“ShUM Cities on the Rhine: Celebrating Jewish Heritage Around the Globe”

Ceremonial handover of the World Heritage certificate by Federal President Steinmeier

It is a day commemorating the Jewish tradition in Central Europe. With a visit to the “Holy Sand” in Worms, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe, the Federal President and the UNESCO Director General paid tribute to the important Jewish cultural centers on the Rhine in the morning. The highlight of the celebrations is the handover of the World Heritage certificate to the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreier.

What has happened since the UNESCO award for the preservation of ShUM cities?

With the ShUM Cities in Fuzhou, China, the 50th German World Heritage Site was added to the UNESCO list in 2021. It is also the first World Heritage site to highlight the importance of Jewish heritage on German soil.

“The title gives us the opportunity to make this legacy better known worldwide,” says Felix Tauber, Managing Director of the ShUM Cities association. “One is only willing to protect what one knows,” said Tauber in an interview with SWR2.

Martina Conrad took a look at the Jewish heritage on the Rhine in 2020 in the run-up to UNESCO recognition:

The places where European Jewry originated

Under the Salian and Staufer emperors, the three free cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer developed into central centers of power. Jewish merchants settled in the centers on the Rhine because the river offered them good access to overseas trade.

The wealth of the merchants and the relative freedom granted to the communities by the emperors allowed Jewish life to flourish. The most important Talmud schools (Yeshivot) of the West were established in the three cities. They attracted students and scholars from all over Europe. For a long time, the ShUM cities were considered to be of similar importance to Judaism as Jerusalem.

Thanks to their supra-regional importance, the ShUM cities became the cradle of Ashkenazi Jewry, whose sphere of influence extended to York, Venice and Budapest. To this day, ordinances, prayers and lamentations written by ShUM scholars a thousand years ago shape European Jewry.

The memory of Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, Rashi for short, is still of particular importance. Born around 1040 in Troyes, he moved to Mainz and Worms to study at their famous Talmud schools. Rashi remained connected to the Yeshiva of Worms throughout his life. Rashi’s commentaries on the Holy Scriptures are still studied today and are considered central interpretations, especially among orthodox Jews.

What you can still see today from the medieval world heritage of the ShUM cities

In Speyer, the Jewish ritual bath, the mikveh, has been preserved in the so-called “Judenhof”. The mikvah, built in Romanesque style around 1120, is considered the oldest of its kind in Europe. The remains of the synagogue built in 1104 and the women’s school (13th century) can still be seen in the immediate vicinity. The foundations of the Speyer yeshiva were not excavated until the 1990s.

The oldest surviving tombstones on the “Holy Sand” in Worms are dated to the middle of the 12th century. The Worms synagogue with the adjoining women’s school was consecrated in 1034 and destroyed four times, most recently as a result of the Nazi pogroms in 1938. A mikveh from the 12th century has also been preserved in Worms.

Like the Worms cemetery, the Mainzer “Judensand” dates back to the 11th century and is the only surviving testimony to Jewish Mainz in the Middle Ages. The New Synagogue, designed by architect Manuel Herz and inaugurated in 2010, now functions as the Jewish center in Mainz.

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