
The Jüdisches Museum Wien, trading as ''Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien GmbH'' or the Jewish Museum Vienna, is a museum of
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
history, life and religion in
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
. The museum is present on two locations, in the
Palais Eskeles in the
Dorotheergasse
Dorotheergasse is a narrow lane (German: ), terminating at the Graben to the north and Augustinerstraße to the south, part of the Old Town district of Vienna, Austria
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities i ...
and in the
Judenplatz
Judenplatz (German, 'Jewish Square') is a town square in Vienna's Innere Stadt that was the center of Jewish life and the Viennese Jewish Community in the Middle Ages. It is located in the immediate proximity of Am Hof square, Schulhof, and Wipp ...
, and has distinguished itself by a very active programme of exhibitions and outreach events highlighting the past and present of Jewish culture in Austria. The current director is
Barbara Staudinger and the chief curator is Hannes Sulzenbacher.
History
The first Jewish Museum in Vienna, founded in 1893 and opened 1895, was the first Jewish museum in the world of its sort. It was supported and run by the "Society for the Collection and Preservation of Artistic and Historical Memorials of Jewry". The museum focused on the culture and history of the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially in Vienna and Galicia, while its collection of objects from the British Mandate of Palestine also reflected the political debate about Zionism at that time.
By 1913, when it moved into the Talmud-Thora-School in
Leopoldstadt
Leopoldstadt (; ; "Leopold-Town") is the 2nd municipal district of Vienna () in Austria. there are 103,233 inhabitants over . It is situated in the heart of the city and, together with Brigittenau (20th district), forms a large island surrou ...
with 3,400 objects, it had already moved premises several times. Immediately after the
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...
by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
in 1938 the museum was closed, and its contents were distributed among the
Museum of Ethnology (''Museum für Völkerkunde''), the
Natural History Museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...
(''Naturhistorisches Museum Wien'') and other repositories. The Natural History Museum used its new acquisitions to mount the
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
exhibition "The Corporeal and Spiritual Properties of the Jews". At the beginning of the 1950s, the majority of that stock was restituted to the Jewish community (
Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien
The Jewish Community of Vienna ( or IKG) is the body that represents Vienna's Orthodox Jewish community. Today, the IKG has around 10,000 members. Throughout history, it has represented almost all of Austria's Jews, whose numbers are sufficient ...
), with some additional objects being returned in the 1990s.
On 31 December 1964 a small Jewish museum was opened in the newly built Desider-Friedmann-Hof in Tempelgasse 3, but received scarcely any public attention. It closed for renovation work in 1967 and was never reopened.
In 1986 the establishment of a new Jewish museum in Vienna was announced by the then mayor of Vienna,
Helmut Zilk, in New York at the opening of the exhibition "Vienna 1900 - Art, Architecture and Design". On the foundation committee, among many others, were representatives of the Austrian state, the city of Vienna, the Jewish Community in Vienna, the
Vienna Philharmonic
Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; ) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world.
The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of ...
,
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...
and Helmut Zilk.
After its foundation in 1988 as a limited company under the management of director Christian Cap the museum was given the management of the Max Berger Collection and the IKG Collection. In 1993 Austrian collector
Martin Schlaff
Martin Schlaff (born 6 August 1953) is an Austrian investor, businessman, networker, and philanthropist. Since 2006, he is a major shareholder of RHI Magnesita. His net worth is estimated over €8 billion.
Early life and education
Schlaff ...
presented to the city of Vienna his collection of antisemitica, containing about 5,000 objects, and covering a period from 1490 to 1946, so that they could be catalogued and prepared for a major exhibition.
Palais Eskeles
In 1993 the
Palais Eskeles in the Dorotheergasse in Vienna was put at the disposal of the museum by the auction house
Dorotheum
The Dorotheum () is one of the world's oldest auction houses and is the largest auction house of art items in Continental Europe. Established by Emperor Joseph I in 1707, it has its headquarters in Vienna on the Dorotheergasse and branches in ...
. Julius H. Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien at the
University of Potsdam
The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, northeastern Germany.
The university is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace o ...
, was appointed director. On 24 November 1994 Paul Grosz, president of the
Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien
The Jewish Community of Vienna ( or IKG) is the body that represents Vienna's Orthodox Jewish community. Today, the IKG has around 10,000 members. Throughout history, it has represented almost all of Austria's Jews, whose numbers are sufficient ...
, opened the museum library. In 1995/1996 the Palais Eskeles adapted for the museum by the Viennese team of architects ''eichinger oder knechtl'' to create more display spaces, increase storage, and add a coffee house and a specialist bookshop. In 1998, the museum archive with an ever-growing collection of materials on the history of Jewish Vienna was publicly available. On 25 October 2000, the second building of the museum was opened in Judenplatz with the unveiling of the
Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial
The Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial () also known as the Nameless Library stands in Judenplatz in the first district of Vienna. It is the central memorial for the Austrian victims of the Holocaust and was designed by British artist Rachel Whiter ...
to the Austrian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.
Museum Judenplatz

The second location of the Jewish Museum Vienna documenting the social, cultural and religious lives of Viennese Jews in the Middle Ages is housed in the Misrachi House, on the
Judenplatz
Judenplatz (German, 'Jewish Square') is a town square in Vienna's Innere Stadt that was the center of Jewish life and the Viennese Jewish Community in the Middle Ages. It is located in the immediate proximity of Am Hof square, Schulhof, and Wipp ...
