An American who wants to understand what the city of Worms has meant to the Jews of Germany might begin by thinking: Newport. Like the Rhode Island town, Worms is the quiet, waterside home of its country's most venerable synagogue as well as an old Jewish graveyard that irresistibly plucks the "mystic cords of memory." And much as Newport has symbolized for the Jews of the United States their early arrival on the American scene, Worms has for German Jews betokened their longtime presence on German soil. But the similarities don't go any further.

The American Jewish image of Newport is inseparably bound up with the famous letter in which President George Washington reminded the members of its Hebrew congregation that they lived under a government "which gives to bigotry no sanction" and "to persecution no assistance." In the German Jewish mind, as Nils Roemer reminds us in his sweeping tale of Jewish Worms and the way in which it has been remembered and recorded, the image of Worms is always tied to recollections of the First Crusade, when mobs led by Count Emicho either killed or prompted the self-destruction of hundreds of the city's Jews who were determined not to endure forced conversion to Christianity. And while the Jewish community of Newport never . . .

Access to the item you have requested requires a subscription to Jewish Review of Books. If you are a subscriber, please enter your e-mail address and password below to log in. If you are a print subscriber and have not yet activated your online access, please click here to do so now. If you are not yet a subscriber, you may click here to subscribe, and receive both the print journal by mail and complete online access to our site.

E-mail Address
Password
	Forgot password?   Set-up Account