Jewish Vienna

Vienna has had a Jewish community since the beginning of the 13th century. The first Jewish ghetto was in the inner city. I didn’t get to that section, but there is a Holocaust memorial and a Jewish museum there as well as a medieval synagogue that has been excavated. The present Jewish community has been a center of Jewish life for centuries. It is in the 2nd district, Leopoldstadt, named after the emporer who expelled the Jews from the inner city and made them live there. It’s a beautiful area. I explored it on the afternoon before Yom Kippur began. I wanted to follow the tradition of lighting a yartzeit candle for each of my parents and each of Alan’s parents just before sundown. This was my first real trip on my own without Maggie and Daniel (they were both at work). Leopoldstadt had many easily identifiable Jewish men wearing dark suits and hats all heading for synagogue. I asked for help—everyone was very courteous and most spoke English. The streets were confusing and I would follow the directions I was given until I got lost again at which time I would stop and ask someone else. Finally I found the outdoor market—a mixture of kosher and hallal butchers, lots of fresh vegetables. There weren’t very many English speakers among the merchants there, but they found someone who understood what I wanted and showed me where to buy the candles. Along the sidewalks as I walked I often came across small brass plaques. With the aid of my dictionary I read how many people in a particular apartment on a particular date were rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. And there would be names and birth dates of some of the people. The “Way of Remembrance.” There was something so moving about being a part of this community surviving, living, carrying on but not forgetting.
That evening I met Maggie and Daniel for services at Or Chadash—the progressive Jewish synagogue. In the next row in front of us was a very youthful looking 85 year old man who with his wife had just moved back to Vienna to retire. He was reconnecting with family and friends—he had last lived in Vienna at age 15 in 1938.
Maggie and I fasted and attended Yom Kippur services the whole next day. There was a section of the service where we talked about the holocaust--like there is in every synagogue all over the world on Yom Kippur. The part about the non-Jews who stood up against the craziness and helped Jews seemed especially significant. For me it was emotional, difficult and helpful—all these rituals having to do with death, guilt, forgiveness. We broke our fast at a nearby Italian restaurant with others from the congregation. This was one of those times that I will always remember, and never thought to take a picture.