List of Austrian Jews

Austria first became a center of Jewish learning during the 13th century. However, increasing antisemitism led to the expulsion of the Jews in 1669. Following formal readmission in 1848, a sizable Jewish community developed once again, contributing strongly to Austrian culture. By the 1930s, some 300,000 Jews lived in Austria, most of them in Vienna. Following the Anschluss with Nazi Germany, most of the community emigrated or were killed in the Holocaust. The current Austrian Jewish population is 9,000. The following is a list of some prominent Austrian Jews. Here German-speaking Jews from the whole Habsburg Monarchy are listed.

Athletes

• Margarete "Grete" Adler, swimmer, Olympic bronze (4x100-meter (m) freestyle relay)
• Richard Bergmann, Austria/Britain table tennis player, 7x world champion, ITTFHoF
• Albert Bogen (Albert Bógathy), fencer (saber), Olympic silver
• Fritzi Burger, figure skater, 2x Olympic silver, 2x World Championship silver
• Siegfried "Fritz" Flesch, fencer (sabre), Olympic bronze
• Hans Haas, weightlifter, Olympic champion (lightweight), silver
• Judith Haspel (born "Judith Deutsch"), Austrian-born Israeli swimmer, held every Austrian women's middle and long distance freestyle record in 1935, refused to represent Austria in 1936 Summer Olympics along with Ruth Langer and Lucie Goldner, protesting Hitler, stating, "I refuse to enter a contest in a land which so shamefully persecutes my people."
• Dr. Otto Herschmann, fencer (saber), 2-Olympic-silver (in fencing/team sabre and 100-m freestyle); arrested by Nazis, and died in Izbica concentration camp
• Nickolaus "Mickey" Hirschl, wrestler, 2x Olympic bronze (heavyweight freestyle and Greco-Roman)
• Felix Kasper, figure skater, Olympic bronze
• Klara Milch, swimmer, Olympic bronze (4x100-m freestyle relay)
• Paul Neumann, swimmer, Olympic champion (500-m freestyle)
• Fred Oberlander, Austrian, British, and Canadian wrestler; world champion (freestyle heavyweight); Maccabiah champion
• Felix Pipes, tennis player, Olympic silver (doubles)
• Maxim Podoprigora, Olympic swimmer
• Ellen Preis, fencer (foil), 3x world champion (1947, 1949, and 1950), Olympic champion, 17x Austrian champion
• Otto Scheff (born "Otto Sochaczewsky"), swimmer, Olympic champion (400-m freestyle) and 2x bronze (400-m freestyle, 1,500-m freestyle)
• Josephine Sticker, swimmer, Olympic bronze (4x100-m freestyle relay)
• Otto Wahle, Austria/US swimmer, 2x Olympic silver (1,000-m freestyle, 200-m obstacle race) and bronze (400-m freestyle); International Swimming Hall of Fame

Historical figures

Politicians

• Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of Austria from 1970 to 1983, agnostic
• Ignaz Kuranda, politician

Academic figures

Lawyers

• Fred F. Herzog, the only Jewish judge in Austria between the world wars, he fled to the United States and became the dean of two law schools.

Scientists

• Carl Djerassi, chemist. Inventor of the pill
• Sir Otto Frankel, geneticist [1]
• Eric Kandel, neuroscientist. Winner of 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Karl Koller, ophthalmologist; first to use cocaine as an anaesthetic [2]
• Hans Kronberger (physicist), nuclear physicist
• Robert von Lieben, physicist (Jewish father) [3]
• Victor Frederick Weisskopf (1908–2002) physicist. During World War II, he worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons
• Max Perutz molecular biologist. Winner of 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists

• Alfred Adler, founding member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and founder of the school of individual psychology
• Anna Freud, Vienna-born child psychologist and daughter of Sigmund Freud
• Sigmund Freud, Moravian-born founder of psychoanalysis and neurologist
• Marie Jahoda, psychologist [4]
• Melanie Klein, psychotherapy
• Wilhelm Reich, psychiatry and psychoanalysis
• Viktor Frankl, Psychiatrist and psychologist

Social and political scientists

• Samuel Bergman, philosopher
• Paul Edwards, philosopher ^[5]
• Heinrich Friedjung, Moravian historian and politician. ([6]; Encyclopaedia Judaica, article "Historians", list of "Prominent Jewish General Historians".)
• Norbert Jokl, founder of Albanology
• Otto Kurz, historian (Jewish Year Book 1975 p214)
• Emil Lederer, economist
• Ludwig von Mises, economist
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (of largely Jewish descent but given a Catholic burial)