, the heartland of the city's medieval Jewish community. The exhibition space, opened on 25 October 2000, is smaller than Dorotheergasse, and thoroughly modern in construction, with ample light, polished concrete features and underground corridors that lead the visitor all the way down to 4.5 meters below street level, to the underlying foundations of the medieval synagogue.
In recent years, the Judenplatz museum has hosted contemporary art exhibitions with a spiritual or specifically Jewish theme, such as installations by notable Austrian artist
Zenita Komad, the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein and several photography exhibitions.
Under the scientific leadership of Staudinger and Sulzenbacher, who assumed their roles in 2022, the evolving exhibition spaces at Judenplatz are designed to link the memorial with the remains of the destroyed medieval synagogue. The exhibitions seek to incorporate broad themes—such as guild, peace, theft, and fear—into a coherent narrative within a limited physical space, creating a context that encourages reflection on both historical and contemporary issues.
Renovation
In November 2009, ORF journalist
Danielle Spera
Danielle Spera (born 10 August 1957, in Vienna) is an Austrian journalist, writer, and a former director of the Jewish Museum Vienna.
Education and work Academic career
Spera studied English and French for two semesters at the University of ...
was selected to take over the management of the museum as of July 2010. In interviews around the time of her appointment, the new director of the museum said she aimed to "open up" the museum to the public, to create a space where fears and prejudices were dispelled and non-Jews could experience both the traumatic past and the vibrant present of the Austrian Jewish community.
Specific goals also included reaching out to young people with targeted projects for schools, and to tourists.
"Much has normalised. But there are still many people who have difficulty with it, uttering the word 'Jew', they say 'our Jewish fellow citizens'. I want to open the museum up so people get to know Judaism better," Spera said in an interview.
To accommodate the new direction of the museum, Spera made the immediate renovation of the Dorotheergasse premises a priority, launching an intensive fundraising effort both from official sources in Austria and from the Jewish diaspora especially in the United States. The renovation, between January and October 2011 aimed at a complete technical overhaul of the museum infrastructure as well as to changes in layout and visitor facilities.
Holograms controversy
During the renovation project, a set of glass holograms showing 3D depictions of old Viennese life was broken on its removal from the museum. A museum employee took pictures and sent them to curator blogs and the local media, creating a furore about what critics said was the destruction of cultural artifacts. The museum responded with a report from a court-certified expert who testified the holograms could not have been unmounted without damage as they had been glued together almost 15 years prior. The museum added that a second set of the same holograms, that had not been on display, was still intact and would be placed in storage for future use.
Reopening
On 19 October 2011 the museum opened to great public interest in the new premises, while the temporary exhibition "Bigger than life - 100 years of Hollywood" that focused on Jewish Austrian contribution to the U.S. film industry, was described as a real crowd puller. As part of the renovation, the museum's facade was refreshed and the building's purpose made more prominent with a large light installation by Austrian artist
Brigitte Kowanz
Brigitte Kowanz (13 April 1957 – 28 January 2022) was an Austrian artist. Kowanz studied from 1975 to 1980 at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She was Professor of Transmedial Art there from 1997.
Works
Since the 1980s, Brigitte Kowanz' ...
of the word ''museum'' in Hebrew script. On the ground floor, the remodeling created a roomy and light foyer area and a spacious showroom hosting the "Vienna. Jewish Museum. 21st Century" permanent exhibition as well as the "Nancy Spero - Installation of Memory" murals. A big event space was created in the second floor and a small exhibition, "From Aleph to Tav - From the beginning to the end", showcases the Jewish life cycle through museum items and everyday objects.
As part of the renovation, the
Visible Storage area ("Schaudepot") in the third floor was completely redesigned to house the museum's Judaica collection. Individual objects are highlighted and explained through an installation of "windows" in the glass display cases, each window corresponding to a location, such as the "Leopoldstadt Temple" in Vienna. The central display features objects of Viennese and Austrian prayer houses, synagogues and other Jewish institutions, from the Jewish Museum before 1938, and to a small extent also from private households. The displays on the side cases focus of the period after 1945 : they include objects of the Max Berger Collection of Austro-Hungarian Judaica, the Eli Stern collection that is mainly made up of everyday objects from Eretz Yisrael, and the new acquisitions and donations that trace the history of Vienna's Jewish community from 1945 to now. The Martin Schlaff "Antisemitic objects" collection, also housed on the third floor, is shown facing to the back of each display case, which is mirrored—the idea being that to look at the mirrored objects, the visitor must at the same time come face to face with their own reflection.
Visitor numbers
Since its re-opening, the museum has attracted record number of visitors, both to its regular exhibitions and to its evening program of events featuring visiting artists and film projections. Specifically, the Judenplatz location posted doubling of its visitor numbers year on year (28,000 visitors in 2011 vs 14,000 in 2010) while the attendance to its evening events program tripled. Visitor figures over both locations reached 59,471 in 2011, and posted a strong start in 2012, with 22,000 visitors recorded in the first quarter alone. The museum is currently in the Top 30 of Viennese attractions with 133,000 visitors in 2018.
Our City! Jewish Vienna - Then to Now
After three years of preparation, the museum launched its new permanent exhibition “Our City! Jewish Vienna –Then to now” in November 2013. The exhibition tracks the history of Vienna's Jews as a key part of the cultural, financial and emotional life of the Austrian capital for centuries, but with particular emphasis on the years from 1945 to the present day, and the slow but steady flourishing of the decimated community.
Notes
Sources
Jüdisches Museum Wien website
{{Authority control
Jews and Judaism in Vienna
Museums in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...