Vienna וינה
The Danube capital of thirteenth-century Ashkenazi learning—home of the Or Zarua.
When the Rhineland communities weakened after the crusades, learning moved east. To Vienna came Rabbi Yitzchak ben Moshe, who had travelled France and the Rhineland before, and here he wrote the Or Zarua—the code through which we know a whole century of Ashkenazi law. He is called by the name of his book.
After him the Vienna school was held by Rabbi Avigdor ha-Kohen, and with him studied Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg. So the whole chain came to rest on the Danube: Dampierre—Paris—Speyer—Vienna—and onward into all Germany.
This community ended at a stroke. In 1421 Duke Albert V charged the Jews of Vienna with desecrating the host: some were burned, the rest expelled, their property taken, the synagogue pulled down. It is remembered as the Vienna Gezerah—and Austrian Torah began again from nothing after it.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Or Zarua of Rabbi Yitzchak ben Moshe of Vienna — the city, the school and the circle of teachers
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the Vienna Gezerah of 1421 and the end of the community
Basis: documents and evidence.