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Jerusalem on the Rhine: The three Holy Communities

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Landecker Fellow Elisabeth Becker wrote a piece titled “Jerusalem on the Rhine” for Tablet Magazine. The article digs into the Jewish historical preservation of three German cities: Speyer, Worms and Mainz.

In July 2021, the three collectives were promoted as “the cradle of European Jewry” and declared as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. With Jewish settlement dating back to the ninth century, Speyer, Worms and Mainz represent a significant part of Jewish history.

Today, the collectives also known as the “ShUM cities,” an acronym that unites the letters of the cities. They continue to preserve Jewish historical culture with the oldest surviving Jewish cemetry, the pool of the oldest surviving mikvahin in Europe and the remaining fragments of an Ashkenazi Jewish cemetery.

To learn more about the ShUM cities, you can read Elisabeth’s article on this Table Magazine page.

Elisabeth is one of thirty 2021-2022 Landecker Democracy Fellows. This fellowship, a collaboration between the Alfred Landecker Foundation and Humanity in Action, was created to strengthen a new generation of leaders whose approaches to political and social challenges can become catalysts for democratic placemaking and community building. Read more about the fellowship here.