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The Stadttempel ( en, City Prayer House), also called the Seitenstettengasse Temple, is the main
The synagogue was designed in elegant 
The synagogue itself is in the form of an oval. A ring of twelve Ionic columns support a two-tiered women's gallery. Originally, the galleries ended one column away from the Torah Ark, they were later extended to the columns beside the ark to provide more seating. the building is domed and lit by a lantern in the center of the dome, in classic Biedermeyer style.
A commemorative glass made at the time of the synagogue's dedication and etched with a detailed image of the synagogue's interior is now in the collection of the
The Stadttempel, Vienna
{{Authority control Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Austria Ashkenazi synagogues Synagogues completed in 1826 Orthodox Judaism in Austria Orthodox synagogues Synagogues in Vienna Regency and Biedermeier synagogues Round and octagonal synagogues Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt Jewish Austrian history 1826 establishments in the Austrian Empire Aesopian synagogues
The Stadttempel ( en, City Prayer House), also called the Seitenstettengasse Temple, is the main synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
of Vienna, Austria. It is located in the Innere Stadt
The Innere Stadt (; Central Bavarian: ''Innare Stod'') is the 1st municipal Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expa ...
1st district, at Seitenstettengasse 4.
History
The synagogue was constructed from 1824 to 1826. The luxurious Stadttempel was fitted into a block of houses and hidden from plain view of the street, because of an edict issued by Emperor Joseph II that only Roman Catholic places of worship were allowed to be built with facades fronting directly on to public streets. This edict saved the synagogue from total destruction during the '' Kristallnacht'' in November 1938, since the synagogue could not be destroyed without setting on fire the buildings to which it was attached. The Stadttempel was the only synagogue in the city to survive World War II, as Nazi paramilitary troops with the help of local authorities destroyed all of the other 93 synagogues and Jewish prayer-houses in Vienna, starting with the Kristallnacht. In August 1950, the coffins of Theodor Herzl and his parents were displayed at the synagogue, prior to their transfer for reburial in Israel. In the1981 Vienna synagogue attack
The 1981 Vienna synagogue attack was a terror attack that occurred 29 August 1981. The incident took place in the Stadttempel of Vienna, Austria carried out by two terrorists of the Abu Nidal Organization.
Attack
The mass shooting and grenade a ...
, two people from a bar mitzvah ceremony at the synagogue were murdered and thirty injured when Palestinian Arab terrorists attacked the synagogue with machine guns and hand grenades.
Today the synagogue is the main house of prayer for the Viennese Jewish Community of about 7,000 members.
The synagogue has been declared a historic monument. Rachel Wischnitzer, Architecture of the European Synagogue, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964, p. 178.
On 2 November 2020, a terrorist attack near the synagogue left four civilians dead and 23 others wounded. It was not immediately certain if the synagogue was the target of the attack.
Architecture
The synagogue was designed in elegant Biedermeier
The ''Biedermeier'' period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle class grew in number and the arts appealed to common sensibilities. It began with the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in ...
style by the Viennese architect Joseph Kornhäusel
Josef Georg Kornhäusel (13 November 1782, in Vienna - 31 October 1860, in Vienna) was an Austrian architect of the first half of the 19th century. He primarily employed the contemporary style of Neoclassical architecture, moving to the Biederme ...
, architect to Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, for whom he had built palaces, theaters and other buildings. Construction was supervised by the official municipal architect, Jacob Heinz.
Two five-story apartment houses, Numbers 2 and 4 Seitenstettengasse, were built at the same time as the synagogue, designed by the architect to screen the synagogue from the street in compliance with the Patent of Toleration, which permitted members of tolerated faiths to worship in clandestine church
A clandestine church ( nl, schuilkerk), defined by historian Benjamin J. Kaplan as a "semi-clandestine church", is a house of worship used by religious minorities whose communal worship is tolerated by those of the majority faith on condition th ...
es, but not in buildings with facades on public streets.Kaplan, Benjamin J., ''Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe,'' Harvard University Press, 2007, Chapter 8, pp. 193. The synagogue is structurally attached to the apartment building at # 4 Seitenstettengasse.
The synagogue itself is in the form of an oval. A ring of twelve Ionic columns support a two-tiered women's gallery. Originally, the galleries ended one column away from the Torah Ark, they were later extended to the columns beside the ark to provide more seating. the building is domed and lit by a lantern in the center of the dome, in classic Biedermeyer style.
A commemorative glass made at the time of the synagogue's dedication and etched with a detailed image of the synagogue's interior is now in the collection of the Jewish Museum (New York)
The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unite ...
.
The synagogue underwent renovation in 1895 and again in 1904 by the Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny, adding considerable ornamentation, and, in the opinion of architectural historian Rachel Wischnitzer, "the serene harmony of the design was spoiled by renovations." Damage inflicted on Kristallnacht was repaired in 1949. The "Stadttempel" was renovated once again in 1963 by Prof. Otto Niedermoser.
Famous members
*Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was a history of the Jews in Austria, Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He surviv ...
* Adolf JellinekKlaus Kempter, Die Jellineks 1820-1955, 1998
See also
* History of the Jews in Vienna * History of the Jews in Austria *Leopoldstädter Tempel
The Leopoldstädter Tempel was the largest synagogue of Vienna, in the district (Bezirk) of Leopoldstadt. It was also known as the Israelitische Bethaus in der Wiener Vorstadt Leopoldstadt. It was built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style by the ...
References
External links
The Stadttempel, Vienna
{{Authority control Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Austria Ashkenazi synagogues Synagogues completed in 1826 Orthodox Judaism in Austria Orthodox synagogues Synagogues in Vienna Regency and Biedermeier synagogues Round and octagonal synagogues Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt Jewish Austrian history 1826 establishments in the Austrian Empire Aesopian synagogues