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318 Au spitz

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Australia

large landowners and leading capitalists to encourage the industry. Combining business enterprise with capital and knowledge, he founded in 1863 a company for the production of sugar from beets.

In this undertaking he was very successful and in 1862 his company absorbed the great sugar manufacturing concern of Count Chorinsky in Bisenz. By this transaction his firm, under the style of " Die Rohatetz-Bisenzer Zucker Pabriken Rudolf Auspitz und Co.," became the only sugar manufacturers in northern Moravia. His grandfather having made the name Auspitz prominent in the woolen trade, Rudolf has now made it equally prominent in the sugar trade. Not only in the business world was he conspicuous, but also in the political field which, he entered in 1871 as the successful candidate for the Moravian Landtag, representing the district comprising the cities of Gaya, Butschowitz, and Wischau from 1871 to 1884, and from 1884 to 1900 the chamber of commerce of Bri'inn. In 1873 he was also elected a member of the Austrian Reichsrath for the district Auspitz-Wischau. He was also a member of the chamber of commerce for Lower Austria from 1888 to 1892, and since 1900 he has been trustee of the Jewish congregation of Vienna. Auspitz has always belonged to the German Liberal party, in whose caucuses lie has taken a prominent part, and whose platforms have been ably advocated and successf ay defended by him. He lias been very active in the meetings of the houses of which he has been a member. Auspitz 's wide knowledge of economics, his sagacity and enterprise as a merchant and manufacturer, and his manifold connections in the export and import trade have made his advice much sought after in state and national legislation. During the controversy between Austria and Hungary in 1898 lie was one of the mediators through whose untiring energy the seemingly irreparable breach between the two constituents of the dual monarchy was finally and satisfactorily healed (1901;. In 1899 Auspitz was a member of the house committee of the Reichsrath for the investigation of the anti-Semitic movements in Holleschau and Wsetin, Moravia; and in 1900 he was chosen speaker of the committee of leading Jews of Vienna, which waited on the Austrian minister-president Freiherr von Kijrber, to protest against the anti-Semitic ex;

cesses in Austria. Auspitz, in spite of his political

and other duties, found leisure for scientific researches, the fruits of which are embodied in his well-known work (edited jointly with R. Lieben), "Ueber die Theorie

has

still

des Preises." Bibliography Kohut, Bcruhmte Israelitische Mtlnner und Frauen, No. 17, p. 371 private sources. s. F. T. H.



AUSSEE

Town in Moravia, Austria. It had a Jewish community in the seventeenth century. In 1622 Emperor Ferdinand II. presented the town to Prince Karl of Lichtenstein, on condition that none but Catholics should be permitted to reside there and as late as 1834, out of a population of 4,534, only 24 were Protestants. In 1688 the dean of Milglitz gave orders for the erection of a synagogue at Aussee. This building was destroyed in 1722 under the

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During the services on Catholic priest entered the synagogue and began to preach a missionary sermon The officers, to the people assembled for worship. of the congregation asked him to withdraw but he persistently refused to do so, and they were comWhen the Jews brought charges pelled to eject him. against the priest for disturbance of the peace, he claimed that they had assaulted him. After a protracted lawsuit a decision was rendered to the effect that the synagogue be destroyed and that no other be built. Of those charged by the priest with assault three men were branded with a hot iron and exiled; while the. fourth, a man seventy-four years old, was sentenced to work upon a Catholic church then in course of construction. Thirty-two years elapsed before permission was granted the Jews to establish three places of worship; and none of these was allowed to bear the name or to have the appearance of a synagogue. It was not until 1783 that permission was given to build a regular synagogue (Abraham Broda, " Megillat Sedarim ") and when this was dedicated Abraham Prostiz was chosen rabbi. Other rabbis were Israel, brother of R. Manli Fuchs, of Kromau; Loeb Pollak, and M. Duschak. David ben Jacob Szczebrsz3'n, author of notes on the Targumim, is said to have occupied the rabbinate in the seventeenth century. Under the law of March 21, 1890, relating to the legal conditions of the Jewish congregations in Austria, the community of Aussee was amalgamated with the neighboring communities; and, through personal and local considerations, Mahrisch-Schonberg became the seat of the Jewish communal following circumstances:

the eve of

Yom Kippura





district.

Bibliography



Wolny, Die Markgrafsdhaft Mllhren,

vol. r.

Briinn, 1839 Abr. Broda, Mcijillat Sedarim, ed. E. Baumgarten, Berlin, 1895; N. Briill, Zur fjexchichte der Juden in Milhren, in Wiener Jahrbuch fiXr Israeliten, 1867; and private sources.

d.

E. B.

AUSTERLITZ: Town

Moravia, Austria. Its Jewish congregation is one of the oldest in the province according to some historians, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century. Records seem to point to a tribute paid by the Jews to King Wenzel in 1288, which revenue he presumably turned over to the Teutonic Knights when they obtained possession of the domain. The payJewish ment of this tribute was continued to Comthe successors of the Knights, the munity in counts of Kaunitz. A record in the Twelfth archives of the present congregation Century, of Austerlitz shows that the Jewish tribute for the year 1757 included pepper, ginger, and other spices. The Jewish merchants visited all the Mediterranean ports, and dealt extensively in the natural and artificial products of the Orient and it was for this reason that the tribute mentioned was exacted from them, not only by the in





local secular

and

ecclesiastical officials,

but even by

the papal court itself. The fact that as late as 1798 the Jewish community was ordered, under penalty of legal enforcement, to pay arrears amounting to 503 florins, 3

kreutzers

= $200, indicates that this tribute had been

exacted from them for a considerable period.