In ancient times the street was part of the Roman road network and connected the imperial saunas to the area where the double basilica was later built (today the Cathedral, and the Basilica of Our Lady). In the Early Modern Age wool weavers and wool dyers came to settle here and could wash their wools and rinse the dyed items in the water of the through-flowing Weberbach (which flowed openly until 1820).
When in the 16th and 17th Centuries Jews were gradually given permission to stay in the diocese of Trier again, they no longer lived in their own quarter or ghetto as they had done in the Middle Ages until their exile, but rather spread out across the city, and above all in the Weberbachstrasse area.
As can be read on the memorial plaque on the building which is now Pax-Bank, a synagogue stood here from 1761 until 1859 which was a religious focal point for the Jewish community in Trier. It was the base of activity for Karl Marx’s grandfather, Mordechai Marx Levi (around 1746-1804) who, as his father-in-law had been before him, was a supplier of clothing to the office of the regional rabbi of the archdiocese of Trier, and following the dissolution of the electoral state of Trier in 1704, a supplier to each of the Trier city rabbis.
His son, Heinrich Marx, lawyer at the court of appeal of Trier, broke family tradition. Between 1816 and 1819 he converted to Protestantism for professional reasons as it would not have been possible for him as a Jew to join the civil service. He even baptised his children as Protestants in 1824, including his son Karl.
