I went to see the town of Rothenburg, where the Maharam, Rabbi  Meir Ben Baruch, lived. To follow his steps in the streets where he walked, and to see the sights he saw. His name has become relevant recently on the public agenda, regarding the question of the price for the release of bodies of IDF soldiers. In this arguments many are raising the name of the Maharam of Rothenburg, who refused the community's request to redeem him from prison, because the Gentiles would think that it pays to kidnap and imprison Jews

Rotenburg is located in the Essenbach district of Bavaria, Germany, about an hour and a quarter drive from the city of Nuremberg. The road from Nuremberg to Rothenburg is called the "Romantic Road". It is a relatively narrow road. Only one lane in each direction. The road passes between agricultural fields, small villages and farms, and also crosses forests. Here and there we see two-story houses with a sharp tiled roof. Sometimes it is a single farm house, and sometimes it is 4-5 houses. Around fields and pastures. Everything is green and pleasing to the eyes

When we arrive in Rothenburg, time seems to have stopped. The town now looks like it was in the Middle Ages during the Maharam period. It is a walled city, with many gates and 40 towers along the wall

Its streets and alleys preserve the medieval building style. The architecture is lovely. The preservation is excellent. When I walked into the city gate, I thought I had reached the set of a Hollywood movie, and that the facades of the houses were a plywood décor with nothing behind it. But no. These houses are about 500 years old. Real, stable, and upright. My guide, Robert Marr, showed me at the door of one shoemaking shop, which has been operating in the same store for 400 years. The houses are very colorful. Later I saw that not only is the picturesque entrance street, but most of the city streets look like this

We wander through the city and feel like we've entered a 3D postcard. The alleys are narrow, and most of them are paved with stones like the Middle Ages, instead of asphalt that is used nowadays. Most houses have not changed since the Middle Ages but have just been repainted and slightly refurbished. This is what the cities of Germany looked like in the Middle Ages. There are not many such historical sights outside of individual museums or houses for conservation

Rothenburg was once called "The Frankoniar Jerusalem", because of the scenery. Viewing the city from the south, its eastern part is very reminiscent of the Jerusalem walls of similar height, with church spiers decorating the skyline

In the city center is the beautiful Baroque-style town hall. It was built in 1200 but burned down 300 years later and was rebuilt in about 1600. Since then it has been activated as a town hall. The local tourism bureau manager, Robert Merr, says his city office is handing out free brochures and city maps with various walking tours. Among the tours offered by the Tourist Office are also the "Jewish Tour", with each station there is a signboard with short explanations in German and Hebrew, as well as a barcode for more detailed information. They also offer a booklet in Hebrew with a tour in Hebrew tour

Rottenburg's mayor, Walter Hertel, takes dignity and seriousness to Rothenburg Jewish history. On his visits around the world, he'd learn that the city of Rothenburg is recognized worldwide mostly due to the Maharam, more than by all the other historical and tourist sites it has. Therefore, he was instructed to develop the "Jewish tour

Our Jewish tour leaves from the city's main square. In front of the town hall is a narrow alley, which leads us to "Cappella Platz" (Church Square). At the entrance to the plaza hangs a wall on the left with a sign explaining its history. Rothenburg was founded in 1180, and already in its founding, Jews lived in the Jewish Quarter. This district served the Jews until 1350. Here were residences, synagogues and Torah scholars. In this place, the Maharam was the chief leading rabbi for 40 years

As a young man, the Maharam studied in the nearby town of Würzburg in the house of Rabbi Yitzchak the author of "Or Zorah", one of the first of RISHONIM. After graduation, he went on to serve as a rabbi in Paris. Following burning the Gemara and other Jewish holy books in France he composed about it the lament we say in the prayer of Tisha B'Av: "You who was burnt by fire, ask for peace to your Mourning, who're greedy to stay in the gardens of Jerusalem". The Maharam himself didn't end in Jerusalem. Instead he returned to live in Rothenburg, his childhood home town

This square also housed Rabbi Meir Bar Yekutiel HaCohen of Rothenburg, a student of the Maharam, who wrote a commentary book "Maimonite glosses" on the Rambam. The Maharam in his book, is sometimes mentioning Rabbi Meir Bar Yekutiel in conjunction with the "May he live" blessing, and sometimes as "Rest in peace". Hence, writing the book began in Rabbi Meir life, and continued after his passing. Rabbi Meir has rulled a halacha law that we practice to nowdays, that we have to say "Kidush Levana" ("the blessing of the moon") outside the synagogue with eye contact to the moon, and not inside the synagogue as was customary until then

