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Vienna


“They All Could Have Been Saved” “They All Could Have Been Saved”
Thursday, May 2, 2013 by Lance J. Sussman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus personally rescued 50 Jewish children from Nazi-era Vienna and brought them home to Philadelphia.  A new documentary tells their story—and contrasts it with the apathy shown by their community.
Self-Hatred or Self-Help? Self-Hatred or Self-Help?
Thursday, November 15, 2012 by Ben Cohen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

One of the most insightful scenes from Larry David's comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, begins with David and his on-air wife, Cheryl, standing at the entrance to a movie theater.  As they chatter aimlessly, David starts whistling a tune composed by Richard Wagner.
Keep Calm and Carry On Keep Calm and Carry On
Tuesday, November 13, 2012 by Dov Lerner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Shabbat is designed to be a day of rest and communal prayer. But due to halakhic restrictions on their carrying items from one place to another, observant Jews can become prisoners in their own homes.  
Art and Idolatry in Austria Art and Idolatry in Austria
Tuesday, October 30, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Art transforms life through beauty but inspires a possessiveness unlike any other.  Collectors tend toward obsession, which overwhelms morality; museums, like the medieval church, wash away sin with exhibitions for the public good.
The <i>Mona Lisa</i> of Vienna The Mona Lisa of Vienna
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 by Susan Hertog | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In 1857, when Emperor Franz-Joseph pulled down the ancient stone wall encompassing Vienna, the social and cultural traditions of the country seemed to tumble with it. Impoverished immigrants, many of them Jews, flooded in from the east.
The Couch and the Confessional The Couch and the Confessional
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by Joseph J. Siev | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Sigmund Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism, was published in 1939, a year after  he fled, mortally ill with cancer of the jaw, from Nazi-occupied Vienna to London.  The book is famous for its speculations that Moses was not Jewish and that the people he led out of Egyptian slavery murdered him.   
Goodnight, Vienna Goodnight, Vienna
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 by Daniel Johnson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The Jews of Vienna did not merely understand the world: they took Marx's point and changed it, too. From Freud's psychoanalysis to Wittgenstein's philosophy, from Mahler's music to Herzl's Zionism, they made a unique contribution to modernity.
Editors' Picks
Changing the Tune Michael White, Telegraph. Having laid bare its Nazi history, the Vienna Philharmonic has faced calls to disband.  But ought we to assume that "all great musicians should be great examples of humanity"?
Vienna's Jewish University Cnaan Lipshiz, JTA. To its founder, the Lauder Business School is a first-rate business university for European Jews.  To Austria, it is a chance to "re-establish Vienna as the seat of Jewish intelligentsia."
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man Clive Sinclair, Jewish Quarterly. Yosl Bergner, age six, drew a scene of a Jewish corpse under a train.  Now 92, he still paints Jewish history: "Old memories attack me and I fight back by painting them."
The Fall of the House of Wittgenstein Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe. A Beethoven sculpture, a "gift of Paul Wittgenstein," has just arrived at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.  It reminds us of a brilliant family of Secession-era Vienna—and its fall.
Losing the Shadow War Christopher Dickey, Daily Beast. Despite last month’s attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, Iran’s covert operatives are being foiled at virtually every turn by their Israeli and American counterparts.