Jewish Education in Interwar Vienna: Cooperation, Compromise and Conflict Between the Austrian State and the Viennese Jewish Community

With nearly 200,000 Jews, Vienna had one of the largest urban Jewries in pre-holocaust Europe, managed by a powerful communal organization, theIsraelitische Kultusgemeinde(IKG).¹ The IKG had been officially recognized as the representative body of Viennese Jews since 1852. In response to particular challenges it faced, including in the inter-war period, the IKG formulated policies and strategies, weighed alternatives and set priorities in order to organize communal Jewish life in the city. The realm of Jewish education was one of the key functions undertaken by the IKG—in contrast with some other major urban Jewries on the Continent, where