This Europe: Salzburg's Jews censor founder of Zionism

Deliberately misquoting the founder of political Zionism is pretty cheeky to start with. Carving the misquote on to a plaque on the wall of one of the prime official buildings in the centre of town seems even more ill-advised.

And for Salzburg to leave out the bit about the town's anti-Semitism smacks of arrogance. Someone was bound to come along and fill in the crucial words.

And that is just what Wolfram Kastner, a German artist, did. He crossed the border to Austria's chocolate box tourism destination last summer to write the rest of the quote in thick permanent marker under the plaque.

The plaque quotes Dr Theodor Herzl, 1860–1904, on his student days in Salzburg. "I spent some of the happiest hours of my life in Salzburg," it reads. What it omitted was the rest of the sentence: "I would also have gladly stayed in this beautiful city but as a Jew I would never have been promoted to the position of judge."

Mr Kastner could theoretically be jailed for up to two years for the grafitto and his stubborn refusal to pay the £100 that the state of Salzburg is demanding in costs to remove his writing.

He is happily awaiting the court case which it seems the authorities cannot drop, even if they wanted to. Damaging the building, which is the property of the government, is a federal offence.

Mr Kastner said: "I am not the only one to see the misuse of the quote in the interests of tourism ... as a subtle form of latent anti-Semitism and officious impertinence."

Heinz Schaden, the city's Social Democrat Mayor, said the Jewish community itself had chosen the Herzl quote and left it incomplete. "I am really sorry that something that was started in the right way has ended up in this kind of messy debate," he said.

But he confirmed that the quote would still not be completed. "The Jewish community doesn't want that," he said.

The irony is that the tiny Jewish community seems happy to muzzle the founder of Zionism to present a united Austrian front to the world.