Lecturer:
In this lecture presented on 05/02/18, Dr. Bodner presented how mikvahs helped to present the Temple in Jerusalem in the Middle Ages in Germany, focusing on the cities of Schweier, Worms, and Mainz. She presented liturgical texts attesting to the parallel between their local "little temple" (the synagogue) and the lost temple in Jerusalem, at peak times of the year, while connecting the magnificent architecture of the underground mikvehs with the "turning" of the audience into "holy servants" twice a year, turning the synagogue into a temple for a day.
This conception of architecture is also shared by churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and in the framework of the discussion on ritual baths, she asked whether the parallel between the presence of Christian and Jewish Jerusalem in architecture and liturgy in medieval Germany can be identified.