New Excavations Reveal First Century Jewish Artifacts in Germany

For some residents of Cologne, Germany, it’s a difficult time. They dug deep into the ground so as to uncover a glorious bit of German history and, from their point of view, they discovered a bit of Jewish history instead. Of course, this is German Jewish history and it demonstrates that far from being latecomers to the German scene, the Jews have been there since the 1st century! This shouldn’t surprise us since Jews – both freely and as captives – served in the Roman army and ended up in far-flung corners of the Roman Empire e.g., Romania, Britain and, yes, Germany. Since 2007, led by archaeologist Sven Schuette, excavators have found some 250,000 artifacts connected to the city’s 2,000 year old history, including remnants of the oldest Jewish synagogue ever discovered north of the Alps. After a thousand year history, the Cologne Jewish community was massacred by Crusaders on their way to fight a Christian Holy War in the Holy Land in 1096. Some Jews survived and rebuilt their community but they were annihilated in 1349 when local Christians made them scapegoats for the Black Plague. They rebuilt again, only to be destroyed during the Holocaust. So imagine the consternation created in some circles when   evidence of this once proud Jewish community was recently discovered. Some citizens of Cologne want to celebrate this discovery in a new Jewish museum slated for a 2017 opening. Others, however, want to bury Jewish history and its ancient roots in Germany, just like they buried their fellow Jews.

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