Jewish-Austrian

The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. 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, though other estimates place the current figure at 9,000, 15,000, or 20,000 people, if accounting for those of mixed descent.

Antiquity

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. It is considered to be the earliest surviving evidence of a Jewish presence in what is now Austria. 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.

The Middle Ages

A document from the 10th century that determined equal rights between the Jewish and Christian merchants in the Danube implies a Jewish population in Vienna at this point, though again, there is no concrete proof. The existence of a Jewish community in the area is only known for sure after the start of the 12th century when two synagogues existed. In the same century, the Jewish settlement in Vienna increased with the absorption of Jewish settlers from Bavaria and from the Rhineland.

At the start of the 13th century, the Jewish community began to flourish. One of the main reasons for the prosperity was the declaration by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II that the Jews were a separate ethnic and religious group, and were not bound to the laws that targeted the Christian population. Following this declaration, in July 1244, the emperor published a bill of rights for Jews, which barred them from many jobs, businesses, and educational opportunities, but allowed for rights to sales, thus encouraging them to work in the money lending business, encouraged the immigration of additional Jews to the area, and promised protection and autonomous rights, such as the right to judge themselves and the right to collect taxes. This bill of rights affected other kingdoms in Europe such as Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Silesia and Bohemia, which had high concentrations of Jews.

During this period, the Jewish population mainly dealt with commerce and the collection of taxes and also gained key positions in many other aspects of life in Austria. In 1204, the first documented synagogue in Austria was constructed. In addition, Jews went through a period of religious freedom and relative prosperity; a group of families headed by notable rabbis settled in Vienna — these learned men were later referred to as "the wise men of Vienna". The group established a ''beit midrash'' that was considered to be the most prominent school of Talmudic studies in Europe at the time.

The insularity and assumed prosperity of the Jewish community caused increased tensions and jealousy from the Christian population along with hostility from the Catholic Church. In 1282, when the area became controlled by the Catholic House of Habsburg, Austria's prominence decreased as far as being a religious center for Jewish scholarly endeavors due to the highly anti-Semitic atmosphere.

Some Jewish business enterprises focused on civic finance, private interest-free loans, and government accounting work enforcing tax collection and handling moneylending for Christian landowners. The earliest evidence of Jewish officials tasked with the unpleasant role of collecting unpaid taxes appears in a document from 1320. During the same time, riots occurred scapegoating all Jews who resided in the area. The entire Jewish population was unfairly targeted by some angry non-Jewish neighbors and the animosity made daily life unbearable — the population continued to decline in the middle of the 14th century. At the start of the 15th century, during the regime of Albert III and Leopold III, the period was characterized by the formal cancellations of many outstanding debts that were owed to Jewish financiers, and those that would have been enforced by debt collection activity by Jews were left purposely outstanding so as to impoverish the Jewish creditor; there were then mass official confiscation of all Jewish assets, and the creation of policies demanding economic limitations against all Jewish people.

Deportation from Austria

In the middle of the 15th century, following the establishment of the anti-Catholic movement of Jan Hus in Bohemia, the condition of Jews worsened as a result of unfounded accusations that the movement was associated with the Jewish community.

In 1420, the status of the Jewish community hit a low point when a Jewish man from Upper Austria was falsely accused and charged with the crime of desecration of the sacramental bread. This led Albert V to order the imprisonment of all of the Jews in Austria. 210 Jewish men, women, and children were forcibly taken from their homes and burnt alive in the public town square, while the remaining families were rounded up and deported from Austria, forced to leave all their belongings behind. In 1469, the deportation order was cancelled by Frederick III, who became known for his fairness and strong relationship by allowing Jews to live relatively free from scapegoating and hate crimes — he was even referred to at times as the "King of the Jews". He allowed Jews to return and settle in all the cities of Styria and Carinthia. Under his regime, Jews gained a short period of peace (between 1440 and 1493).

In 1496, Maximilian I ordered a decree which expelled all Jews from Styria. In 1509, he passed the "Imperial Confiscation Mandate" which foresaw the destruction of all Jewish books, apart from one exception, the Bible.

