Here you can find the most important news about our UNESCO World Heritage Sites. All dates and further informations can be found on our German-language website.
ShUM Culture Days 2024
This fall, we are celebrating the diversity, vibrancy and traditions of Jewish culture on the Rhine for the 20th time with the ShUM Culture Days!
They have their roots in the ShUM city of Worms, where Jewish life has been
This fall, we are celebrating the diversity, vibrancy and traditions of Jewish culture on the Rhine for the 20th time with the ShUM Culture Days!
They have their roots in the ShUM city of Worms, where Jewish life has been brought to life with a series of cultural events since 2005. For some years now, the ShUM Culture Days have been taking place in all three ShUM cities.
Together with the Jewish community of Mainz-Rheinhessen K.d.ö.R., many committed volunteers and numerous visitors, this big festival invites you to experience, discover and celebrate the diverse and vibrant Jewish culture up close with its many events at different locations!
From September 8th to November 24th, you can look forward to inspiring lectures and readings, exciting theater performances, impressive guided tours, exhilarating concerts from jazz to pop and much more!
You will receive further information on individual events in the upcoming weeks via Social-Media or go to: www.schumstaedte.de/schum/schum-kulturtage
International Artists in ShUM August-September 2024
ShUM Artists in Residence 2024
ShUM Artist in Residence 2024 - These international artists will be living and working in the ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz from August till September.
Following the successful launch of “ShUM - Artist in Residence” 2022, international artists
ShUM Artist in Residence 2024 - These international artists will be living and working in the ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz from August till September.
Following the successful launch of “ShUM - Artist in Residence” 2022, international artists were once again invited to explore Jewish life and the World Heritage Site on the Rhine.
More than 100 candidates applied worldwide. The residency program is open to all artistic fields of work: Visual arts, music, literature, theater, film/media, architecture and design.
The jury chose the musician Yotam Schlezinger from Israel, the video artist Janet Grau from the USA and the visual artist Bence Illyés from Hungary, who will each live and work in one of the three ShUM cities for several weeks.
Yotam Schlezinger was born in Tel Aviv in 1982, studied music and acoustics in Chicago and Essen and works as a musician, composer and sound designer, primarily in the field of theater. He wants to create a sound installation based on historical recordings of cantors singing at a historical location in one of the ShUM cities.
Bence Illyés from Hungary is a journalist, photographer and Judaist. In cooperations with the designer Judit Borsi, he will explore the visual symbols of ShUM and process them in linocuts and an electronic magazine.
Janet Grau was born in Cleveland/Ohio in 1964 and has lived in Germany since 1999. Her experimental and interdisciplinary performance projects operate at the interface of art and engagement and deal with the practice of collecting and storytelling. In addition to performances, she works with photography, video and installations. She will realize an artistic video based on the memorial speech of Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms for his wife Dulcea, who was murdered with her daughters in a pogrom in 1196. The situation of women in the Middle Ages and today will also be addressed within her project.
The residency program is funded by the Ministry for Family Affairs, Women, Culture and Integration.
Further informations on the individual artists can be found on our social media channels (@welterbe.schum).
Always be up-to-date with social media!
Follow us on our social media channels @welterbe.schum for daily news, save the date announcements or exciting insights into our work. You have questions? No problem - send us a message on Instagram and Facebook. We look forward to get
Follow us on our social media channels @welterbe.schum for daily news, save the date announcements or exciting insights into our work. You have questions? No problem - send us a message on Instagram and Facebook. We look forward to get in touch with you!
The ShUM-Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz are UNESCO World Heritage Sites!
Since July 27, 2021, the ShUM-Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz are UNESCO World Heritage Sites!
The ShUM-Sites include unique, exemplary community centers, monuments and cemeteries. The are outstanding, outstandingly early and in singular density and completeness preserved testimonies of a living Jewish tradition in this region and beyond. The ShUM-Sites bear witness of the network of the ShUM communities in the Middle Ages. In these sites, the power of architectural innovation and outstanding scholarship can be seen. Here, intersections and also exchanges with the non-Jewish surrounding culture emerged. The brightest and darkest times of Jewish history are reflected here. Here stood the cradle of Ashkenazi Judaism and here the centuries-old roots reach into a Jewish present and future. UNESCO Website ShUM
Kehillot ShUM: UNESCO World Heritage!
