ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz
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How it came to be
ShUM is formed from the Hebrew initials of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, cathedral cities of the Upper Rhine. In the Middle Ages their Jewish communities were bound together by shared enactments, the Takkanot ShUM, and became the centre of Ashkenazi Jewish life. UNESCO notes that distinctive customs and community forms took shape here especially between the 11th and 14th centuries.
The first synagogue in Worms was built in 1034, destroyed during the First Crusade in 1096 and rebuilt in the Romanesque style in 1175. An underground mikveh, or ritual bath, followed in 1186 and a women's synagogue in 1213. The nearby cemetery known as Heiliger Sand holds a gravestone from 1058/59, the oldest still legible.
In Mainz, Gershom ben Judah founded a yeshiva in the 10th century that drew students from across Europe. Speyer keeps its synagogue and women's shul, the remains of its yeshiva and an intact underground mikveh. The Worms synagogue was reduced to rubble on Kristallnacht in 1938 and rebuilt in 1961 with as many original stones as could be saved. The four components were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2021.
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