A Short Jewish History of Worms, Germany

Worms is a town located southwest of Germany, in the Rhineland-Palatinate. It is one of the oldest German cities and the only one that is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Organization.

Its name has Celtic origins--Borbetomagus means something similar to "a settlement on watery territory". It has been translated into the Latin name Vormatia, which was used since the 6th century. The city has an area of about 108 km² and is home to 80,000 inhabitants.

The place where the city was founded was chosen by the Celts  because of the exceptionally warm and dry climate. Different settlements were already in place during the prehistoric times. One known group during the Bronze Age was the Adlerbergkultur--The Culture of Mountain Eagles.

In the 5th century, the Germanic tribe of Burgundy settled here. By the 7th century, Worms became the seat of bishops. The town‘s significance grew during the time of the Carolingian Empire, when it gained significant influence at its royal court. Charlemagne chose Worms as his summer residence and built a fortress there. In the years 829-926, Worms was the House of the East of the Empire, what later became known as the Holy Roman Empire.

The crypt of the Wormser Dom was the birthplace of the ancestors of Emperor Conrad II, from the family of Sals. In 1049, Leo IX, probably the most important German pope of the Middle Ages, was elected there.

At the turn of millenium, one of the most significant Ashkenazi communities of the then-known world formed here. A Yeshiva opened here, led by one of the most influential rabbis of all time, Shlomo Yitzhak. He is also known as Rashi and has commented on the entire Talmud. In 1096, Crusaders en route for the Holy Land organized a pogrom on the local Jewish community, whose stone synagogue and the ritual bath built in the 11th century were destroyed, killing hundreds of the local Jews.

In 1122, the famous Worms Concordat was closed here. At the end of the 12th century the Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa granted numerous municipal rights to the city, making Worms an imperial city. From then until the 16th century, a power struggle took place between the bourgeoisie and the bishop.

Worms became an important city of the German Reformation, and Martin Luther defended his 95 reformist articules here in front of the Emperor Charles V. Habsburg and the Prince Electors. Worms was turned into a city of evangelical. In 1698, the town was defeated by the French troops of Louis XIV.

It never regained the significance it had in the Middle Ages.

Between 1792-1814, Worms was annexed by France and then annexed to Hesse-Darmstadt in 1816. During the two Allied raids on February 21 and March 18, 1945, majority of the city's buildings were razed to the ground. The raid has destroyed a substantial part of the famous dome, which was rebuilt during the 1950s and 1960s. Internal equipment was partially protected during the war, and partly reconstructed later. In the 1990s, the famous medieval  Jewish quarter with a synagogue and a cemetery were also reconstructed. However the old cemetery still survives, with tombstones dating back to the 11th century.

Though an old town, Worms is rich with the history of the Jews. If you are traveling in Germany, or perhaps on a kosher cruise on the Rhine, this is one destination that should not be missed if you want to learn more of Jewish heritage.