In the Middle Ages, the Jewish communities of the cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz formed an association that shaped the architecture, culture, religion and jurisprudence of the Central and Eastern European Jewish diaspora. Synagogues, women’s shuln, teaching houses and ritual baths in Speyer and Worms as well as the old Jewish cemeteries in Worms and Mainz tell of the immense importance of the ShUM communities. ShUM has a special sound in the Jewish world to this day.
The ShUM sites attract interested people from many countries. ShUM is a magnetic field. ShUM is architecture, religion, scholarship. ShUM is 1000 years of Jewish history!
Watch the Google Arts and Culture virtual exhibition! Click here
Dannie Klompsma
»I do not have to explain it to you, but in Ashkenazi Jewish history the Rheinland is the cradle of European Jewry. To be around in the ShUM cities is connecting to the earliest traditions of the pioneer Jews who entered Europe through Rome and Italy. It connects us physically to the Chasidei and Chachmei Ashkenaz, who shaped (world) Judaism so prominently.«
»The ShUM-Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz are visible, exceptional Jewish heritage - and since the end of July 2021 also UNESCO World Heritage! To have achieved this goal after many years of intensive research, coordination and creative processes fills everyone involved with great joy. We would like to make the Jewish ShUM World Heritage Site even better known and show at these sites how diverse, innovative and formative the Jewish ShUM communities were. We hope that the three cities and all the guests who stand in amazement in front of and in the synagogues and ritual baths and visit the 'Eternal Places', the Jewish cemeteries, will carry our message further. For appropriate and careful treatment of the ShUM-Sites and for the responsibility we all bear for the Jewish past, present and future.«
»For Jewish life in Germany and Europe, the ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz are of decisive importance. They are the origin of a long and significant history, from the Middle Ages to the present. The traditions rooted in the ShUM communities are still valid today and have an influence on Jewish life worldwide.
Outstanding personalities, such as Rashi and Rabbi Gershom, have had a decisive influence on Ashkenazi Judaism from today's Rhineland-Palatinate.
With the recognition of the ShUM cities as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, it is possible to preserve the past of this globally unique heritage, bring it into the present and learn from it for the future.«
»As a woman from Worms, I grew up not only in the shadow of the thousand-year-old cathedral, but also in the immediate vicinity of the equally old Jewish cemetery 'Holy Sand'. Its crooked ancient gravestones - some topped with small stones - were familiar to me as a child and filled me with awe and pride, especially when I heard that this is the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe. Together with Mainz and Speyer, Worms formed the center of Jewish life in ancient times, when there was a thriving Jewish culture along the Rhine.
While today everyone knows the significance of the Romanesque cathedrals of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, not many know how much these three cities were also shaped by their Jewish inhabitants. Apart from the cemeteries, synagogues and ritual baths, women's shuln and Rashi's teaching house also bear witness to this. It was high time that ShUM became known as the cradle of Ashkenazi Judaism on the Rhine and was recognized as a World Heritage Site.«
Rabbi Dr. Elisa KlapheckRafael HerlichRabbinerin Prof. Dr. Elisa KlapheckFrankfurt am Main
»You can still feel the rabbinic genius loci in the ShUM Sites. A trip there always gives me inspiration.«
»The 'World Heritage' recognition makes it clear how unique the value of a cultural site is. The ShUM-Sites are not only significant today: many centuries ago, they already formed a network that was - and still is - formative for the architecture, culture, religion and jurisdiction of Judaism in Central and Eastern Europe. With the preservation of the ShUM-Sites, it becomes clear that Jewish life has always had its place in our region. This memory is the true heritage that the remaining historical testimonies show us today and in the future. We are therefore particularly pleased about the recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.«
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