüll

revolutionary[42]

Simon Deutsch

pharmaceutical chemist[43]

Carl Djerassi

composer[44][45]

Hanns Eisler

weightlifter, Olympic champion[46]

Robert Fein

psychiatrist who founded logotherapy[47]

Viktor Frankl

neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis[48]

Sigmund Freud

cabaret artist[49]

Fritz Grünbaum

weightlifter, Olympic champion[50]

Hans Haas

actress, Nobel Prize laureate[51]

Elfriede Jelinek

novelist and short-story writer[52]

Franz Kafka

neuroscientist, Nobel prize laureate[53]

Eric Kandel

sex therapist [54]

Helen Singer Kaplan

psychoanalyst[55]

Melanie Klein

ophthalmologist[56]

Karl Koller

composer and conductor[57]

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

politician, Austrian Chancellor[58]

Bruno Kreisky

violinist and composer[59]

Fritz Kreisler

composer[60]

Gustav Mahler

economist[61]

Ludwig von Mises

actor[62]

Reggie Nalder

swimmer and physician, Olympic champion[63]

Paul Neumann

philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist[64]

Otto Neurath

fencer, Olympic champion[65]

Ellen Preis

journalist and novelist[66]

Joseph Roth

actor[67]

Harry Schein

actor[68]

Joseph Schildkraut

author[69]

Arthur Schnitzler

composer[70]

Arnold Schoenberg

philosopher[71]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Austria–Israel relations

List of Austrian Jews

History of the Jews in Salzburg

History of the Jews in Vienna

History of the Jews in Germany

History of the Jews in Switzerland

Beller, Steven. Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A cultural history (Cambridge UP, 1990)

Fraenke, Josef, ed. "The Jews of Austria: Essays on their Life, History and Destruction". (Valentine Mitchell & Co., London. 1967.  0-85303-000-6

ISBN

Garrabrant, Emilie. "The Stars We Never Saw". Washington, D.C., 2022.

Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. Jewish politics in Vienna: 1918-1938 (Indiana University Press, 1991)

Levy, Richard S., ed. Antisemitism: A historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution (2 vol ABC-CLIO, 2005) Vol 1, pp 48–50.

Oxaal, Ivar, Michael Pollak, and Gerhard Botz, eds. Jews, Antisemitism, and Culture in Vienna (Taylor & Francis, 1987)

Rozenblit, Marsha L. The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914: assimilation and identity (SUNY Press, 1984)

Rozenblit, Marsha L. Reconstructing a national identity: the Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Silverman, Lisa. Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars (Oxford UP, 2012)

online

Wistrich, Robert S. The Jews of Vienna in the age of Franz Joseph (Oxford UP, 1989)

Wistrich, Robert S. (2007). Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans And Jews in Central Europe. University of Nebraska Press.  978-0-8032-1134-6.

ISBN

Institute for the History of Jews in Austria

Holocaust Victims' Information and Support Center

Republic of Austria|Historikerkommission

Jewish community of Vienna

DAVID newsletter

Ordinary exile |Austrian Jewish refugees in France and Belgium

Databases of Austrian Jewish refugees in France and Belgium