Stadttempel

The Stadttempel (English: City Prayer House), also known as the Seitenstettengasse Temple, is Vienna, Austria’s main synagogue. It is located at Seitenstettengasse 4 in the Innere Stadt 1st district.

Architecture

The synagogue was created in the beautiful Biedermeier style by Viennese architect Joseph Kornhäusel, who had previously built palaces, theaters, and other structures for Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein. Jacob Heinz, the official city architect, oversaw construction.

The architect designed two five-story apartment houses, Numbers 2 and 4 Seitenstettengasse, to screen the synagogue from the street in accordance with the Patent of Toleration, which allowed members of tolerated faiths to worship in clandestine churches but not in buildings with facades on public streets. The synagogue is physically connected to the residential complex at 4 Seitenstettengasse.

The synagogue itself is shaped like an oval. A two-tiered women’s gallery is supported by a ring of twelve Ionic columns. The galleries were originally one column away from the Torah Ark, but they were eventually expanded to the columns beside the ark to accommodate extra seats. In traditional Biedermeyer design, the structure is domed and illuminated by a lantern in the center of the dome.

The Jewish Museum (New York) presently has a commemorative glass manufactured at the time of the synagogue’s consecration and etched with a detailed depiction of the synagogue’s interior.

The Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny renovated the synagogue in 1895 and again in 1904, adding significant embellishment, and, according to architectural historian Rachel Wischnitzer, “the serene harmony of the design was spoiled by renovations.”In 1949, the damage caused by Kristallnacht was rectified. Prof. Otto Niedermoser refurbished the “Stadttempel” once more in 1963.

History

The synagogue was built between 1824 and 1826. Because of an order made by Emperor Joseph II that only Roman Catholic places of worship may be erected with facades facing directly on to public streets, the opulent Stadttempel was placed within a block of residences and hidden from plain view of the street.

This injunction spared the synagogue from ultimate destruction during Kristallnacht in November 1938, because it could not be destroyed without destroying the structures to which it was linked. The Stadttempel was the city’s sole synagogue to survive World War II, when Nazi paramilitary soldiers, with the assistance of local officials, demolished all 93 synagogues and Jewish prayer-houses in Vienna beginning with Kristallnacht.

Theodor Herzl and his parents’ coffins were presented in the synagogue in August 1950, preparatory to their removal for reburial in Israel.

When Palestinian Arab terrorists assaulted the synagogue with machine guns and hand grenades in 1981, two persons from a bar mitzvah ceremony were killed and thirty were injured.

Today, the synagogue serves as the primary place of worship for the Viennese Jewish Community, which numbers over 7,000 people.

The synagogue has been designated as a historic landmark.

On November 2, 2020, a terrorist assault near the synagogue killed four individuals and injured 23 more. It was unclear whether the synagogue was the intended target of the attack.

Vienna, Austria