Tombstone of Meschullam ben Kalonymos

The heyday of Jewish Mainz began with the Kalonymos family, who had emigrated from Lucca. Moses ben Kalonymos, Meshullam’s father, is credited with founding the Magenza community in the mid-10th century. Under the influence of the Kalonymos family, Mainz developed into a centre of Jewish scholarship. Meshullam is known above all for his liturgical poetry. He also wrote texts on the ‘Halakha of trade and commerce’, thereby establishing a school of Talmudic interpretation on the Rhine modelled on the Jewish academies in Babylonia. His memorial stone was discovered in 1859 during the fortification of the banks of the Rhine for the Ludwigsbahn railway, along with around 100 other gravestones. The epitaph honours him with the words ‘Our teacher Meshullam’ (Rabbana Meshullam).