The rise of religious fanaticism of the Society of Jesus

The relative period of peace did not last long, and with the start of the regime of Ferdinand the First in 1556, though he also opposed the persecution of the Jews, he levied excessive taxes and ordered them to wear a mark of disgrace. Between 1564 and 1619, in the period of the reigns of Maximilian the second, Rudolf the Second and Matthias, the fanaticism of the Society of Jesus prevailed and the condition of the Jews worsened even more. Later on, during the reign of Ferdinand the Second in Austria, which in spite of that like his grandfather he opposed the persecution of the Jews and even permitted the construction of a synagogue, he demanded a huge amount of tax from the Jewish population.

The nadir of the Jewish community in Austria arrived during the period of the reign of Leopold the First, a period in which Jews were persecuted frequently and were deported from different areas, including deportation from Vienna in 1670, but gradually returned after several years. Jews also had to bear different laws—one of which permitted only first-born children to marry, in order to stop the increase of the Jewish population. Although Leopold the First treated the Jewish population severely, he had Samson Wertheimer, a Jewish economic advisor, working for him.

A Sabbateans movement, which was established during the same period of time, also reached the Jewish community in Austria, especially due to the rough condition of the Jews there, and many of them immigrated to the land of Israel in the footsteps of Sabbatai Zevi.

Modern period

Change in the attitude towards the Jews

After the period of religious fanaticism towards the Jewish population of the region, a period of relative tolerance began which was less noticeable during the reign of Maria Theresa of Austria. It reached its peak during the reign of Franz Joseph I of Austria, who was very popular among the Jewish population.

Upon the partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, or simply "Galicia", became the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of the Habsburg Empire. As a result of annexation, many Jews were added to the Austrian Empire and the empress, Maria Theresa, quickly legislated different laws aimed at regulating their rights and canceled Jewish autonomy to take authority over the Jews.

Although the empress was known for her hatred of Jews, several Jews did work for her at her court. The empress made it mandatory that Jews would go to the general elementary schools, and in addition, permitted them to join universities. Jewish schools did not exist yet during that time.

After Maria Theresa's death in 1780, her son Joseph II succeeded her and started working on the integration of Jews into Austrian society. The emperor determined that they would be obligated to enlist in the army, and established governmental schools for Jews. The 1782 Edict of Tolerance canceled different limitations that had been placed upon Jews previously, such as the restriction to live only in predetermined locations and the limitation to certain professions. They were now allowed to establish factories, hire Christian servants and study at higher education institutions, but all this only on the condition that Jews would be obligated to attend school, that they would use German only in the official documents instead of Hebrew or Yiddish, that dorsal tax would be forbidden, that the trials held within the community would be condensed, and that those who would not get an education would not be able to marry before the age of 25. The emperor also declared that Jews would establish Jewish schools for their children, but they opposed that because he forbade them organizing within the community and establishing public institutions. In the aftermath of different resistances, also from the Jewish party, which opposed the many conditions held upon them, and also from the Christian party, which opposed many of the rights given to Jews, the decree was not fully implemented.

Upon his death in 1790, Joseph II was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II. After only two years of his reign, he died and was succeeded by his son Francis II, who continued working on the integration of Jews into the wider Austrian society, but he was more moderate than his uncle. In 1812, a Jewish Sunday school was opened in Vienna. During the same period of time, a number of limitations were placed on Jews, such as the obligation to study in Christian schools and to pray in German.

Prosperity

Between 1848 and 1938, Jews in Austria enjoyed a period of prosperity beginning with the start of the reign of Franz Joseph I as the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and dissolved gradually after the death of the emperor to the annexation of Austria to Germany by the Nazis, a process that led to the start of the Holocaust in Austria.

Franz Joseph I granted Jews equal rights, saying "the civil rights and the country's policy is not contingent in the people's religion". The emperor was well liked by Jews, who, as a token of appreciation, wrote prayers and songs about him that were printed in Jewish prayer books. In 1849 the emperor canceled the prohibition against Jews organizing within the community, and in 1852 new regulations for the Jewish community were set. In 1867, Jews formally received full equal rights.

