Synagoge

History of the Vienna City Temple

The Vienna City Temple was built in the Austrian Biedermeier era. In spite of the Tolerance Patent issued by Joseph II in 1782, only “tolerated Jews”, as they were called, were permitted to live in Vienna. In 1812 representatives of the Jews decided to purchase the building on Kienmarkt (today’s Seitenstettengasse) and install a school, ritual bath and prayer house.

In the next few years, Dempfingerhof, as the building was called, developed into a centre of Viennese Jewish life. The representatives soon realised that it could not meet the demands of the growing community and the building was demolished in 1823 by order of the city authorities because of its unsound structure.

The same year the renowned architect Josef Kornhäusel (1782-1860) was commissioned to design a new and larger synagogue. He was constrained by a regulation requiring that the prayer house be integrated in a patrician house so as to ensure that it would not be recognisable from the street as a non-Catholic place of worship; furthermore, the women’s gallery and ark needed to be in the eastern part of the main room. The foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on 12 December 1825 with an official speech given by the new rabbi Isak Noah Mannheimer (1793-1865). The dedication of the new prayer house, now called the Vienna City Temple, took place on 9 April 1826 in the presence of public dignitaries and officials.

Although integrated in a residential building, the synagogue had its own separate structure and domed roof. It has an oval ground plan and two galleries running round the main room, interrupted only by the ark in the eastern end, which is gilded and richly decorated, giving the room a dignified and ceremonious aspect.

During the pogrom by the Nazis on 9/10 November 1938, in which synagogues throughout Germany and Austria were set on fire, the Vienna City Temple was one of the few synagogues to be spared and “merely” plundered. This was because of the location of the synagogue sandwiched between two patrician houses, which would have been likely to go up in flames.

Today the City Temple and the entire building complex at Seitenstettengasse 4 is the religious, cultural and social centre of Jewish life in Vienna. Apart from the synagogue, it houses the community centre, the IKG (Jewish Community) offices and the library of the Jewish Museum Vienna.

Domagoj Akrap