Kurt Schubert

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Kurt Schubert (born March 4, 1923 in Vienna ; † February 4, 2007 there ) was the doyen of Austrian Jewish Studies . He played a key role in the reconstruction of the University of Vienna in the spring of 1945.

Life

Schubert attended the Theresianum grammar school in Vienna . Before graduating from high school , he experienced the Nazi invasion of 1938. Because of his asthma, he was classified as not fit for military service (only “fit for work”), so he was able to study in Vienna. The persecution of the Jews led him to take a scientific look at Judaism . So he got the nickname "Moses". The committed Catholic Schubert began studying Hebrew at the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Philology at the University of Vienna in the middle of the war . In 1944 he received his doctorate with a study on the foreign policy of King Hammurabi .

As a student, he saved the library of the Vienna Rabbinical Seminary from destruction (after 1945 he arranged for the books to be transferred to Israel ). He was one of both the Austrian resistance movement and the declared illegal by Karl Strobl led Catholic Student Youth on. In early 1945 his father was arrested by the Gestapo.

In April 1945 Schubert obtained permission from the Soviet occupying forces to resume university operations. On May 2, 1945, Schubert gave his first lecture “Hebrew for Beginners”.

At the University of Vienna, Schubert initially worked as a lecturer in Jewish Studies at the Institute for Oriental Studies . In 1948 Schubert received the venia legendi and devoted himself to establishing Judaic studies in Vienna. Schubert was the first to publish in German on the Qumran Scrolls . In 1959 the actual Chair for Jewish Studies, initially as part of Oriental Studies, and only in 1966 the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna were established. Until his retirement in September 1993, Schubert was full professor and board member at this institute. Even after he retired, he continued to teach at the institute until the summer semester of 2006, thus teaching for over 60 years.

He has taught and published on many topics from Judaic studies, including Jewish book art of the Middle Ages (in collaboration with his wife, the art historian Ursula Schubert, who died in 1999), Zionism and the change in the shape of anti-Semitism. He emphasized that in Jesus' day there had to be a real physical resurrection for Jews - so he defended the empty tomb of Jesus.

Memorial plaque in the Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt (2011)

In 1972 he founded the Austrian Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt .

Schubert always stood up for the Judeo-Christian dialogue and the overcoming of anti-Semitism . In 2006 he was honored with the "ICCJ Sir Sigmund Sternberg Award".

In 1987 he became a corresponding member of the philosophical-historical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and an honorary member in 2004, as well as an honorary senator of the University of Vienna.

Kurt Schubert was buried at the Döblinger Friedhof in Vienna.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • The history of Austrian Jewry . Böhlau, Vienna 2008
  • Jesus in the light of the religious history of Judaism. Herold, Vienna 1973
  • The reopening of the University of Vienna in May 1945 . Archive of the University of Vienna, Vienna 1991 (lecture, 34 pages)
  • The historical Jesus and the Christ of our faith. Vienna 1962 (editor)
  • with Johannes Botterweck : Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Viktor Christian , dedicated by colleagues and students on his 70th birthday. Vienna 1956

See also

literature

  • Franz Morawitz: Kurt Schubert. In: Die Furche from December 1, 2005, p. 60.

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ^ Morawitz: Schubert.
  2. ^ Morawitz: Schubert. - The father belonged to the resistance group “Kreis Bellaria” of Leopoldine Hornik (documentation archive of the Austrian resistance, file no. 19831).
personal data
SURNAME Schubert, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian university professor for Jewish studies
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 2007
Place of death Vienna , Austria