Austrian Museum Pays $19m for Painting Looted by Nazis
A museum in Austria will pay $19 million to keep a painting looted during the Holocaust.
The Leopold Museum in Austria settled a decade-long legal battle by agreeing to pay the estate of an Austrian Jewish woman, Bondi Jaray, for the painting that a Nazi reportedly stole from her in 1939. Jaray died in 1969, insisting that the painting belonged to her.
U.S. officials seized the painting, “Portrait of Wally” by Egon Schiele, in 1999, two years after it arrived as a loan to New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
The painting reportedly was stolen and later returned to the Austrian government after World War II.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
