Europe's biggest Jewish school, including a kindergarten, primary school and a high school, has been inaugurated in Vienna. As enrollment in Vienna's four Jewish schools was quickly rising, the Zwi Perez Chajes school decided to construct a new 19,400-square-metre campus for up to 600 students. "With this school complex, we have the best infrastructure of all Jewish communities in Europe," said Ariel Muzicant, president of Vienna’s Jewish community, which operates the school.
Besides the standard Austrian curriculum, boys and girls from 60 countries are being taught in Hebrew, as well as Jewish religion and history. Pupils have to travel to Israel once during their time at the school. Currently, 380 pupils are enrolled in the school, but Muzicant said he hoped the number would rise to 500 in the next couple of years. Vienna's Jewish community has around 7,500 members. After Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, the Zwi Perez Chajes school was forced to closed. One of the school's buildings was used as a collecting point for Jews before they were sent to the death camps. The institution re-opened in stages during the 1980s. The US$ 23 million dollars needed for building the new campus were co-financed in roughly equal parts by the Austrian government, the city of Vienna, and the Jewish community.
Until 1938, Vienna was home to 200,000 Jews, one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. More than 60,000 Vienna Jews were killed by the National Socialists; the others fled to Palestine and other countries.
