Today, the cemetery belongs to the Jewish Congregation of Mainz, the successor in law to the former Jewish congregation in Worms, and it is maintained by the city of Worms. Because of the large number of graves of well-known Jewish people, including many important scholars, rabbis, benefactors and martyrs, and also because of the high reputation of the former congregation in Worms as “Little Jerusalem”, it is a kind of pilgrimage destination for Jewish visitors from all over the world.

The old Jewish cemetery is undoubtedly one of the most important cultural monuments in the city of Worms.
Because of its age, its uninterrupted use over centuries, its state of preservation, the number and importance of the Jewish people of Worms who are buried here and also because of the unique and rich Inscriptions covering a period of almost 900 years, it is of European significance.

The oldest gravestone in the cemetery Holy Sands is from the year 1058/59 and thus documents the first great flowering of the Jewish community in Worms, a community with evidence of its existence from about 1000 CE. As a result of this synagogue’s foundation in 1034 and the many rabbis who worked here from the 11th century on, this community, together with those of Mainz and Speyer, formed the ShUM Cities. “Shum” derives from the Hebrew first letters of the names of these three communities.

The decisions made by the synods of these cities were definitive for German Jews. Worms developed into one of the outstanding centres of Jewish learning on the Rhine, and its influence extended to the east of the Rhine into other parts of Ashkenaz, which was the Hebrew name for Germany.

The cemetery is outside the medieval city wall and to the
south-west, and one important aspect of its history is the uninterrupted existence of a Jewish community from the 11 th century until the time of the Nazis despite all the enforced expulsions and pogroms. In the Jewish faith, a cemetery is a place of eternal and inviolable peace, and this one is a mirror of the history of this community and its multifaceted relationship with the history of the city.

During the Middle Ages and in early modern times the cemetery was repeatedly a potential target for violation by the people of Worms as part of pogroms and conflicts between the city and the Jewish community, for example in the years 1519 und 1615. In 1260 the cemetery was extended and enclosed, and then improvements were made following the removal of the outer defence wall after the damage suffered by the city in 1689. Further significant changes were made at the beginning of the 17 th century, including? the addition of a cleansing house for washing the dead before burial (Bet Tahara) and the inscription of a prayer for the dead (Kaddish) at the entrance to the cemetery.

Soon after the middle of the 19 th century, the community began the task of copying and documenting the extremely valuable inscriptions in the cemetery, which were and still are in danger of becoming lost due to weathering and other influences. Despite a number of attempts and the gathering of material, these inscriptions have still not been comprehensively and scientifically analyzed. At the end of the 19 th century, the Jewish community planned a new cemetery, and this plan was finally realized in 1911. The old cemetery was spared attacks and devastation during the years of Nazi dictatorship and the details of the circumstances behind this are difficult to understand. During the Second World War there was some isolated bomb damage.

After the end of the war, the cemetery was restored to a state befitting its significance by the city; damaged gravestones were restored as far as this was possible and justifiable, and the warden’s house was rebuilt.