World Heritage Site status was awarded to the Roman Limes along the Rhine River and Germany's Jewish cultural heritage by UNESCO, the UN's cultural body said on Tuesday.

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The relevant committee took the decision at its meeting in the Chinese city of Fuzhou, awarding the coveted recognition to the German cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer as one of the cradles of Jewish culture in Europe.

The cities Mainz, Worms and Speyer were centers of Jewish culture in the Middle Ages and are referred to as "Jerusalem on the Rhine." Among the Jewish centers preserved from the period are cemeteries, a synagogue and a ritual bathhouse.

Meanwhile, the term Limes refers to the border defense along the edge of the Roman Empire where it ran along the Rhine and the Danube rivers.

The committee postponed a discussion concerning the Danube Limes for procedural reasons, but the designation to the section along the Rhine was awarded without delay.

The application for the section along the Rhine was made by the Netherlands and the western German states of North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. It runs from Rheinbrohl in Rhineland-Palatinate to the Dutch North Sea coast.

The award closes a gap. The Upper Germanic Rhaetian Limes and Hadrian's Wall in Britain already enjoy World Heritage status. A decision on the Danube Limes could be taken this week.

During the weekend, the committee awarded World Heritage status to 11 European spa towns in recognition of their key role in European society more than a hundred years ago.

Cited for the international significance they achieved as health resorts from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, the towns sharing the award include the German resorts of Baden-Baden, Bad Ems and Bad Kissingen; Carlsbad and Marienbad in the Czech Republic, Spa in Belgium, Vichy in France and Bath in Britain.

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Romanian police were investigating on Sunday death threats made against award-winning film and theater star Maia Morgenstern and her children at the start of Passover celebrations.

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Morgenstern, who played the figure of Mary in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and runs the Jewish State Theater in Bucharest, published an email she received in which the author threatens to violently kill Morgenstern and her children, as well as set fire to the Jewish theater and its staff.

The email was signed "on behalf of the far right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR)," although its leader George Simion condemned the threat, saying it was not issued by the party, and urged authorities to quickly find and punish its author.

Police said they were tracking the IP address of the email sender.

The ultra-nationalist party AUR was formed a year ago and surprised in a December general election to become the fourth-largest party in parliament.

Unlike some of its central and European peers, Romania did not have a mainstream party supporting far-right ideas until December's parliamentary election, although these had surfaced in well-established parties too.

Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany until August 1944, when it changed sides, and hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews and Roma were killed in areas it controlled.

The European Union state has only in recent years begun to come to terms with its role in the Holocaust, admitting for the first time in 2003 that it took part. Sensitivity about the Holocaust and knowledge of it remain patchy.

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Meyuchas, an educator at the Avnei HaChoshen Elementary School in Modiin, also won the contest in 2017.

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Meyuchas faced off against 18 other national Bible Contest winners from Israel and abroad.

Second place went to Binyamin Rosenzweig, who teaches religious subjects at Or Hashachar Elementary School in Ramat Hasharon.

An American, Shnayor Burton of Brooklyn, placed third.

According to the Education Ministry, which sponsors the competition, the event aims to unite the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora around the Torah, which it calls the "root of Jewish identity and values."

The competition was broadcast live.

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The presence of Jews in Morocco stretches back more than 2,000 years. Before the founding of Israel in 1948, estimates put their number as high as about 275,000, which was considered the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, said Roy Mittelman, director of the Jewish studies program at The City College of New York.

Today, after vast waves of departures over the years, only about 2,000 Jews remain in Casablanca and about 500 elsewhere in Morocco, but the Jewish presence is still alive in a variety of sights. The Museum of Moroccan Judaism in suburban Casablanca, for instance, is the only museum on Judaism in the Arab world.

Jews of Moroccan descent, in Israel and around the globe, return to the North African kingdom often and some maintain second homes in familial regions. Jewish heritage tours to Morocco are abundant and easy to track down. Most cities have a mellah, which is an old Jewish quarter, along with Jewish cemeteries and synagogues.

Mittelman, who has spent 40 years absorbing the history, culture and religious practices of Jews in Morocco, leads groups of students on tours of Jewish sights as part of an advanced seminar. He said there's plenty to read ahead of a visit.

He recommends Shlomo Dessen's "The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco" for more on pre-colonial Morocco, based on the writings of 18th- and 19th-century Judeo-Moroccan sages.

