Party at the Tel Aviv Beach, the Jewish club Hakoah celebrates its 100th anniversary and a new community center is built. Is Vienna’s Jewish community experiencing a renaissance? No. Many of the young people among its 7,500 members are leaving.  

Vienna – Marcello loves parties, every day, also on the Sabbath. “I party then too, unfortunately,“ he says with a slight sense of guilt and continues to sip his drink. It is quite normal to go out on a Friday evening.  

Vienna – The Jewish Community’s (IKG) plans for the symbolic “enclosure“ of Vienna’s inner districts has been delayed. “Talks with officials haven‘t been easy,“ explained project head Maurizi Berger, but: “We’re still working on it.“ The idea is to create a so-called “eruv“ that forms natural and real areas of the city, making it considerably easier for Orthodox Jews. ¹ 

Vienna – A piece of Jewish life embodied in Vienna’s Jewish Choir celebrated its 20th anniversary today in Vienna. Founded by the Smolka family, the choir of forty singers performed their anniversary concert - “A bissele Glik“ (“A Little Bit of Luck“) in the Mozartsaal of Vienna’s Concert House -  under the direction of Roman Grinberg.  Together with their audience, they traced various facets of luck and happiness, offering a wide spectrum of Jewish songs at their best.  

The composer Hanns Eisler is the subject of the next exhibition in the series "Music in Transition." He was born the son of Viennese philosopher Rudolf Eisler in Leipzig on July 6th, 1898. Returning to Vienna in 1901, Eisler studied with Arnold Schönberg from 1920 on, who acknowledged him as the equal of Berg and Webern. In 1925, he broke with his teacher over politics and moved to Berlin, where he strove to create a proletarian musical language that avoided the shallowness of hit-songs and the incomprehensibility of what he called the "bourgeois avant-garde". In 1933, as a Jew, he fled Nazi Germany while as a known Bolshevik, it was impossible for him to remain in Austria with its newly formed clerical fascist government. Exile turned into a period of political activism that took him from the Spanish Civil War to Moscow and the United States.

“The history of the Alps roughly and succinctly reflects the history of Europe, in other words our civilisation,” wrote Arnold Zweig in Haifa in 1940 in his posthumously published book “Dialectic of the Alps. Progress and Obstacle” (“Dialektik der Alpen. Fortschritt und Hemmnis”). For the Jews of Europe the mountains in the middle of the continent have always been fascinating, challenging and puzzling. This waste of nature, this abundance of beauty, ruggedness and energy had to have a meaning that was surely worth discovering. Thus began a chequered relationship, the story of an often unrequited love.

Bregenz/Vienna – Due to strong public interest, the exhibition “Have you Seen My Alps? – A Jewish Love Story“ in the Jewish Museum of Hohenems will be prolonged until November 15. From December 16, 2009 – March 15, 2010, it can be seen at Vienna’s Jewish Museum.  

Vienna – Chemist, novelist and playwright Carl Djerassi, chemist Alfred Bader and chemist/historian Robert Rosner are new honorary members of the Austrian Society for Research in Exile Studies in Vienna. There are three „representatives of Austrian exiles who, following their expulsion by the National Socialists, have committed themselves to the fields of science, business and culture and have made significant contributions in these fields.  

Vienna – Jewish residents of the house located in Rinnböckstraße 23 were forced to flee during the NS era, were then deported, and eventually lost their lives. Recently the owners of the building erected a memorial plate in remembrance of these victims of National Socialism. Now volunteers from a group with the district’s museum in Simmering are inviting guests to take part in a commemoration at the site of the building in Rinnböckstraße 23. Head of the 11th district, Renate Angerer, will also participate.