Austria to triple its spending on Jewish community security
The funding triples what the government had given previously, according to the report.
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTAIsrael's memorial at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria(photo credit: SHOSHANA KRANISH)Austria’s government has agreed to cover all the security costs of its Jewish community.The federal funding for security measures will be $4.7 million annually — more than the $4.3 million that the Jewish Community in Vienna, the organization representing local Jews, spends each year on security, the Judische Allgemeine paper in Germany reported Friday.The funding triples what the government had given previously, according to the report.“The law enables a consolidation of the religious community, it secures the existence and thus the diverse services of the Jewish Community in Vienna as we currently know it,” that organization’s president, Oskar Deutsch, wrote in a statement.Last month Elie Rosen, the leader of the Jewish community of the Austrian city of Graz, was assaulted in what he and officials said was an antisemitic attack by a perpetrator who hates Israel. The incident was widely covered in the media in Austria and beyond.
