On Sunday, February 4th 2007 the founder of the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna deceased at the age of 83.
Schubert was born on March 4th, 1923. He was 15 years old when the Nazis came into power in Austria. The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis was one of the reasons for Schubert’s interest in Judaism. Due to his Asthma he did not serve in the army. National Socialism was for Schubert antichristian heretics to which one had to resist. So he started to study old-Semitic philology at the University in Vienna as a sign of his protest against the Nazi-Regime.
During WWII he was active in the resistance against the Nazis. At that time he managed (delete:during the war) to bring the valuable Library of the Vienna Rabbinic Seminar from the second district in Vienna to the university thus saving it from demolition. After 1945 he took the initiative of transferring this valuable library to Israel.
Schubert was one of the protagonists of Jewish-Christian Dialogue.
The Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna, founded by Kurt Schubert in 1966, was the first of this kind in Europe. Schubert was the head of this Institute from 1966 until his retirement in 1993. After his retirement, Schubert continued to hold lectures at the University in Vienna.
We bemoan the loss of a great scholar full of humanity. Schubert, who observed with warm interest the development of SPME was exemplary in his relentless fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism.
