Tombstone at the Jewish Courtyard in Speyer
I got out early in the morning from the city of Frankfurt to this area in the hope of visiting several sites in the area. Speyer was the furthest one from Frankfurt so I thought that I should go there first and work my way back to Frankfurt. I did make it to Speyer and was delighted with my visit to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Speyer Cathedral. However, Speyer is not the home of just one UNESCO site but it actually has two sites. This made it a perfect place to help tick another box in my tour of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Artifacts on Exhibit at the Jewish Court in Speyer
Apparently, there is a Jewish courtyard not too far from the Speyer Cathedral. It is included as part of the listing under ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz. What exactly is ShUM. Back then, there was a large Jewish community not just in Speyer, but also in this area of Germany. The main cities which are involved here are Speyer, Worms and Mainz. ShUM is basically an acronym which represents the Hebrew names of these cities. Although Speyer wasn’t the most important city in ShUM (Mainz is), there was still a significant Jewish community in the city that they built several structures in the city.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/JewishCourtyardSpeyer.kmz} zoom=19]