It was in 1984, during the refurbishment of a block of houses at number 20 rue des Charpentiers, near the cathedral, that the remains of a mikveh (ritual bath) were discovered, the last witness to the intense life of Judaism in medieval Strasbourg.
Present in Alsace since antiquity, the Jews were expelled from Strasbourg during the pogrom of 1349 and saw their places of worship being closed or destroyed.
Of this bath used for the ritual purification of women and certain pious men, a small, almost square cellar of about 9 m² remains, with a basin in the center that can hold up to 500 liters of water directly from the groundwater, to which hot water was added. The walls had niches for candles, and a small adjoining room served as a checkroom.