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E-Mail: office@jewish-welcome.at
| Retrospective 1994-2009 | ||||||
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NEWS ABOUT US The Board Retrospective 1980-1993 Retrospective 1994-2009 Leon Zelman SUPPORTERS INFORMATION & SERVICES PROJECTS |
1994: Information brochure on the “Hall of Encounter” published. 1995: The “Hall of Encounter” at the Rehavia Gymnasium secondary school in Jerusalem is inaugurated as a meeting place for young Austrians and Israelis. The 250 young people at the opening ceremony were selected by holding an essay competition. 1997: The Jewish Welcome Service invites members of the International March of the Living organisation to visit Vienna for several days - a repeat of the event held in 1998. 1998: An invitation is extended to Jewish students from former Yugoslavia in cooperation with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Sixty survivors of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Riga are invited to a one-week meeting in Vienna. 1999: A chamber concert is given by six members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra at the Jewish Museum in New York; this is followed by an introduction to the "Mauthausen Memorial 2000 project". A launch event for the project is also held in London with the Vienna Philharmonic. 2000: The JWS participates in the organisation, planning and publicity for the Mauthausen Memorial concert by the Vienna Philharmonic on 7 May 2000 at Mauthausen. A reunion of the liberators and the liberated is held at the Vienna City Hall, with a welcoming address by Mayor Michael Häupl. 2001: The JWS, represented by Leon Zelman, attends the 35th anniversary celebration of the Jerusalem Foundation. Survivors of the "Kladovo transport" attend an exhibition at the Vienna Jewish Museum. 2002: The JWS welcomes some 30 former Viennese residents who were detained by the British Navy during their flight to Palestine and interned on Mauritius. It supports "Hakoah Lischot" - a documentary about the history of the Hakoah women's swimming club. 2003: The JWS supports a research project entitled "Anthropology under National Socialism" undertaken by the anthropological department of the Natural History Museum Vienna. 2004: The JWS organises the "In Memoriam exhibition" and panel discussion about psychiatry under National Socialism at the Vienna MuseumsQuartier, staged in cooperation with the Medical University of Vienna. 2005: The film "A Life of Many Lives" by Helga Embacher and Hannes Klein is shown on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Ari Rath, an "Israeli with Viennese roots". In continuation of the cooperation begun in 2003 with the Holocaust Memorial Service and the London Jewish Cultural Centre 14 survivors of National Socialism living in Britain are invited to stay in Vienna for a week. They give numerous talks at schools in Vienna and throughout Austria about their experiences as young Austrian Jews in 1938. 2006: The Jewish Welcome Service marks the 25th anniversary of its establishment with a ceremony at Vienna City Hall. The JWS supports a project on the Wasagasse gymnasium (grammar school) aimed at compiling the biographies of its expelled and murdered Jewish students and teachers. Wera Goldman, the last living and active Expressionist dancer, is invited to Vienna for her 85th birthday. 2007: The JWS assists a film project entitled "Vienna's Lost Daughters" by inviting the protagonists to a showing in Vienna. The Herklotzgasse 21 project is launched. A festival is held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer Erich W. Korngold. Korngold's grandchildren are invited to the opening of the exhibition at the Vienna Jewish Museum. An event is held in conjunction with ESRA and DRAVA-Verlag to launch the book "Born in Vienna. Versuch einer Annäherung" by Communication Studies specialist Monroe E. Price. 2008 & 2009: The JWS invites 20 former residents of the 15th District during the Herklotzgasse 21 project - an exploration of Jewish life in Vienna's Fünfhaus district. Meanwhile the Radetzky school project compiles the biographies of expelled and murdered Jewish pupils and teachers: the Jewish Welcome Service invites former pupils to Vienna. In 2008 the Jewish Museum mounts an exhibition on Friedrich Torberg (100th anniversary of his birth). An children's festival is held to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel. The JWS supports the Alpine Peace Crossing initiative in remembrance of the flight of thousands of Jews over the Hohe Tauern Alps from Salzburg through Italy to Palestine/Israel (the "Krimml Exodus"). 2009: On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the S.C. Hakoah sports club the Jewish Welcome Service invites exiled ex-members from Australia, Israel and the USA to Vienna for several days, looks after the guests and organises receptions at the President's office and City Hall. The JWS supports a performance of the children's opera Brundibár at a commemorative event held by ESRA and invites Greta Klingsberg (one of the few survivors of the Theresienstadt concentration camp) from Jerusalem to attend. In connection with the Vienna-Scheibbs-Wieselburg project members of the Porges family are invited from Peru and the USA, and a commemorative plaque is unveiled in Scheibbs. As part of a school project entitled Weggewiesen 1938 (Expelled in 1938) the JWS pays the travel expenses of former pupils of the Kandlgasse grammar school to enable them to attend a commemoration. The JWS also supports a project run by psychotherapist Heidi Behn that assists Jewish holocaust survivors at the Hogar Villa Israel senior citizen's home in Santiago de Chile. A book entitled Das Buch von Liebe und Tod. Fragmente jüdischen Lebens in Chile (The Book of Love and Death. Fragments of Jewish Life in Chile) is published as part of this project. History 1980 - 1993 > Public Projects > |
 Leon Zelman meets the mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek at the opening of the Hall of Encounter at the Rehavia Gymnasium, Jerusalem, in 1995.  15 June 1998: Leon Zelman (centre) celebrates his 70th birthday at the Austrian Parliament in the company of prominent public figures. Fred Sinowatz (front l) and Franz Vranitzky (front r) as well as Leopold Gratz, Heinz Fischer, Paul Chaim Eisenberg, Rudolf Scholten and Henry O. Leichter (standing, l to r) offer their congratulations. (Photo: © Karl Schöndorfer)  7 May 2000: The Vienna Philharmonic plays at the memorial ceremony in the quarry of the former Mauthausen concentration camp. Chairman of the Philharmonic Clemens Hellsberg (centre) with the President of the Jewish Community Ariel Muzicant (l) and Leon Zelman before the performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and broadcast worldwide by the ORF. (Photo: © ORF / Milenko Badzic)  City Councillor Mailath-Pokorny, Vice President of the Jewish Welcome Service, receives the protagonists of the film project Vienna's Lost Daughters, who travelled to Vienna for a showing of the film in 2007. (Photo: © Media Wien) |
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