In 1869 the emperor visited Jerusalem and was greeted with great admiration by Jews there. The emperor established a fund aimed at financing the establishment of Jewish institutions and in addition, established the Talmudic school for rabbis in Budapest. During the 1890s several Jews were elected to the Austrian Reichsrat.

During the reign of Franz Joseph and after, Austria's Jewish population contributed greatly to Austrian culture despite their small percentage in the population. Contributions came from Jewish lawyers, journalists (among them Theodor Herzl), authors, playwrights, poets, doctors, bankers, businessmen, and artists. Vienna became a cultural Jewish center and became a center of education, culture and Zionism. Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, studied at the University of Vienna and was the editor of the feuilleton of the ''Neue Freie Presse'', a very influential newspaper at that time. Another Jew, Felix Salten, succeeded Herzl as the editor of the feuilleton.

Other notable influential Jews contributing greatly to Austrian culture included composers Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, and the authors Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Kraus, Elias Canetti, Joseph Roth, Vicki Baum and the doctors Sigmund Freud, Viktor Frankl, Wilhelm Stekel and Alfred Adler, the philosophers Martin Buber, Karl Popper, and many others.

The prosperity period also affected the sports field: the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna was established in 1909 and excelled in football, swimming, and athletics.

With Jewish prosperity and equality, several Jewish scholars converted to Christianity in a desire to assimilate into Austrian society. Among them were Karl Kraus and Otto Weininger.

During this period, Vienna elected an antisemitic mayor, Karl Lueger. The emperor, Franz Joseph, was opposed to the appointment, but after Lueger was elected three consecutive times, the emperor was compelled to accept his election according to the regulations. During the period of his authority, Lueger removed Jews from positions in the city administration and forbade them from working in the factories located in Vienna until his death in 1910.

The intertwining of Jews and the attitude of the emperor towards them could also be seen in the general state of the empire. From the middle of the 19th century there started to be many pressures from the different nationalities living in the multinational House of Habsburg empire: the national minorities (such as the Hungarians, Czechs and Croatians) began demanding more and more collective rights; among German speakers, many started feeling more connected to Germany, which was strengthening. Under these circumstances, the Jewish population was especially notable for their loyalty to the empire and their admiration of the emperor.

In about 1918, there were about 300,000 Jews in Austria scattered in 33 different settlements. Most of them (about 200,000) lived in Vienna.

The First Republic and Austrofascism (1918–1934 / 1934–1938)

Austria during the First Republic (1919–34) was strongly influenced by Jews. Many of the leading heads of the Social Democratic Party of Austria and especially the leaders of the Austromarxism were assimilated Jews, for example Victor Adler, Otto Bauer, Gustav Eckstein, Julius Deutsch and also the reformer of the school system in Vienna, Hugo Breitner. Due to the Social Democratic Party being the only party in Austria that accepted Jews as members and also in leading positions, several Jewish parties that were founded after 1918 in Vienna, where about 10% of the population was Jewish, had no chance of gaining bigger parts of the Jewish population. Districts with high Jewish population rates, such as Leopoldstadt, the only districts where Jews formed about half of the population, and the neighbouring districts Alsergrund and Brigittenau, where up to a third of the population was Jewish, had usually higher percentage rates of voters for the Social Democratic Party than classical "worker"-districts.

The First Republic of Austria denied citizenship to former Habsburg monarchy Jews during the interwar period.
Brain drain from Austria already began with the increase of antisemitism after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. In University of Vienna, violent attacks by German National and National Socialist students against Jewish and socialist classmates increased since the 1920s, particularly at the Institute of Anatomy under Julius Tandler, or on the occasion of the abolishment of the anti-Semitic Gleispach student regulation 1930.
In 1921, there was a significant antisemitic mob parade in Vienna. Antisemites began blaming Jews for the downfall of Austria-Hungary and the Central Powers during World War I, similarly to the German "stab-in-the-back" myth.

