Ship school

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Building in which the ship school is housed today
Prayer room of the Vienna Ship School today

The so-called Schiffschul is the club synagogue at Große Schiffgasse 8 in the 2nd district of Vienna, Leopoldstadt . The synagogue is used by the Orthodox community.

The synagogue is integrated in an apartment building and is therefore not recognizable as such from the outside. The house of prayer used to stand in the courtyard of the houses at Große Schiffgasse 8 and 10. It was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 .

history

The original synagogue was built between 1858 and 1864. It was a single-nave, almost square domed building with stylistic borrowings from Byzantine architecture. The synagogue, which had 750 seats (500 for men, 250 for women), was inaugurated on September 16, 1864. The first rabbi was Salomon Spitzer, who from 1853 worked for the emerging community. There was always a tense relationship with the Israelite religious community . In 1872 Spitzer, who would originally have been offered the post of Chief Rabbi of the IKG, provided he refrained from orthodoxy, resigned all functions in the IKG. The request for permission to found one's own (Orthodox) religious community was rejected by the responsible ministry in 1874. From 1897 the ship school was looked after by the association “Adass Jisroel” (Israeli Community), which was founded out of the community.

As a de facto autonomous managed Kehilla the ship's school housed various facilities, such as founded in 1854 in Vienna Talmud - Torah -School or founded by Spitzer "Beth Torah Hamidrasch Ez Chaim". The parish also included the property at Nestroygasse 11, where the “Jesod Hatora” school association was active and where the kindergarten, elementary school, cheder and yeshivah were housed. A matzo bakery , black, white and sugar bakeries , ten meat wear points and two smokers were also connected to the community . Furthermore, the "Volks- und Mittelstandsküche Einheit" (Volks- und Mittelstandsküche Einheit) and a "Sickness Association" with its own kitchen were operated in the AKH to supply Jewish patients with kosher food in the hospitals. The community also included the “Tomech Ewjomim” association for caring for the poor and sick on Shabbabot and public holidays, as well as some other initiatives.

After the Anschluss in 1938, but especially after the November pogrom, in which the ship's school was completely burned down, a large part of the Jewish population emigrated. A part of the Orthodox community was reconstituted in the emigration destination Williamsburg , New York in 1941 and is still active today as the Vienner community .

At the same time, the supporting associations of the synagogue and the community, Adass Jisroel and Agudas Israel, were dissolved. The ship school itself, i.e. the outbuildings that remained of it, was "Aryanized" in 1938 and used to manufacture uniforms during the war. But as early as 1945, the first few returnees gathered around Rabbi Alter Simche, who had set up a prayer room at Malzgasse 7 immediately after the end of the war, again in the former ship school. After Vienna served as a transit point for numerous displaced persons , the community received support from the occupying powers, especially from the US, in order to be able to offer the Orthodox among them a temporary contact point. After some difficulties, Adass Yisroel (whose club president Alter Simche was elected) and Agudas Israel were finally recognized as legal successors (which was how the IKG, which considered itself the sole successor of all Jewish institutions, prevailed). In 1955 the properties were finally restituted - with the exception of the property at Nestroygasse 11, which was awarded to the originally "aryanizing" party after a unilateral interpretation of the Aryanization act by Federal Minister Krauland .

After the death of Rabbi Simche in 1949, at the age of 93, Rabbi Josef Israel Segelbaum from Makov succeeded him . As a rabbi, his son also ran the “Exile” ship school in New York. Segelbaum succeeded Rabbi Jechiel Mechel Neumann from Serencz in 1952 , who, however, emigrated to the USA in 1956. He was followed by the new rabbi Eliezer Weiser , who remained in office until his death. From 1960 to 1970, the Woloz rabbi Yehoshua Lerner also worked at the ship school. The current rabbi of Adass Yisroel / Agudas Israel is David L. Grünfeld, who has nothing to do with the ship school. The rabbi of the prayer association Agudas Jeschurun, which is housed in the house, is Michoel Pressburger.

Since 1955, on the basis of an agreement with Machsike Hadass, her Talmud Torah school has been housed in the Schiffschul until the school moved to its current address in Malzgasse, the Beth Hamidrash “Tora Ez Chaim” was restored.

In 1979 some Jewish-Iranian refugees joined the community.

Since 2000, the Khal Chassidim prayer club has also been housed in the ship school under Chief Rabbi Israel Avraham Schwartz . A mikveh was also opened soon afterwards.

A new community center has been planned for many years on the site of the former synagogue, Grosse Schiffgasse 8-10, which is still vacant, but has not yet been implemented.

literature

  • Michaela Feurstein, Gerhard Milchram: Jewish Vienna . 2nd revised edition. Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85476-225-6 ( Mandelbaum city guide ).
  • Pierre Genée: Vienna Synagogues 1825–1938 . Löcker, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-85409-113-3 , pp. 47-52.
  • Bob Martens , Herbert Peter: The destroyed synagogues of Vienna. Virtual city walks . Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85476-313-0 .

Web links

Commons : Schiffschul  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 58.5 ″  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 32.4 ″  E