I walked slowly in the Cappella Platz back and forth, breathing deeply into the cold air (zero degrees), feeling how history was resurrected under my feet. "The Time Machine" took me back to the Middle Ages. I was excited by the thought that I am stepping on the same stones which the Maharam and Rabbi Meir HaCohen stepped

In 1286, the Maharam and his family left this place to immigrate to Eretz Israel. In those days the Jews were considered the king's slaves, and leaving the residence without permission was considered an escape of a slave from his master. When the Maharam family were in Venice, on their way of to Eretz Israel, a converted Jew informed them. The Maharam was taken to a prison, where he sat for 7 years. In his prison cell he wrote thousands of answers to questions that were sent to him from every diaspora. The Maharam died in this prison seven years later. He also gained world fame for his self-sacrifice to the public interest, for refusing to allow the Jewish community to pay a high ransom for his release

In 1350, the Jews were expelled from Rothenburg, and at 1400 the synagogue was converted into a church (Cappella), which gave the square its name "Cappella Platz" to this day. Inside the square, on the wall of house number 5, next to the entrance to the restaurant, there is a bronze sign with an illustration of the Maharam and explanations in German about his work and his contribution to the city

Translation of the sign into English:      i

Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg

One of the most important rabbis in memory

Born in Worms in 1220

Lived and worked and taught here from 1250 to 1286

In the synagogue and yeshiva that were here in one of the buildings

And these houses are still standing here today

It was the first Jewish quarter in Rothenburg

He died in 1293 in Enzisheim Alsace

And was buried in 1307 in Worms

The yeshiva and synagogue that were here were destroyed in 1404

The synagogue became a church

And the yeshiva became a food salvation for the poor

The church was destroyed in 1805

I was excited to see a Star of David symbol hanging from one of the houses in the square. Don't get excited and don't make a mistake like me. I was explained that this is a symbol of a brewery organization, and it has nothing to do with Judaism

After the pogrom of 1350, Emperor Karl IV gave the Jewish survivors plots of land outside the walls, near the city gate, to rebuild their homes and lives. Thus the "Jewish Street" was established. We head to this area as we continue the Jewish tour

Second Jewish Quarter

We pass through the gate of the wall below the White Tower, and to our left is the fences of the "Rabbi Meir Garden". The locals also call it the Hebrew name "Rabbi Meir Graten" and it is also so listed on the maps. The garden is named after the Maharam, Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch

It has a lawn surrounded by a stone fence. There are Jewish gravestones on the fence. At the end of the city was a Jewish cemetery (to which we will come later) destroyed about 500 years ago. In the last generation a cluster of 33 ancient Jewish tombstones discovered accidently inside the ground. Some of them were brought here to decorate the fence of Rabbi Meir Garden. The rest of the tombstone we can see in the Municipal Museum

In the center of the garden there is a stone with a bronze plaque for 17 local Jews who were deported in 1938 and murdered in the Holocaust

The tall house on our left is called by the locals "The Jewish Dance House". Here were the Jewish community offices, and above them an  events hall where they would dance at weddings, banquets, and holidays like Simchat Torah. This house was destroyed in World War II bombings, and rebuilt externally as in the past, but its internal has been altered and adapted to residential apartments house

We leave the garden of Rabbi Meir and turn left. This is where the new Jewish Quarter starts. The sign on the first house on the left shows the "Judengasse" street sign. The Jews were by then a tenth of the city's population, but the taxes collected from Jews were about half of the municipality's income

We continue walking leisurely down the Jewish street. All the little houses on both sides of the street are about 500 years old. We're walking on the same stone pavements on which Jews have marched for generations before us. Excited!             i

We stop in front of houses number 15 and 17 on the left. These houses were built by two Jews, who made the entrances to their homes close together, forming a kind of the two tablets of Torah. From here, this style was also copied elsewhere in the Franconia region

In the basement of the house number 10, a Mikveh was discovered about 20 years ago, dated from the 14th century, from the period of the Jewish neighborhood. The house and mikveh are closed to the public for fear of collapse. But we can see its replica in the Municipal Museum. The Nuremberg Historical Society purchased the house about three years ago, and they are working on preparing plans for renovation and preservation of the building for tourism purposes

From number 10 we continue down the street. Houses 19 and 21 were used as the local Jewish school

At the end of the Jewish street we see a large parking lot. It used to be the area of the "Juden Kirchhof"' Jewish cemetery. But this name was changed to SchrannePlatz. This lot also had a synagogue built in 1406. The synagogue was looted in 1516 and since then it has become a church

