Austrian Jewish community leader confirmed in his post

Oskar Deutsch has been re-elected as the head of Vienna’s Jewish community (IKG). 21 of the 24 members of the IKG Executive voted for Deutsch, who had replaced long-time President Ariel Muzicant in February 2012. Josef Sarikov and Dezoni Dawaraschwili were named as new IKG vice-presidents.

Deutsch represents the Atid list which topped the poll at community-wide elections earlier this month in which 62 percent of the 5,500 Jewish community members that were eligible to vote had taken part. Deutsch called the election results “a clear mandate that the previous work of the community’s board, in this form, should continue.”

The 48-year-old Deutsch is the first president born in the country after the Holocaust and the Nazis’ elimination of a flourishing pre-Holocaust Austrian Jewish community of 200,000.