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360° Panoramic View of the Jewish Bath
Opening Hours Daily, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Admission: 1 EUR (reduced 0,50 EUR) Guide Tours: Tourist-Information Speyer Address: Judengasse Fon: +49 (0) 62 32 / 7 72 88
Around 1090 the Bishop of Speyer, Rüdiger Huzmann, established a settlement of Jews right next to the cathedral. The focal point of the settlement was the Jewish Courtyard where the centre of worship, the men's and women's synagogues and the ritual cold bath (Mikvah), were located.
Although only some ruins of the walls of the synagogues remain, the bath itself, to which the earliest references were made in 1126, has been preserved through the centuries virtually unchanged.
A barrel vaulted staircase leads through an anteroom with a cross-vaulted ceiling, down 10 meters into the rectangular bath chamber.
It was here that ritual cleansing, in keeping with the Mosaic laws, was carried out by bathing in the cold "natural" water.
The Jewish Bath of Speyer is one of the oldest remaining baths of its kind and therefore of particular historical-cultural significance.
Since 1989 the Speyer Tourism Association Inc. has taken over responsibility for organizing regular opening hours with its own staff.
The Synagogue - The Ritual Bath
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