The Stadttempel (English: City Prayer House), also called the Seitenstettengasse Temple, is the main synagogue of Vienna, Austria. The synagogue was constructed from 1824 to 1826. The luxurious Stadttempel was fitted into a block of houses and hidden from plain view of the street, because of an edict issued by Emperor Joseph II that only Roman Catholic places of worship were allowed to be built with facades fronting directly on to public streets. This edict saved the synagogue from total destruction during the Kristallnacht in November 1938, since the synagogue could not be destroyed without setting on fire the buildings to which it was attached. The Stadttempel was the only synagogue in the city to survive World War II, as Nazi paramilitary troops with the help of local authorities destroyed all of the other 93 synagogues and Jewish prayer-houses in Vienna, starting with the Kristallnacht. In August 1950, the coffins of Theodor Herzl and his parents were displayed at the synagogue, prior to their transfer for reburial in Israel. In the 1981 Vienna synagogue attack, two people from a bar mitzvah ceremony at the synagogue were murdered and thirty injured when Palestinian Arab terrorists attacked the synagogue with machine guns and hand grenades. Today the synagogue is the main house of prayer for the Viennese Jewish Community of about 7,000 members. The synagogue has been declared a historic monument. The synagogue was designed in elegant Biedermeier style by the Viennese architect Joseph Kornhäusel, architect to Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, for whom he had built palaces, theaters and other buildings. Construction was supervised by the official municipal architect, Jacob Heinz. The synagogue itself is in the form of an oval. A ring of twelve Ionic columns support a two-tiered women's gallery. Originally, the galleries ended one column away from the Torah Ark, they were later extended to the columns beside the ark to provide more seating. the building is domed and lit by a lantern in the center of the dome, in classic Biedermeyer style. A commemorative glass made at the time of the synagogue's dedication and etched with a detailed image of the synagogue's interior is now in the collection of the Jewish Museum (New York). The synagogue underwent renovation in 1895 and again in 1904 by the Jewish architect Wilhelm Stiassny, adding considerable ornamentation, and, in the opinion of architectural historian Rachel Wischnitzer, "the serene harmony of the design was spoiled by renovations." Damage inflicted on Kristallnacht was repaired in 1949. The synagogue was renovated once again in 1963 by Prof. Otto Niedermoser. Image Attribution: Bic (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The Jewish cemetery in Roßau, which is also known at the Seegasse Jewish cemetery because of its location in the Seegasse, is the oldest preserved cemetery in Vienna. Members of the city's Jewish community were buried here between 1540 and 1783. The Jewish cemetery lies in the suburb of Roßau in the 9th district of Vienna, Alsergrund, and covers an area of approximately 2000 m2. Today, the site is part of the yard of the old people's home in the Seegasse and can be accessed via the home. Where the home now stands, there used to be a Jewish establishment for quarantining the sick. In 1629, the Seegasse was known as the Gassel allwo der Juden Grabstätte and, from 1778 it was known as the Judengasse ("Jews' lane"). In 1862, it was renamed Seegasse (Lake lane) after a fish pond that used to be in the area which was described in a document from 1415 as a "lake". The Jewish cemetery in the Seegasse was created in the 16th century. Between 1540 and 1783, it was the main burial site for members of Vienna's Jewish community. Following a pogrom against Viennese Jews in 1670, the Jewish merchant Koppel Fränkel paid a sum of 4000 gulden, in return for which the city committed to maintain the cemetery. Use of the cemetery as a burial site continued thereafter until 1783, when emperor Joseph II forbade the use of all cemeteries within the city walls. A new cemetery for the Jewish community was created outside the city walls in the suburb of Währing (see Jewish Cemetery (Währing)). In line with the edicts of the Jewish religion, the cemetery in the Seegasse was left untouched, while Christian cemeteries within the city walls were closed and built over. In 1943, the Nazi authorities resolved to raze the cemetery and to build over the site. A group of engaged Viennese Jews responded by removing some of the gravestones, which they buried at the city's main cemetery, the Zentralfriedhof. In the 1980s, 280 of the 931 gravestones that were buried there were rediscovered and returned to their original homes as recorded in Bernhard Wachstein’s surveys of the cemetery from the 1910s. The cemetery was sanctified once again on 2 September 1984. The inscriptions on the gravestones in the cemetery are entirely in Hebrew.

The Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna is a place of encounter and understanding. It enables insights into Judaism, its holidays and customs, but also into youth culture. At its two locations, the Jewish Museum Vienna presents a unique overview of the history and the present-day life of Viennese Jews. We are looking forward to your visit! The Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna is a place of encounter, interaction and understanding, which seeks to raise awareness of Jewish history, religion, and culture. The first Jewish museum in the world was founded in Vienna in 1895, sponsored by a group of Viennese Jewish citizens. The collection focused on the culture and history of the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, particularly Vienna and Galicia. In the interwar years Zionist objects were added, reflecting the new political discussion at that time. The museum was closed by the Nazis in 1938 directly after the Anschluss. In the last year of its existence the inventory listed 6,474 objects. In 1939 the museum collection was transferred to the Museum of Ethnology and other institutions in Vienna. The Anthropology Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna used some of the items for its anti-Semitic propaganda exhibition “The physical and psychological appearance of the Jews". Most of the objects were returned to the IKG Vienna in the early 1950s, although some were not restituted until the 1990s. Over half of the objects have disappeared; it is practically impossible to discover whether they were stolen or deliberately destroyed. Objects once listed in the Jewish Museum collection turn up occasionally on the art and antiques market. The surviving objects – on permanent loan from the IKG to the present-day Jewish Museum Vienna – form a unique component of the current collection.