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1815 |
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At the age of fifteen, Joseph Wertheimer entered the business of Freiherr von Stifft, and five years later that of his father, whose partner he became in 1821 |
- In 1830, with the cooperation of Johann Lindner, a Catholic priest, Joseph Wertheimer opened the first kindergarten in the Austrian capital. The success of this institution, and of others founded in the same year, led to the organization of a central society for the establishment of infant asylums, under the patronage of the empress Carolina Augusta, and with the active cooperation of the Catholic clergy. Joseph Wertheimer was one of the founders also of the Allgemeine Rettungsanstalt of Vienna, a society for the care of released criminals and neglected children.
- In 1840, Joseph Wertheimer began his labors in behalf of Austrian Jews,, by founding the Verein zur Förderung der Handwerke Unter den Israeliten, a society to afford Jewish children the opportunity of learning trades, and to dispel the common belief in the Jews' dislike for manual work; this object was fully realized, thousands of apprentices being trained by the society. In 1843, Joseph Wertheimer founded a Jewish infant school in the Leopoldstadt, to which a non-sectarian kindergarten was added in 1868. During the thirty-two years (1835-67), he was actively connected with the management of the Jewish community of Vienna, first as trustee and subsequently as president. Among other institutions founded by Joseph Wertheimer were: * Verein zur Versorgung Hilfsbedürftiger Waisen der Israelitischen Cultusgemeinde (1860), which led to the establishment of a girls' orphan asylum * Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (1872), of which he remained president for a number of years. In recognition of his labors, the emperor conferred upon him the Order of the Iron Crown with the accompanying patent of nobility, and he was made an honorary citizen of Vienna. Joseph Wertheimer took part in the conferences of the second Jewish synod of Augsburg July 11-17, 1871.
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