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JewishHistoryעברית

Expulsion of the Jews from Vienna

Date
1 March 1670 – 1 August 1670Hebrew date: 9th of Adar, 5430 – 15th of Av, 5430
Location
ViennaAustria
Then part of
Habsburg monarchy
Perpetrators
  • Emperor Leopold I (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Expelled (estimate)
3,000 – 4,000[2]Jews expelled in 1670, as given by Encyclopaedia Judaica (source 2). The Jewish Encyclopedia's 1,346 persons is the partial decree of 26 July 1669, not this total.
Locality

75% – 130% of the Jewish population of Vienna[2]The expelled estimate is higher than the population estimate.

Worldwide

0.3% – 0.4% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1650)[5]

Category
Expulsion
Confidence
Medium

Summary

On 1 March 1670 a proclamation ordered all Jews, on pain of imprisonment and death, to leave Vienna and Upper and Lower Austria before Corpus Christi and never return. Jewish Encyclopedia records an earlier order of 26 July 1669 that already affected 1,346 people. Community leaders Hirz Koma and Leo Winkler offered 100,000 florins and 10,000 a year to stay the decree; the deadline was prolonged, but in July the Jews began to leave, and by 1 August none remained in Vienna. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jewish Virtual Library) puts those expelled at 3,000–4,000. The Great Synagogue was consecrated as the Leopoldskirche on 18 August. The city took the houses; the community paid 4,000 florins for care of the Rossau cemetery.

Sources

  1. Vienna. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. Vienna. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  3. Meir Lamed, Leopold I. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 1,000,000[5]c. 1650DellaPergola places world Jewry at around or fewer than one million in the second half of the seventeenth century, after the 1648–1660 violence in Eastern Europe and the Thirty Years' War. The entry uses one million as the stated round figure; he does not publish a separate lower bound.
  • Vienna: 3,000 – 4,000[2]Jews expelled in 1670, as given by Encyclopaedia Judaica. The same page says the Vienna ghetto that year held 500 families in 136 houses. The Jewish Encyclopedia's 1,346 persons is the number affected by the partial decree of 26 July 1669, not the whole community. The March 1670 order also covered Upper and Lower Austria.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
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  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  47. Belgium. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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