City temple
The City Temple is the main synagogue in Vienna . It is located in Vienna's 1st district, Innere Stadt, at Seitenstettengasse 4. This is why the main synagogue is also called the Seitenstetten Temple. Before 1938, due to the large number of synagogues and prayer rooms in Vienna, it was customary to name the facilities after the streets or alleys.
history
With the economic upswing of some Jewish families at the end of the 18th century and the emancipation efforts of the Jews made possible by a tolerance patent from Emperor Joseph II , the plan to build a representative synagogue in the city center arose. This project was supported by the board of directors of the Jewish community and announced to all members in a letter in 1819. Two of the planned building sites were not approved by the magistrate . In 1811 Michael Lazar Biedermann and Isaak Löw Hofmann bought the Pempflingerhof (vulgo Dempfingerhof) in today's Seitenstettengasse for 90,000 guilders. In 1823, however, the building had to be demolished because it was in disrepair and Joseph Kornhäusel , one of the most famous Viennese architects of his era, was commissioned to build a new one. The foundation stone for the building, which was planned in the classical style, was laid on December 12, 1825. The opening ceremony followed on April 9, 1826.
According to the regulations in force at the time, non-Catholic houses of worship, so-called tolerance prayer houses, had to be "hidden" and were not allowed to be directly visible from the street. The art historian Max Eisler (1881–1937, an Orthodox Jew) therefore spoke of the synagogue as a “monument to his ambivalent times. [...] Outside - since the Jews were not allowed to mark their places of worship on the street - like an apartment building, inside like a theater. Just no temple ”. The synagogue itself is therefore located behind a five-storey tenement house with 14 window axes and a classicist facade, in which the facilities of the Israelite religious community are housed. Access to the city temple, which was built as an independent building, is through the street building.
Above the entrance gate of the street building is the inscription (from Ps 100.4 EU ):
"Bo'u she'araw betoda chatzerotaw bitehilla"
"Come to his gates with thanksgiving, to his courts [of the Temple of Jerusalem] with hymns of praise!"
The letters of schearaw highlighted by their size - starting in the 1st line from the right from the fourth letter - result in a number that is reminiscent of the year of construction, namely schin / 300 + ajin / 70 + resch / 200 + iod / 10 + waw / 6 = 586 - think of the 5000 in front of it and then come to 5586 according to the Jewish calendar = 1825/26.
The oval prayer room with a surrounding ring of twelve Ionic columns, on which the women's gallery rests, is vaulted by a dome and two lanterns. The ground floor is reserved for men. The synagogue has a total of around 700 seats. The Torah shrine at its front is crowned in the dome area by the semi-plastic tablets of the law embedded in a halo of rays .
The current room and lighting design no longer corresponds to the original condition, because on the occasion of the first renovation by Wilhelm Stiassny from 1895 there were changes to the women's gallery, the decoration of the dome and the lighting, after gas lighting had been introduced as early as 1867. A second renovation followed in 1923. The current condition is the result of the general renovation carried out in 1963. In 1934 a memorial plaque for the many fallen Jewish soldiers of the First World War was put up in the anteroom by the Association of Jewish Front Soldiers .
Isaak Mannheimer was the first rabbi to officiate here until his death in 1865, at his suggestion Salomon Sulzer was appointed cantor in Vienna in 1826 .
While in the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938 all other of the more than 130 Viennese synagogues and prayer houses were set on fire, the main synagogue in Vienna was the only one to escape destruction due to its close construction in the residential area. The interior was desecrated, devastated and abused as a collection camp for the Viennese Jews, who were then deported and then murdered in the Holocaust . A memorial plaque in the entrance hall, unveiled in September 1988, commemorates this.
There are several memorial plaques in the anteroom, including one for the immortalized rabbis who were active in the city temple. Since 1894, when Chief Rabbi Moritz Güdemann , who until then worked in the Leopoldstädter Tempel , moved to the synagogue in Seitenstettengasse, the City Temple has traditionally been the synagogue of all Vienna Chief Rabbis. The inscription “In memory of the Jewish men, women and children who lost their lives in the fateful years 1938–1945” is to be found together with the verse from the “ Awinu Malkenu ” prayer: “Our father, our King, do it for the sake of those who were murdered for Your Holy Name ”on another memorial plaque placed soon after 1945. Another memorial is dedicated to the former Austrian Jews who died in the Israeli War of Liberation in 1948 . Also in the anteroom is a memorial for Aron Menczer , head of the immigration movement for young people to Palestine, and the Zionist youth of Vienna, inaugurated on June 3, 1993 . On November 9, 2002, a memorial for the 65,000 murdered Austrian Jews was unveiled here. In the midst of rotating slates, on which all the names of those killed are engraved, stands a broken granite column as a symbol of the community destroyed by the National Socialists , which until 1938 was one of the great centers of Judaism. In the synagogue, numerous other memorial plaques donated by relatives commemorate victims of the persecution of the Jews .
From autumn 1945, services could be held again in the synagogue, which was temporarily renovated. On April 2, 1946, a solemn service was held in the presence of the Mayor of Vienna Theodor Körner to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the inauguration, which was also broadcast to the USA, Great Britain and Palestine; but it wasn't until September 1947 that benches were reinstalled.
Special events
On August 14, 1949, the coffins of Theodor Herzl and his parents as well as his sister were laid out here under the blue and white flag of Israel before they were transferred to Israel. The then Chief Rabbi Akiva Eisenberg spoke during the ceremony, among other things: "The spirit of Herzl, who always proudly announced and made it known to all of us: I am a Jew !, the mind of the man who as Joseph believed in redemption, the spirit of Herzl lives, the country and the people live. "
Before the transfer to Israel, the bones of the former chief rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes were laid out here in November 1950 .