Cultural figures

Film and stage

• Rudolf Bing (1902–1997) opera impresario, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972
• Fritz Grünbaum (1880-1941) cabaret artist, operetta and pop song writer, director, actor and master of ceremonies
• Alber Misak, actor
• Kurt Kren (1929–1998) experimental filmmaker, director of the avant garde films 8/64: Ana – Aktion Brus, 10/65: Selbstverstümmelung, 10b/65: Silber – Aktion Brus, 16/67: 20. September, and 10c/65: Brus wünscht euch seine Weihnachten (Jewish father)
• Reggie Nalder (1907-1991) cabaret dancer, stage, film and television actor
• Joseph Schildkraut (1896-1964) stage and film actor

Musicians

• Kurt Adler, (1907-1977) Bohemian born Austrian chorus master, conductor, pianist, author, Metropolitan Opera New York City, USA.
• Ignaz Brüll, composer and pianist
• Hanns Eisler, (1898-1962), composer and co-author (with Theodor W. Adorno) of Komposition für den Film (Jewish father)
• Joseph Joachim, violinist (born in Kittsee, Austria, at that time Hungary)[7]
• Hans Keller, musicologist
• Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) violinist and composer, one of the most famous of his day
• Erica Morini, violinist [8]
• Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942) composer and pianist
• Julius Schulhoff (1825–1898) pianist and composer
• Rudolf Schwarz, conductor
• Walter Susskind (1913–1980) conductor
• Richard Tauber, singer and composer
• Egon Wellesz, composer [9]

Composers

• Erich Wolfgang Korngold, composer (born in Bohemia)
• Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) violinist and composer, one of the most famous of his day
• Gustav Mahler, Bohemian-born composer, conductor and pianist
• Arnold Schoenberg (1871–1954), composer (born in Vienna). Founder of Second Viennese School, music theorist.

Writers

• Peter Altenberg, writer and poet
• Raphael Basch (1813-?), journalist & politician
• Abraham Benisch (1814–1878) Hebraist and journalist; born Bohemia
• Henri Blowitz, journalist
• Boris Brainin (Sepp Österreicher), poet and translator
• Fritz Brainin, poet
• Bernard Friedberg, Hebraist, scholar and bibliographer
• Elfriede Jelinek (b. 1946), Nobel prize-winning (2004) novelist (Jewish father).
• Franz Kafka, writer
• Paul Kornfeld (1889–1942) writer, author of many expressionist plays
• Karl Kraus, author
• Heinrich Landesmann, poet [10]
• Robert Lucas, writer who emigrated to Britain in 1934
• Joseph Roth, novelist and journalist
• Felix Salten, Hungarian-born Austrian writer
• Arthur Schnitzler, writer and physician
• Alice Schwarz-Gardos (1915-2007), writer, journalist and editor-in-chief of Israel Nachrichten 1975-2007 de:Alice Schwarz-Gardos Israel-Nachrichten
• Hugo Sonnenschein, Bohemian-born writer [11]
• Franz Werfel, novelist and playwright
• Stefan Zweig, writer

Miscellaneous

• Alfred Edersheim, Bible scholar
• Rudolf Eisler (1873-1926), Jewish philosopher born in Vienna
• Maurice de Hirsch, banker
• Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal, merchant
• Gisela Januszewska (1867 - 1943), physician
• Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907), bibliographer and Orientalist
• George Weidenfeld, publisher [12]
• Erich Erdstein, author of Inside the Fourth Reich, a book about his life as a Nazi hunter in South America
• Simon Wiesenthal, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter

Others

• Viktor Aptowitzer (July 16, 1871, Tarnopol, Galizien, - December 5, 1942, Jerusalem), Jewish theologian, Talmudist;[13] "two Austrian Jewish scholars - Samuel Krauss and Viktor Aptowitzer"
• Rudolf Auspitz (July 7, 1837, Vienna - March 8, 1906, Vienna), Austrian politician, entrepreneur (Unternehmer) [14]
• Joseph Samuel Bloch (November 20, 1850, Dukla, Galizien - October 1, 1923, Vienna), Austrian publicist, politician [15]
• Ludo Moritz Hartmann, Austrian Jewish historian and statesman [16] " two lay Jews Ludo Moritz Hartmann"
• Paul Hatvani, exactly Paul Hirsch (August 16, 1892, Vienna - November 9, 1975, Kew, near Melbourne), Austrian Jewish writer, chemist [17] "Paul Hatvani, a German Jewish refugee"

See also

• History of the Jews in Austria
• List of Austrians
• List of Czech and Slovak Jews
• List of Galician Jews
• List of Polish Jews
• List of Ukrainian Jews
• List of Hungarian Jews
• List of Romanian Jews
• List of South-East European Jews
• List of composers influenced by the Holocaust
• List of West European Jews
• List of German Jews
• Lists of Jews

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