The Jewish cemetery was functioning from 1266 to 1520. When the Jews were expelled from the city, the Christians invaded their homes and began to bury their dead in the Jewish cemetery. In 1532, the bones of the Jews were removed from their graves to make burial places for Christians. The bones of the Jews and their gravestones were transferred to an unknown place

Nowadays there are no remains for the Jewish cemetery. However, in the Municipal Archive a document from 1520 was found recently, stating that the city paid someone for removing the Jewish bones from the cemetery and transporting them to mass burial elsewhere in the city. The "other place" is unknown today

As we leave the cemetery location and continue our walk, my escort, Luther Schmidt, points to the wall of one of the houses where special strain outlets are seen. To me it looked like a filling obstruction in the concrete of a hole used for window air conditioner. Luther explains: "I remember when I was a young boy there were two big Hebrew gravestones here, used as building material for this wall. In recent years, they removed them, and closed the hole in concrete and plaster."         i

This is not the only place where Jewish gravestones were used as building material. There were many in the city, and the city instructed to remove them. Many residents tried to be smart and covered the Jewish tombstones with a plaster layer. Luther continues today to search the walls built of Jewish gravestones. He has developed a kind of "X-ray eyes" that can identify the stones hidden behind the plaster. After a rain, the plaster dries at a different rate according to its thickness. There are delicate difference of shades between a place where the plaster is very thick, and a place where the plaster is thin and covers a stone beneath it. Luther developed a sense of identifying it, and to this day as he walks around the streets of Rothenburg I see his eyes watching the walls

In 1871, a new constitution was declared in Germany which stated that Jews and Christians have equal rights, and that Jews could now settle where they wished. So Jews began to return to Rothenburg. In 1875 they established a Jewish community and opened a new synagogue. The synagogue is located at 21 Herrengasse Street. The ground floor was used as synagogue, and the floor above it was "Ezrat Nashim" ("Women area"). The third floor used for the residence of the rabbi and his family

The synagogue building is still existing in the same location. The first floor there is now a cloth store and the second floor now operates as a health clinic. This building also has a memorial plaque. On the sidewalk on the front there are copper stones ("stolpersteins") that commemorate the names of the Jews who hid in the synagogue when the Holocaust began, and they were taken to their deaths from here

In 1900, hundreds of Jews lived in Rothenburg. When anti-Semitism began to get up its head, most Jews left mainly to Tel Aviv, New York and Stockholm. In 1938, only 17 Jews remained in the town, and were sent to Nazi extermination camps

We continue our Jewish tour to a gate in the wall, and leave the city to "Rothenburg Castle". In the summer of 1298 there was the "Rindfleisch pogrom" throughout Franconia, where the Jews of Rothenburg were also injured. The villagers of outside the city raided the Jewish Quarter, beat the Jews, some until their deaths, and robbed their property. Among those killed were the city's rabbi, Abraham Ben Baruch, the brother of the Maharam, with his wife and two daughters

Luther Schmidt argues that this pogrom was for economic and non-religious reasons. Some of the city's Jews were bankers and made a living of interest loans. Luther found in the municipal archives many big claims against borrowers, which did not repay their debts. Their trials were scheduled to begin that summer, but the trials were never held. Luther believes that these borrowers incited the primitive neighboring villagers to kill the Jews, "Jesus Christ killers". They even marked for them especially their homes of Jews they owed money to. When the lenders were murdered, the debt was also wiped out

 

Anyway, 450 of the city's Jews sought shelter in the royal castle outside the city wall. This is because the high taxes paid by the Jews were called "protection tax", and they expected to utilize it. The rioters besieged Rothenburg Castle for three days, finally breaking into it and mercilessly killing the 450 Jews, including 178 children. In their memory, a large monument was erected outside the church that was once in Rothenburg Castle

At the bottom of the tombstone is written in Hebrew:          i

As a bitter eulogy obituary that we forgot

The initial cuts to help them I enacted

On a stone tablet of holy Rothenburg residents

Who were killed were burned down during the year 1298

at 19th of Tamuz month they brought their plans to town

Destroyed and fired and killed

The people of the city and terminated old and young

Twelfth of the fifth month to the third millennium

We will send for free or come Redeemer and Holy One

The castle was bombed during World War II, and the memorial stone was also severely damaged. It was reconstructed and rebuilt in the garden at the front of the castle's remains. The original tombstone is in the Municipal Museum. Inside the castle there is also a memorial monument to German army soldiers who fell in the First World War. Among them are also two Jewish soldier's names – Hans Leventhal and Moritz Gottlieb

The next stop on our tour should be the Municipal Museum, which has also an interesting Jewish section. At its entrance there is a photograph of the mikveh that was discovered on the Jewish street. Jewish displays such as candlesticks for Shabbat, menorahs, parchments for the Holy Ark, and the like. These are not exhibits found in Rothenburg but purchased from elsewhere. They are intended to illustrate to non-Jewish visitors the daily life of the Jews

