The mediaeval cemetery »Judensand« on Mombacher Strasse has largely been preserved. However, expulsions of the Jews repeatedly led to evictions and remodeling of the "Eternal Place" and thus to serious losses of gravestones. Since the 1860s, important Jewish gravestones have repeatedly come to light during construction work in Mainz.
Outstanding gravestones were combined in 1926 by the rabbis Levi and Salfeld to form a memorial cemetery in order to make the heritage visible from afar and to underline our own location in Magenza and Germany. The oldest surviving tombstone dates from 1049 and commemorates Jehuda ben Schneor. Other tombstones honor the scholars Gerschom ben Jehudah and Meschullam ben Kalonymos the Great.
Some of the oldest gravestones have been exhibited in the Mainz State Museum since the 1980s with the permission of the Jewish Community. The memorial cemetery documents how central and important Magenza was and is; such a memorial cemetery is unique in the Jewish world. The »Judensand« cemetery will be further developed and explored in the course of the World Heritage application and beyond, and concepts for the preservation of historical monuments will be developed.
The cemetery in Mainz is central to the World Heritage status of the ShUM sites.
Source: https://schumstaedte.de/schum/mainz
