“The Diadem of Our Community” – On the 200th Anniversary of the Vienna City Temple

The architect was the very popular Joseph Kornhäusel, who in later years built several additional houses in Seitenstettengasse – among them the so-called Kornhäusel Tower. From the outside, the building is not recognizable as a synagogue, because at the time only Catholic churches were permitted to be built as free-standing structures and to rise higher than the surrounding buildings.

Above the entrance portal at Seitenstettengasse 4, Psalm 100:4 is quoted: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” The word “Schearav” (“his gates”), written in larger letters, yields the year of construction of the synagogue through its numerical value.

At the time of the construction of the City Temple, Vienna’s Jews held very different views on liturgy, ritual procedure, and the form of worship. Many were enthusiastic about reforms inspired by the Enlightenment that had already been implemented in northern Europe and sought to introduce them in Vienna as well. Others argued strongly in favor of traditional, Orthodox worship.

The so-called Viennese rite prevented a split between the two camps. This rite represents a compromise between Reform and Orthodoxy. It was developed by the first rabbi of the City Temple, Isaak Noa Mannheimer, born in Copenhagen, together with the first cantor, Salomon Sulzer, who came from Hohenems.

On the commemorative leaf for Salomon Sulzer from 1897, Mannheimer and Sulzer are depicted in medallions above the entrance arch – at the center of a now united community, which was finally permitted to be officially established in 1852.

By the 50th anniversary of the City Temple in 1876, much had changed for Jews in the Habsburg Empire: with the December Constitution of 1867, they had finally attained legal equality, and Vienna was now freely accessible to all of them.

Congratulations in the form of letters or telegrams arrived at the Vienna City Temple from across the monarchy. Moshe Yehuda Lawitz composed a laudatory poem about the synagogue in Seitenstettengasse and referred to it as “the diadem of our community.”

In 1938, the City Temple was the only synagogue in Vienna not set on fire during the November Pogroms: it would have been impossible to ignite the building without the fire spreading to neighboring houses. Nevertheless, the interior was devastated and its furnishings destroyed.

This photograph shows the interior of the City Temple in 1941 with provisional seating. The year also marks the beginning of the mass deportations of Austrian Jews to the National Socialist concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

After the end of the Second World War, religious services resumed in the City Temple from the autumn of 1945 onward. For the few surviving Jews from Vienna, rebuilding their lives in this city seemed scarcely imaginable. Survivors from Eastern Europe saw Vienna as an opportunity for a new beginning and played a significant role in re-establishing the community.

This parokhet was donated by Elieser Jichzak Cohen Kahn in memory of his relatives murdered in the Shoah. The closing phrase “murdered for the Holy Name” alludes to a verse from the Avinu Malkeinu prayer, which is also quoted on a memorial plaque in the City Temple: “Our Father, our King, act for the sake of those who were murdered for Your Holy Name.”

The open Torah ark shows the Torah scrolls used in the City Temple during the 1920s, adorned with Torah mantles, Torah shields, Torah crowns or rimmonim, as well as Torah pointers. All of these ritual objects were donated by Jews who had a connection to Vienna or to the Vienna City Temple. Through inscriptions on the objects, some donors have preserved their names, and certain life stories are still known today or can be reconstructed. Many stories, however, will remain forever hidden.

For 200 years, the City Temple has accompanied the Jews of Vienna: it is a symbol of the hard-won rights of Austrian Jews and of Jewish life nearly destroyed by the National Socialists. At the same time, it stands as a sign of the community re-established after 1945. Today, the Seitenstetten Temple is the center of vibrant Jewish religious and cultural life in Vienna – a building rich in history, ready for the next 200 years.