Jewish News from Austria #16

Dear Readers,

2007-04-29T17:19:13Z

With this issue of Jewish News from Austria, we are happy to be able to provide you with a broad selection of articles which have appeared in the Austrian media since the beginning of the year.

We would also like to point out to all readers of Jewish News from Austria an important change: Since January 2007 you will find actual news items, information on events, publications as well as useful links on a regular basis on our new website: www.jewishnews.at Thus, by offering you a broader coverage, in addition to our regularly appearing newsletter, we try to keep you well informed.

Since our last issue, we have also attempted to update the list of e-mail addresses of subscribers to Jewish News from Austria. In particular the list of organizations receiving the newsletter was updated and enlarged. We would be very grateful for your support in the outreach of this newsletter by informing us of people you know who might be interested in Jewish News from Austria. Moreover, we would send a hard copy by mail to those who are interested but have no access to the internet.

I would appreciate very much your response.

Yours sincerely,

Wolfgang Renezeder
Director of the Press & Information Service
Embassy of Austria

P.S. If you no longer wish to receive the electronic newsletter, please send us a short note to that effect.

Lively Jewish Culture in Vienna

2007-04-28T18:01:57Z

Conference from March 19 – 22: International scholars present the most recent research results on Jewish life in Vienna from 1900 to 1938.

“What I am trying to do is to comprise the history of Vienna’s Jews in relationship to the life of this entire city; that is, to recognize what Vienna meant and means for them, thereby clarifying the peculiarity of this piece of West European Jewry,” wrote Hans Titze in 1933, author of a standard work on the topic. The quotation is at the same time the motto of the international conference, “Vienna and the Jewish Experience – Acculturation, anti-Semitism and Zionism.”

University Holds Conference on History and Culture of Viennese Jews

2007-04-28T18:00:52Z

The conference, “Vienna and the Jewish Experience from 1900 to 1938: Acculturation, anti-Semitism, Zionism,” organized by the Department of Contemporary History under the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna will take place from March 19 – 22. The aim of the conference is to inform the general public on current research and studies of culture.

Future House” Opened for Jewish Community in Vienna

2007-04-28T17:56:33Z

Hahn: “Lively center for conversation and dialogue”

Vienna – On Sunday afternoon the Jewish community opened the “Future House,” located in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt. Across the street is the Lauder Chabad Campus, which was devastated last November out of anti-Semitic motives. “It often comes, unfortunately, to setbacks of the most unworthy and inhuman kind,” said Minister of Science Johannes Hahn in his opening speech.

School Project Searches for “Last Witnesses” of National Socialism

2007-04-28T17:55:12Z

“A Letter to the Stars” enters its fifth year

Vienna – The large-scale project on contemporary history, “A Letter to the Stars” enters its fifth year. Having as motto, “Ambassadors of Remembrance,” some 15,000 pupils will contact Holocaust survivors throughout the world and document their life stories. As the organizers of the project, Josef Neumayr and Andreas Kuba, said at a press conference, a database comprising 2,500 “last witnesses” has been established for this purpose.

Peace Camp 2007: Imagine Peace

2007-04-28T17:52:04Z

July 2 – 12 in Reibers, Waldviertel
Peace Camp 2007: Imagine Peace is a sequel to the projects, Peace Camp 2004, 2005 and 2006, all promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and the Karl Kahanel Foundation, the latter two of which are also supported by the EU Youth Program.

First Jewish Theater Festival in Vienna

2007-04-27T19:54:27Z

Bearing the title, “Tikun Olam,” there is currently a festival of international Jewish theater taking place for the first time. Artists from fifteen various countries are guests in Vienna.

Remembrance at Kreuzstadl

2007-04-27T19:53:36Z

Rechnitz – Some 150 people participated in the ceremony on Sunday afternoon in remembrance of the victims of South Eastern Defensive Wall construction

Austria Welcomes UN Resolution Against Denying the Holocaust

2007-04-27T19:51:12Z

Foreign Minister on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Vienna, 27 January 2007 - "This resolution is an outcry against any attempt to deny the horrors of the Shoa," said Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik following the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in which the community of states clearly condemns any denial or belittlement of the holocaust.

Jewish Museum Vienna Presents "Oskar Strnad 1879-1935"

2007-04-27T19:49:58Z

Oskar Strnad was one of the most brilliant architects, stage designers and theoreticians of the early 20th century. Together with Josef Frank, he founded the "Vienna School" of architecture, which distanced itself from the aestheticism of Wiener Werkstätte and was close to Adolf Loos in its basic approach free from dogmatism. As almost all Loos disciples, the founders and early members of the "Vienna School" came from a Jewish liberal middle-class background. Strnad's main focus was housing. His aim was to "shape without rigid forms" and to create "no dungeons but open worlds". He realized for example, the villa of the writer Jakob Wassermann presented in the exhibition, a semi-detached building in Vienna's Werkbundsiedlung and several flats in social housing complexes. Besides water colours and ceramic objects, Strnad also created furniture (e.g. for Hugo von Hofmannsthal); a drinking glass series made from mousellin glass can also be admired.