There are also books of the Maharam in the museum. We can see there two stones that were removed from the wall in the cell where he was imprisoned in Ansisheim

The museum also presents the original stone set by Jews in memory of the pogrom of Rindfleisch

Further down the hall we see Jewish tombstones. These stones were not uprooted from the cemetery but found in the city walls. When they built the wall, they removed gravestones from the Jewish cemetery for use as building material. In 1912, the municipally decided to remove these stones from the wall. Some of them were brought to the Municipal Museum. The rest were discovered elsewhere in the city

We can see here tombstones from the 14th century. We see here the tombstone of Baruch Yechiel ben Peter who died in 1305. In other words, he must have heard sermons and Shiurim from the Maharam mouth

I stood in front of the tombstones and said Kaddish, and the director of the Museum and my Gentile escorts and guide answered "AMEN".          i

During the tour we can see many houses whose the year of construction of the house is engraved on their lintel. In some houses the date is written from right to left, such as this house, which was engraved in the year of its founding 1343 from right to left as in Hebrew. This indicates that this house once owned by a Jewish family

Here ends the official "Jewish Tour" of the Municipal Tourism Office. I recommend continuing our tour of the city on its walls. The wall was completed in 1390. At the beginning of the last century, the municipalities ordered the removal of Jewish headstones from the wall and replaced them with ordinary stones. The wall is reminiscent of the Jerusalem Wall, and it also has a similar walking route from the Jaffa Gate to the Zion Gate in Jerusalem. The difference is that on the route in the Rothenburg Wall, a roof is built to protect against rain and snow. From the top of the wall we see the beautiful houses of Rothenburg

Two times in history Jews were expelled from Rothenburg. In the Middle Ages and in the Nazi era. Today 11,000 people are living in Rotenberg, and two thousands of them live in the old city

Every October there is a "Jewish Week" called "Lechayim", organized by the Protestant Church. There are films and singers from Israel and Germany, as well as musicians. The Jewish Week also has lectures and seminars on Jewish history. The organizer is the Rev. Oliver Guzman, who did a doctoral dissertation on German Rabbis throughout their generations. In the municipal tourism bureau, they hand out a pamphlet in Hebrew that he wrote about Jewish Rothenburg

There are many museums of art and history in Rothenburg. Of these we should visit the Medieval Crimes Museum. The museum exhibits all kinds of punishment methods of criminals. In the entrance hall we see torture beds and various torture devices used by the Inquisition. They were used for about 500 years until 1800

When we look at the torture beds we'd remember that they also have a Jewish aspect. In 1347, the "Black Plague" erupted in Europe, killing about a third of European residents. The Gentiles noticed that only a few of the Jews became sick. Today we know that it is thanks to the hygiene of washing hands and immersion in mikveh. At the time, they suspected the plague was because Jews were poisoning the wells. To corroborate the suspicions, some Jews treated with such torture beds, and some Jews broke down and were forced to admit they poisoned the wells. As a result, riots broke out throughout Europe where many Jews were massacred

Minor crimes were punished in the Middle Ages through "shame" of the offender. The familiar method is the "pillar of disgrace" where the perpetrator's head and both hands are closed between two wooden beams that stood in the center of the city, and the passersby would mock him and spit on him. Another method shown in the museum: Tie the offender to the wall in chains and put on his face a mask related to the offense. This is how he stood all day at the city gate, as the people mocked him. The punishment continued throughout the day, and the offender was released at nightfall

   

For example, those who behaved like pigs were forced to wear a pig mask. A musician who faked in tune forced to put a trumpet-like on his neck, etc. Of all the punishments I saw in the museum I liked a mask of a woman with a very long tongue. Put on the head of a woman who talks too much. Every married man will love the idea, as I do

About half a million tourists visiting Rotenberg every year, many of them from Japan. It is unknown about Jews who currently live in Rothenburg. The "most Jewish" resident is Mr. Luther Schmidt, who from an early age explores Judaism and the Holocaust. His hobby for many years has been to search the city's archives for medieval documents concerning the city's Jews

As mentioned, various tours are going out by the municipality. For those who stay for another day in Rothenburg, I recommend the next day for a "30-year war" tour between Catholics and Protestants. We can also go on an "art tour". Christians will probably choose a "church tour".       i

Thanks to Mr. Robert Nehr of the Ruthenberg Tourist Office

and to Mrs. Sarah Morsdorf of the Nuremberg Tourist Office

who provided guidance and information for this article