History of the Jews in Austria

The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. There have been Jews in Austria since the 3rd century CE. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality, and during other periods it suffered pogroms, deportations to concentration camps and mass murder, and antisemitism. The Holocaust drastically reduced the Jewish community in Austria and only 8,140 Jews remained in Austria according to the 2001 census. Today, Austria has a Jewish population of 10,300 which extends to 33,000 if Law of Return is accounted for, meaning having at least one Jewish grandparent. Jews have been in Austria since at least the 3rd century CE. In 2008 a team of archeologists discovered a third-century CE amulet in the form of a gold scroll with the words of the Jewish prayer Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one) inscribed on it in the grave of a Jewish infant in Halbturn. It is considered to be the earliest surviving evidence of a Jewish presence in what is now Austria. It is hypothesized that the first Jews immigrated to Austria following the Roman legions after the Roman occupation of Israel. It is theorized that the Roman legions who participated in the occupation and came back after the First Jewish–Roman War brought back Jewish prisoners. A document from the 10th century that determined equal rights between the Jewish and Christian merchants in the Danube implies a Jewish population in Vienna at this point, though again, there is no concrete proof. The existence of a Jewish community in the area is only known for sure after the start of the 12th century when two synagogues existed. In the same century, the Jewish settlement in Vienna increased with the absorption of Jewish settlers from Bavaria and from the Rhineland. At the start of the 13th century, the Jewish community began to flourish.