“Vienna is different.” Until now, I’ve understood this slogan – which is conspicuously displayed at every highway entrance into the city – as a collective statement. A model of political responsibility, it implies courage, openness, and diversity for existing cultural traditions and identities, and a vision for the future.Thus far, however, the way that responsible politicians have treated the Jewish Theater of Austria and its ambitious Nestroyhof project is in gross violation of this cultural model and reduces it to an empty formula, devoid of meaning.There are many good reasons for realizing the proposal to open a new Jewish theater in the Nestroyhof. The establishment of an international Jewish stage in the Nestroyhof would mark an enormous gain for cultural identity in this city. It would also make a perceptible and irreversible contribution to the harmonious future development of common identities and values that are part of the basic inheritance and future of all Viennese – as perceptible and irreversible as the memory of the horrifying losses that resulted from National Socialist dictatorship.From the bottom of my heart, I wish for the Jewish Theater of Austria that the politicians will take their responsibility seriously and finally put their unconditional support behind the Nestroyhof project. And I hope that it will be possible to assemble the public opinion that may be needed to this end.
