Blood libel

Jews have been killed for centuries based on a slanderous accusation. While often repeated, that it is false is certain.

Immortalized in Malamud’s novel, the 1913 Beilis trial in Kiev was the last internationally famous case where a Jew was accused of ritual murder.

Leopold Hilsner was one of the last Jews sentenced in a case of blood libel. His case divided the Imperial bureaucracy and the Catholic Church.

The mysterious death of a girl in Hungary is attributed to a Jewish ritual murder by right-wing extremists to this very day.

In the 19th century, Catholics became more inclined to believe in the blood libel myth. Politics, however, saved the accused Syrian Jews.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became the epicenter of ritual murder accusations against the Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 2007, a Jewish scholar in Israel shocked the academic world by claiming (incorrectly) that there was a kernel of truth in the Trent blood libel episode.

Although several Popes condemned the anti-Jewish accusations as slanderous, the death of the child Simonino in Trent in 1475 led to the execution of several Jews.

While older precedents exist, we know that the legend claiming that Jews ritually kill Christians, as we know it, originated in England in the 12th century.

Jews have been killed for centuries based on a slanderous accusation. While often repeated, that it is false is certain. Let’s see why.