Speyer

Mikve

Puzzling

June 7, 2011-Hot Topics

It sounded like we were being attacked last night. We'd just crawled into bed and David was asleep already. I peered out the window and, low and behold, it was fireworks. I don't know what town we were passing but it provided a bit of bedtime entertainment.

It's not only the Jews who get burned out. Everyone seems to have been intent on burning everyone else's religious buildings. The cathedral in Speyer is a landmark on a magnificent hill overlooking the Rhine. The town was built around it but, alas, the cathedral & town have been torched multiple times.

We climbed steps from the river level and walked into a lovely park leading to the cathedral then the market square. Dewi told us that Speyer will never be allowed to have more than a population of 50,000. That is the size town where it's permitted to have a brothel. They move boundaries and fudge the count so as to keep it under 50,000.

In 1027 the holy Roman emperor commissioned the Salian dynasty to build the cathedral. It only took thirty-four years. It could have been accomplished faster if their beasts of burden were more co-operative. Donkeys hauled sandstone from far away and were unhappy about climbing up ramps as the church walls rose higher. The builders solved the problem by hoisting the donkeys onto scaffolds where they walked around distributing stones as needed.

But even the construction of such a huge edifice wasn't enough to insure Henry IV's security on the throne. He became king at age six but his mother really ran the government until he reached eighteen. His mother had a very volatile relationship with the pope and Henry didn't do much better. His fascination with Protestantism didn't help. Ultimately, Henry was excommunicated. Remorse overcame him and he was granted a meeting with the pope. When Henry arrived that winter at the agreed upon location (the home of the pope's mistress) he had to wait outside the walls in the snow for three days. The pope granted a pardon but a year later rescinded it marking the beginning of the end of Salian rule.

As for the cathedral, Louis XIV burned it and rebuilding didn't start until the 1700's. It wasn't completed until after Napoleon. Which brings us to the "Jewish problem." Jews settled in Speyer in 1084 and built their synagogue. The Hebrew word for Speyer is ShPira and so if your name is Shapiro chances are you hail from Speyer. As I've mentioned, Jews weren't allowed to join guilds so turned to money lending and commerce. The rules of Christianity and Judaism were similar in that Jews and Christians were forbidden from lending within their own communities, but it was ok to lend to each other & charge interest. Things went swimmingly until the notes were due and the emperor especially took exception to paying up. Rather than pay his debts he expelled the Jews and burned the synagogue in 1195.

The Jewish community rebuilt and alternately limped along and flourished for some 400 years dealing with pogroms launched over charges of ritual murder and the Black Plague. It's well known that Jews were blamed for poisoning Christian wells and causing the plague but the reason Jews were infected less than the community at large rests on the mikve, ritual bath. The plague was caused by unclean conditions and disease carrying fleas. Jewish men went to mikve once a week, before Shabbat, and women had to go monthly. Due to Jewish ritual hygiene 90% of deaths were in the Christian community.

The Jewish community built up to its highest number of 539 in 1880, but in 1933 the Nazi's rose up and on Nov. 9-10, 1938, the synagogue was burned. Today all that remains are walls and, amazingly, an intact mikve. The perfect brick roof and steps lead way underground to an area containing a changing room and then farther down to the bath itself. There’s still water in it and it's easy to imagine it in use. It’s poignant that in the brochures we picked up the ruins are described as remnants of the Jewish "cult."

We didn't learn of any Jewish community existing here now but Dewi reminded us that Soviet and E. European Jews make up a goodly number of Jews now living in Germany. She said that neo-Nazis were mainly from E. Europe where, after the war, their education system told a different story of the camps. They were taught the camps were for prostitutes. Mention of other groups herded there were eliminated from their curriculum. Now German youth must visit a concentration camp as part of their education but when asked about use of the word, Holocaust, I got an interesting explanation. Dewi said that word is used by professors and not the common people. They call it "events of WWII."

Home Run

 Lunch wasn't scintillating for me. They had milky cucumber soup, tuna melt with salad drenched in mayo, and dessert I could easily pass up. I was ok with brief hunger pangs since this afternoon we went to a home hosted kafe klatsch. We were divided into groups of 4-6 and bussed to separate homes. Our hosts were Manuela and Manfred Hook. Although we were prepared for modest German living the Hook's home was quite large and only fourteen years old. I'd say it was at least 2500 square feet, had four bedrooms, a finished lower walk out level, and lovely kitchen. The yard was also large and had a fish pond. It's built on land given to them by his parents. I guess Manuela isn't from a long line of German hausfrau bakers because she served us store bought plain cheesecake. Where was the promised variety of three homemade pastries that kept me salivating? In any case, they were charming and we learned a bit about their lives and family. They had two children from her previous marriage. Alexander, 21, is an auto mechanic and joined the army. They're not happy with that decision. Raphaella, 16, is preparing to be a pre-school and kindergarten teacher and is involved in practical training for a few weeks. Manuela works as a bookkeeper and he works for government social security but spent thirteen years as a vice-mayor for their town, Dudenhofen. They've traveled extensively and have relatives in the U.S. but don't have enough vacation time to make it worth the trip. Manuela mentioned an aunt in Youngstown, Ohio.

The chef redeemed herself at dinner. We had lamb chops and kefta. So good!!! The black forest cake wasn't up to expectations and I bet the people going to Baden Baden tomorrow were relieved. They paid $60 extra per person for that trip and the highlight is black forest cake. I hope for their sakes it's better.

Entertainment tonight was a lecture by the musician about European music by way of showing us excerpts from a Euro Vision contest over the years. Many songs were familiar and I sang along as I made major progress on the puzzle.

We have an earlier than usual start in Strasbourg tomorrow. France, here we come!

Toby