Reluctant Return: A Survivors Journey to an Austrian Town

In an astonishing and moving document, Weiss, an eminent cancer researcher at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describes his 1995 return trip to the Austrian hometown from which, as a boy, he fled Nazi persecution in 1938. He was invited to Wiener Neustadt by the Ichthys community, an unorthodox Protestant congregation. Members of Ichthys believe that God has withdrawn His presence from the world because of the Holocaust. To lift the curse, Ichthys's mission is to reach out to the Jewish people, to seek forgiveness for Christianity's centuries of persecution of Jews and to sponsor return trips to Europe by Holocaust survivors. The author's father, Heinrich Hillel Weiss, was a rabbi, professor and leader of Austria's Jewish community who later ran a Yiddish-speaking immigrant congregation on New York's Lower East Side. David Weiss, a microbiologist who emigrated to Israel from the U.S. in 1966, charts his metamorphosis from Berkeley New Left activist and anti-Zionist to his present deep commitment to Judaism. His relentless self-scrutiny enhances the impact of his emotionally charged memoir. As he speaks with members of Ichthys and with other Austrians who feel compelled to speak out on the Holocaust, he weaves in a soaring meditation on the survival of the Jewish people and the meaning of Jewish identity while also fearlessly probing the theological and xenophobic underpinnings of Austrian anti-Semitism. Ichthys's insistence on a Christian faith that recognizes a dynamic, unbroken continuum with Judaism pervades this soul-searching odyssey, which will reward readers of all faiths. Photos. (Oct.)