KLOSTERNEUBURG

KLOSTERNEUBURG , town in Lower Austria (until 1298 combined with Neuburg rechts der Donau). In 1187 a nobleman granted his annual income from a Jew to the monastery in Klosterneuberg, but it is not known if the Jew was living in the town. One of the monastery's vineyards was pawned to a Jewess in 1275, and from 1295 the sources mention other Jews functioning as moneylenders. A community is first mentioned in accounts of persecutions in 1302, 1334, 1338, and 1341. Several Jews owned houses in the town in 1339, among them David *Steuss. The community had a richly adorned synagogue, first mentioned in 1371. A member of the city council who was *iudex Judaeorum is recorded in 1330, and records of numerous moneylending activities exist. The Klosterneuburg community, which had close ties with that of Vienna, ceased to exist in 1420 after the *Wiener Gesera expulsions.

In 1845 a Jewish peddler who had been plying his trade in the neighboring villages was allowed to settle in the town after reporting a theft from a church. A congregation, consisting of 16 families, was established in 1852 and a cemetery was consecrated in 1874 (enlarged in 1906). The community, in which the congregation of Tulln was included, was recognized in 1892 and in 1900 numbered 280 persons. Approximately 60 Jewish families lived in Klosterneuburg in 1938. The interior of the new synagogue (erected in 1914) was wrecked on Kristallnacht, Nov. 10, 1938. Emigration, largely to Vienna, emptied the town of its Jewish inhabitants. After the war the synagogue building was used as a municipal storehouse.

bibliography:

L. Moses, Die Juden in Niederoesterreich (1935), 134; H. Erber, in: Juedisches Archiv, 1:6 (1927/28), 14–16; Ružička, ibid., 2:1–2 (1928), 23; S. Krauss, Die Wiener Geserah (1920), index; Germ Jud, 1 (1963), 143–4; 2 (1968), 405–7.

[Henry Wasserman]