– How have you experienced the anti-Israel protests in Austria of the past few weeks, triggered by the Middle East conflict?
– This isn’t the first time we’re seeing this. Unfortunately, antisemitism has remained here in Vienna and Austria. Of course, it’s renewed not just in Europe but globally as well with every escalation in the Middle East. We of course reacted very sensitively to this, all the more so as our Jewish community has a very personal, emotional attachment to the region. Many of us have friends or family living in Israel who we genuinely worry about. At the same time, we are fully aware that the conflict is being abused incessantly, blurring Israelis and Jews together. Jewish communities are blamed for what’s happening in the Middle East and this is repeatedly leading to antisemitic manifestations that we unfortunately witness in Vienna too. For instance, they glorify Islamist terrorist organizations like Hamas, or they are constantly trivializing the Holocaust. Naturally, our sense of security suffers. We have taken measures, informed members of our community to the issue and we are of course working closely with authorities to thoroughly strengthen security measures.

Fotó: JEWISH COMMUNITY OF VIENNA
– How many Jewish people live in Austria today?
– Our community has 7,800 members in Vienna and a total of just over 8,000 throughout Austria. Our Jewish community is very diverse – Orthodox Jewish life for example is also visible in Vienna. It is of course a point of conflict in the Jewish quarter if these anti-Israel demonstrations actually march through the city center and in the immediate vicinity of our services.
– The Vienna community also warned its members of the anti-Israel demonstrations were being held the other day on the Mariahilfer Strasse area. Is this the new normal? Citizens should stay at home while extremists take the Vienna streets?
– At the end of last year, there was a terrorist attack right in front of the Stadttempel (Austria’s main synagogue –ed) and in 1981 there was another attack as well. Since then, security has naturally been a very important issue for us. We have been preparing our community members whenever protests are expected. These could be Islamist or Palestinian demonstrations, an anti-Israel protest calling for a boycott, radical right-wing demonstrations or, as was quite frequent last year, protests against the government and pandemic measures. The latter are similarly expressing antisemitic sentiments as they present themselves as victims and trivialize the Holocaust. So, we have a palette composed of totally different elements here: left- and right-wing radicals, Islamists. I would also add however that we never called for people to not leave their homes – this has unfortunately been somewhat exaggerated by the media.