Expulsion of the Jews from Vienna 1670, Print from a contemporary pamphlet on the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna and other places

On the advice of the Inquisition Commission of the Viennese Court, Emperor Leopold I ordered the expulsion of the Jews, who until then had lived in their ghetto called Unterer Werd, on 27 February 1670. The reason for this was the concern that catastrophes of the previous years such as the death of the Crown Prince in 1668 and a large-scale fire in the Vienna Hofburg were God's punishment for tolerating the Jews in the city. The Jews were given letters of transit which enabled them to immigrate to other countries of the empire. The main synagogue in the Untere Werd was replaced by a church dedicated to Saint Leopold. To this day, this district has been called "Leopoldstadt".