To learn more about the spiritual history of the Jewish quarter in Marrakech, he recommends the travelogue of Bulgarian Jewish writer Elias Canetti, "The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit."

Mittelman has honed his travel itineraries over the years. Here are some of his favorites and other sights:

Casablanca

The last Moroccan Jewish day school, Neve Shalom, is in Casablanca, which is the economic and business center of the kingdom. Ask for Principal Jacky Sebbag. Watch the children playing outside in the yard, enjoy them singing Jewish songs and learn more about the school's Hebrew classes and Bible studies, Mittelman said.

Visit the Tahiti Beach Club, once a local Jewish hangout.

Among Mittelman's walking tours of Jewish residential areas in Casablanca are stops at the Beth El and Eim Habanim synagogues. There's also a newer synagogue, David Ha-Melech, in the tony, beachside Corniche quarter not far from the beach club.

Casablanca has a traditional kosher bakery and kosher restaurants, as do other cities.

Mittelman sings the praises of guide Dorith Benmoha of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She's based in Casablanca and is considered an expert on all things Jewish in Morocco, especially the Casablanca community. Her email address is dorithbenmoha@hotmail.com.

Marrakech

Just over 100 Jews remain in Marrakech, including a handful who live in the old Jewish quarter, Mittelman said, but the mellah is bustling.

Among the synagogues that remain is the tiny blue-and-white Lazama, along a narrow street. Ask a local how to find it. Visitors may enter for a small fee. There's an inviting riad-style courtyard with a fruit tree and a few chairs for weary travelers.

The original synagogue dated to 1492 but it was later rebuilt. The synagogue's Torah scrolls were written on gazelle parchment, according to the synagogue's Muslim guide. Visitors can have a look at Lazama's mikveh, the traditional Jewish ritual bath down some winding stone steps.

The mellah isn't the only place for synagogues. Head to the city's newer section of Gueliz, with a heavy European influence, for Shabbat services at Temple Beth El Synagogue. Any taxi driver should know how to get there.

Two hours south of Marrakech is a little town called Anouim, where the mysterious rabbi and healer Wazana once lived.

For another day trip out of Marrakech visit the Jewish heritage sites at Essaouira, once a thriving Jewish center and a former Portuguese fishing town. It was also a stop for 1960s and '70s rock stars who made pilgrimages to Marrakech. The town, dating to the 1700s, has a synagogue, cemetery and mellah, with plaques indicating buildings where ancient, long-gone synagogues once stood.

A particular highlight for Mittelman is the Tomb of the Sainted Rabbi, Haim ben Diwan, just over an hour south of Marrakech. Jews still gather at the spot in the high Atlas Mountains in the village of Tagadirt n'Bour near Anrhaz for a traditional "hiloula" celebration of his life.

Mittelman leads groups up a hill for a picnic near the tomb.

"It's our little pilgrimage spot. You see mountains all around you and you hear wind going through the mountains. Sensually it's an incredible experience," he said.

Fez

The city had a large Jewish community in the 17th century and has a well-known Orthodox synagogue, Ibn Danan. Once crumbling, it was refurbished in the 1990s with help from the World Monuments Fund and American Express. King Mohammad VI has committed to reviving Jewish sites around Morocco.

The mellah here is a maze within walls. You WILL get lost and that's half the fun. It was the first mellah in Morocco, dating to around 1438.

In addition to a Jewish cemetery, where a couple of eminent medieval rabbis are buried, there's a site in Fez that is considered sacred among women, the Tomb of Solika. With a last name that varies, Solika – as one retelling goes – was a Jewish woman of great beauty who was beheaded in 1834 for refusing to convert to Islam.

Maimonides, one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars in the Middle Ages, lived in Fez from 1159 to 1165. His stone home, with weathered engraving marking the location, is worth a stop.

Walk a few steps and you're bound to find somebody willing to guide you in Fez and elsewhere, but one who knows "Jewish Morocco" is harder to come by, Mittelman said. His man with a van is Jalil Benlabili. His email address is ajalil197@yahoo.com..

Off the beaten path

If you favor this style of traveling, Mittelman said you should have no trouble in small towns and villages tracking Jewish influences and history.

"Find yourself the first 80-year-old and say, 'Do you remember Jews here?' Chances are they'll say, 'Yeah and here are their names and that crumbling house over there is where they used to live.'"

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