Ignaz Kuranda - in Parliament

In Parliament

On March 20, 1861, Kuranda was sent to the Landtag of Lower Austria as delegate for the district of Vienna, and was subsequently elected to the Reichsrat, retaining his seat in that body for twenty years. On the creation of the Delegations (a kind of common parliament of Hungary and Austria with alternative seats at Budapest and Vienna) he was returned as a member of that body. One of the most distinguished members of parliament, Kuranda was a brilliant orator, and spoke mostly on questions of foreign politics. He was also for many years a member of the city council of Vienna.

In 1881 Kuranda's seventieth birthday was celebrated with great enthusiasm by his political party and by the press; and the city council made him an honorary citizen. The emperor had already in 1867 honored him with the Ritterkreuz des Leopoldordens. Kuranda's great activity as a politician and publicist, which he exercised for twenty-three years as the leader of the German liberal party, was paralleled by his faithful devotion to the Jewish cause, to which he gave a great part of his powers. He was for twelve years president of the Jewish community of Vienna. As vice-president of the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien he promoted the study of Jewish science and history, in which he took great interest.