Speyer שפירא
The first of the three SchUM communities—Speyer, Worms, Mainz—from which the Ashkenazi rite came. The community began with a bishop's charter in 1084; its mikveh and synagogue court stand to this day.
It began with a fire in Mainz: the burnt-out sought somewhere to go, and Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann of Speyer called them to him—on 13 September 1084 he gave the Jews a charter. It says plainly that he calls them so that his town may grow greater and more glorious; they are given a quarter with a wall of their own, their own court, the right to trade and to change money. For the eleventh century that is a great deal, and the text survives.
Speyer is the Sch in SchUM (Schpira, Warmaisa, Magenza). The three Rhenish communities judged together, enacted takkanot together, and their custom became the custom of the whole Ashkenazi world—from the nusach of prayer to the order of reading the Torah.
In 1096, in the First Crusade, the mobs moved along the Rhine. At Speyer Bishop John sheltered the community in his castle; by the chronicles of that year eleven people perished here—fewer than at Worms and Mainz, where the count ran to hundreds. Speyer's medieval mikveh (the 1120s) and synagogue court survive; since 2021 they stand, with the monuments of Worms and Mainz, on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- The chronicles of the 1096 persecutions (Solomon bar Simson and others) — the bishop's shelter; eleven killed at Speyer
Documents of the period
- The charter of Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann, 13 September 1084 — the invitation, the wall, their own court, the right of trade
Basis: documents and evidence.