In May 1923, Vienna hosted the First World Congress of Jewish Women in the presence of President Michael Hainisch, calling in particular for support for the relocation of Jewish refugees in Palestine.
Also the cultural contribution of Jews reached its peak. Many famous writers, film and theatre directors (e.g., Max Reinhardt, Fritz Lang, Richard Oswald, Fred Zinnemann and Otto Preminger) actors (e.g., Peter Lorre, Paul Muni) and producers (e.g., Jacob Fleck, Oscar Pilzer, Arnold Pressburger), architects and set designers (e.g., Artur Berger, Harry Horner, Oskar Strnad, Ernst Deutsch-Dryden), comedians (Kabarett artists (e.g., Heinrich Eisenbach, Fritz Grünbaum, Karl Farkas, Georg Kreisler, Hermann Leopoldi, Armin Berg), musicians and composers (e.g., Fritz Kreisler, Hans J. Salter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Kurt Adler) were Jewish Austrians. In 1933, many Austrian Jews, who had worked and lived in Germany for years, returned to Austria, including many who fled Nazi restrictions on Jews working in the film industry.

In 1934, the Austrian Civil War broke out. The new Federal State of Austria was fascist, and leaders of the Social Democratic Party were arrested or had to flee. But, except for Jews strongly engaged in the Social Democratic Party, the new Fatherland Front regime, which thought itself as pro-Austrian and anti-national socialism, brought no worsening for the Jewish population.

The census of 1934as quoted in: Österreichische Historikerkommission: ''Schlussbericht der Historikerkommission der Republik Österreich.'' Band 1. Oldenbourg Verlag, Wien 2003, S. 85–87 counted 191,481 Jews in Austria, with 176,034 living in Vienna and most of the rest in Lower Austria (7,716) and Burgenland (3,632), where notable Jewish communities also existed. Of the other ''Bundesländer'', only Styria (2,195) also counted more than 1,000 Jews. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates 250,000 Jews in Austria in 1933.

In 1936, the previously strong Austrian film industry, which had developed its own "emigrant-film"-movement, had to accept the German restrictions forbidding Jews from working in the film industry. Emigration among film artists then rose sharply with Los Angeles becoming the major destination. The main emigration wave started in March 1938, with ''Anschluss'', to November 1938, when nearly all synagogues in Austria were destroyed (more than 100, about 30 to 40 of which were built as dedicated synagogues, 25 of them in Vienna).

''Anschluss''

The prosperity ended abruptly on 13 March 1938 with the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany (the "Anschluss"). The Jewish population in Austria at the time was 181,882, with 167,249 in Vienna. Thousands of Jews had already emigrated before ''Anschluss''. The German racial Nuremberg Laws were immediately applied to Austria so that people with one Jewish grandparent were deemed to be Jewish, even if they or their parents had converted to another faith so that 201,000 to 214,000 people were caught by these anti-Jewish laws.

The Nazis entered Austria without any major resistance and were accepted approvingly by many Austrians. Immediately after ''Anschluss'', the Nazis started instituting anti-Jewish measures throughout the country. Jews were expelled from all cultural, economic, and social life in Austria. Jewish businesses were ‘ aryanised’ and either sold for a fraction of their value or seized outright. Jewish citizens were humiliated as they were commanded to perform different menial tasks, without any consideration of age, social position, or sex.

On November 9, "the Night of Broken Glass" (''Kristallnacht'') was carried out in Germany and Austria. Synagogues all over Austria were looted and burned by the Hitler Youth and the SA. Jewish shops were vandalised and looted and some Jewish homes were destroyed. During that night, 27 Jews were murdered, and many others beaten.

The Holocaust in Austria

After the ''Anschluss'', all Jews were effectively forced to emigrate from Austria, but the process was made extremely difficult. The emigration center was in Vienna, and the people leaving were required to have numerous documents approving their departure from different departments. The Central Office for Jewish Emigration under Adolf Eichmann