Jewish Vienna

Vienna and its Jews. It is much more than your usual hate-love story, but a thousand year history of an industrious people trying hard to find their well deserved place in this city, experiencing periods of prosperity followed by most brutal persecutions imagined – a recurring pattern in the history of Vienna. The Jewish community wiped out in Holocaust is back, if not in numbers but in the vigorous spirit claiming their righteous part in the life of the city. Vienna has always been and still remains a city of extremes. It is here where the political Zionism took shape, but it's also a city where the scions of the racial anti-Semitic hatred struck roots long before the Holocaust. It is a city of many famous Jewish names, such as Mahler, Freud, Roth, Rothschild...Much of the scientific, cultural, economic, political and intellectual elite of Vienna more than 100 years ago were Jews. The single most defining event in the history of the Viennese Jewry was the Holocaust – some 65.000 were murdered in the concentration camps.

During our tour we will explore sites in the city centre, like the Great Synagogue or the Old Jewish Quarter around the Jewish Square Judenplatz or the Imperial Palace, which was built with some considerable Jewish financial support. We will touch upon the life of great historical figures like Freud and get to know that the Jewish Vienna is not only something preserved in aspic but a very lively affair. You will also hear a couple of interesting historical facts peppered with some real life stories of the Viennese population in the past and present. The Viennese Jewry is alive and kicking and I invite you to discover that yourself.