In 1958, the famous tenor Richard Tucker sang as a cantor in the temple during one of his guest performances at the Vienna State Opera to express his respect for Salomon Sulzer; according to his biography this was "one of his greatest experiences".
In 1963, after 9 months of renovation work, the city temple was reopened according to plans by Otto Niedermoser .
In 1976, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the city temple, a festive service was celebrated, at which numerous Austrian politicians such as Bruno Kreisky , Otto Rösch , Christian Broda , Hannes Androsch and Karl Lütgendorf were present.
In 1984, Chief Rabbi Paul Chaim Eisenberg had the Bima , the lectern, moved a few meters more into the center of the room in order to meet the demands of the Halacha , the Orthodox tradition.
In 1988 the synagogue was renovated again by the building contractor Richard Lugner , with the vestibules in particular being made more spacious.
In 2001 the 175th anniversary of the city temple was celebrated with the participation of the famous tenor Neil Shicoff and in the presence of Federal President Thomas Klestil .
Terrorist attacks in 1979 and 1981
On April 22, 1979, half a kilogram of plastic explosives exploded in the courtyard of the synagogue. Nobody was injured, but all the glass windows shattered and there was great damage to property. The assassins were able to enter the synagogue completely unhindered; as a result, the Palestinian extremist group Adler of the Revolution (As-Saika) took over the authorship.
On August 29, 1981, two heavily armed terrorists from the Palestinian extremist group Fatah Revolutionary Council carried out an attack on the city temple, leaving two dead and 21 people, some seriously injured. The assassins, one of whom had already carried out the attack on Heinz Nittel , broke into the synagogue at 11:30 a.m. on the Sabbath during the service, threw hand grenades and fired into the crowd. Police officers deployed for security and two private guards were seriously injured in the hail of bullets. One of the assassins was shot by a private detective who happened to be present and was arrested in the course of the subsequent large-scale manhunt nearby. The second terrorist was also caught after a chase, during which he killed two passers-by and threw hand grenades at a patrol car.
Even today, the city temple, like other Jewish institutions in Austria, is constantly protected by the police.
Terrorist attack 2020
On the evening of November 2, 2020, starting from Seitenstettengasse and the lively local district of Bermuda Triangle , there was a terrorist attack in downtown Vienna . Five people (including the perpetrator) were killed and another 22 injured, some seriously.
organization
The rabbis of the city temple have also been the chief rabbis of Vienna since 1894, when Chief Rabbi Güdemann moved from the Leopoldstädter Tempel to Seitenstettengasse ; from 2016 to June 2019 it was Arie Folger . The Jewish Museum Vienna offers guided tours of the city temple. Since 1990, at the suggestion of Paul Chaim Eisenberg, annual cantor concerts have been held here with the participation of famous cantors from all over the world, such as Naftali Herstik .
See also
- Jewish life in Vienna
- List of Jewish places of worship in Vienna
- List of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in German-speaking countries after 1945
literature
- Pierre Genée: Vienna Synagogues 1825–1938 . Löcker, Vienna 1987, pp. 47–52, ISBN 3-85409-113-3 .
- Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna . Volume 5. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-218-00547-7 , pp. 304f.
- Evelyn Adunka : The City Temple Vienna. History - rabbis - cantors . Published by the New Synagogue Berlin Foundation, Centrum Judaicum , Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz 2008, ISBN 978-3-938485-55-2 (= Jewish miniatures , volume 62).
- Nikolaus Vielmetti: The meaning of the temple in Vienna's Seitenstettengasse for the Jewish community in Vienna . In: This earth is full of life and full of death: Pictures from the history of the Jewish Austrians from 1190 to 1938 , Herold Verlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3700803788 , pp. 130–142.
Web links
- Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien | Information about Viennese synagogues
- About the special stamp of the Austrian Post "150 Years of Vienna City Temple"
Individual evidence
- ^ Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien : History of the IKG Vienna . Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ↑ Max Eisler: The Seitenstetten Temple . In: Menorah . Volume 3, Vienna 1926, p. 157.
- ^ According to a list by Geneé, Martens and Schedl, there were a total of 95 synagogues in Vienna before 1938. Pierre Geneé, Bob Martens, Barbara Schedl: Jewish places of worship in Vienna before 1938 . Out: David. Jewish culture magazine, accessed on December 12, 2015. The Israelitische Kultusgemeinde lists 55 synagogues and association prayer houses. Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien: Synagogues before 1938 . ( Memento of the original from April 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ↑ Memorial in the City Temple of Vienna . ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien, accessed on December 12, 2015.
-
↑ On the 20th anniversary: The terrorist attack on a Vienna synagogue . From: The community. The official organ of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien 9/2001, on: HaGalil.com , September 2001, accessed on August 18, 2008.
See also: Karl Pfeifer: Kreisky, Arafat und der Terror . ( Memento from January 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the "Anti-Defamation Center - Educational Center for Democracy and Culture eV", Thomas Rassloff. - ↑ Four dead in an Islamist terrorist attack in Vienna - 14 arrests - currently no evidence of other perpetrators. In: derStandard.at . November 3, 2020, accessed on November 3, 2020 (as of November 3, 2020, 3:13 p.m.).
- ↑ https://d-nb.info
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 41.8 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 28.7 ″ E