Bidspirit auction | Official invitation to the Jewish

Official invitation to the Jewish community of Vienna to the event marking the transfer of the remains of Theodor Herzl to Eretz Israel - Vienna - August 1949 - “‘To the Jews of Vienna!’” - An official opening invitation (in a wedding invitation format) to the Jewish community of Vienna for the memorial ceremony marking the transfer of the remains of Theodor Herzl to Eretz Israel - the Viennese Jewish public is called upon to pass before Herzl’s coffin before it leaves Vienna on the 19th of Av 1949 - August 14, 1949. Halpern Press, Vienna. Extremely rare. On the front appears a printed image of Theodor Herzl as illustrated by the artist H. Schutz. This image was not chosen by chance - it was presented as a gift by the Zionist Federation in Austria to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on the occasion of the transfer of Herzl’s remains to Eretz Israel. The body of the invitation is in Hebrew and German, page facing page. The invitation details the program of the historic event - on August 18, 1949, during the afternoon hours, the public will pass before the coffins of Herzl and his parents, which will be placed in the Great Synagogue; later in the evening, the coffins will be officially handed over to the representatives of the Government of Israel and the Jewish Agency, Mr. David Remez and Mr. Yitzhak Gruenbaum, and to the representative of the Government of Israel, Isidor Shalit. The event will be accompanied by a symphony orchestra. Signed in print on the invitation - Dr. Kurt Levin, representative of the State of Israel in Austria; Dr. Asher Bavli, representative of the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel in Austria; and Dr. David Shapira, president of the Jewish community in Vienna. On the reverse of the invitation are images of Herzl’s tombstone in Vienna and the parochet of Herzl’s coffin on its way to Eretz Israel. On August 14, 1949, before the coffin was placed on an Israeli Air Force aircraft, a large crowd gathered at the Jewish community building on Seitenstettengasse Street in Vienna for a powerful memorial ceremony. During the ceremony in Vienna, Herzl’s coffin was placed in the central hall, draped in a blue-and-white flag, and masses of Jews, alongside Austrian government representatives and officials of the Jewish Agency, passed before it in reverence. The transfer of his remains to Israel was publicly perceived as a final acknowledgment that the center of gravity of the Jewish people had left Europe. When the coffin was transferred from there to the airport, there was a palpable sense of belated historical justice: the man who had envisioned the state as a solution to European antisemitism was now leaving the soil on which his brethren had been persecuted, on his way to rest in the sovereign capital of Jerusalem, exactly as he had instructed in his will. [4] pages. Very good condition.