Blood libel

Blood libels are sensationalized allegations that a person or group engages in human sacrifice, often accompanied by the claim that the blood of victims is used in various rituals and/or acts of cannibalism. The alleged victims are often children.

Some of the best documented cases of blood libel focus upon accusations against Jews , but many other groups have been accused, including Christians, Cathars, Carthaginians, Knights Templar, Witches, Christian heretics, Roma, Wiccans, Druids, neopagans, Satanists.^{[citation needed]}

Against followers of Ancient Greek religion

When the Christianization of Greece occurred, there was an attempt to portray all sacrifices as blood sacrifices, but contrary to ancient Christian propaganda sacrifices to the Greek gods were typically in the forms of wealth. Human blood sacrifices were illegal in Greek cities. Early Christians spread propaganda about the children of Christians being abducted and having their throats slit in various temples^{[citation needed]}. Such propaganda bore similarity to blood libel accusations against Jews. Virtuvian blood sacrifices were seen by the Greek people as barbaric, and laws against them were believed to be part of what separated the Greeks from those they considered barbarians, even after Romanization occurred.

Against Jews

Blood libel against Jews is the most extensively researched case. Blood libels against the Jews were a common form of anti-Semitism during the Middle Ages. There are indeed rituals involving human blood in Jewish law or custom, such as circumcision. The first recorded instance of a blood libel against Jews was in the writings of Apion, who claimed that the Jews sacrificed Greek victims in the Temple. After this there are no existent records of the blood libel against the Jews until the 12th century legend surrounding William of Norwich, first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle. The libel afterward became an increasingly common accusation. In many subsequent cases, anti-Semitic blood libels served as the basis for a blood libel cult, in which the alleged victim of human sacrifice was venerated as a Christian martyr. Many Jews were killed as a result of false blood libels, which continued into the 20th century, with the Beilis Trial in Russia and the Kielce pogrom in Poland. Blood libel stories persist in the Arab world.

Against Christians

During the first and second centuries, some Roman commentators had various interpretations of the ritual of the Eucharist and related teachings. While celebrating the Eucharist, Christians drink red wine in response to the words "This is the blood of Christ." Propaganda arguing that the Christians literally drank blood based on their belief in transubstantiation was written and used to persecute Christians. Romans were highly suspicious of Christian adoptions of abandoned Roman babies and this was suggested as a possible source of the blood.

In the Mandaean scripture, the Ginza Rba, a purportedly Christian group called the "Minunei" are accused of it against the Jews: "They kill a Jewish child, they take his blood, they cook it in bread and they proffer it to them as food." (Ginza Rba 9.1).

Contemporary usage in Western societies

Accusations of ritual murder are being advanced by different groups to this day.

One claim stated that physicians in the People's Republic of China who perform abortions consider the fetus a delicacy and eat it. The story, reported from Hong Kong by Bruce Gilley, was investigated by Senator Jesse Helms, and gruesome artwork reminiscent of traditional depictions of blood libel was featured in several anti-abortion campaigns. [1] The only use for "human fetal tissue" is in the medical research field, particularly stem cell research. [2] [3]

Another contemporary blood libel in the United States alleges, falsely, that both neopagans and Satanists use human blood, sexual abuse, or ritual murder, especially of children, in their rituals. Often Satanism, all of the diverse neopagan religions, the role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and sometimes Roman Catholicism and liberal or non-fundamentalist Christian denominations, are portrayed as expressions of one monolithic and ancient global conspiracy of Satan-worshippers. Mike Warnke (The Satan Seller), Bill Schnoebelen (Wicca: Satan's Little White Lie), Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith (Michelle Remembers), Jon Watkins [4], Bill Pricer, and Ken Wooden (Child Lures) are some of the voices of these libels.

Many Jewish groups were shocked by the publication in 2003 by the British newspaper The Independent of a cartoon depicting Ariel Sharon eating a baby. [5] The Israeli government complained to the Press Complaints Commission that the cartoon alluded to the blood libel of Jews eating the children of Christians; Dave Brown, the author, responded that the cartoon was in fact inspired by Francisco de Goya's painting Saturn Devouring His Son [6] and was not anti-Semitic in intent. The PCC accepted Brown's argument, stating "There is nothing inherently anti-semitic about the Goya image or about the myth of Saturn devouring his children, which has been used previously to satirise other politicians accused of sacrificing their own 'children' for political purposes." [7] The cartoon ultimately earned Brown the British Political Cartoon Society's Political Cartoon of the Year award.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in his failed bid for re-election in March 2006, said communists have a history of boiling babies. "I have been accused many times of saying communists eat babies," said Berlusconi at a rally of his Forza Italia party. "Go and read the Black Book on Communism and you'll find that under Mao's China they didn't eat babies but they boiled them to fertilise the fields." Despite Berlusconi's 2006 denial that he has ever said that 'communists eat babies,' in the 2001 campaign, Berlusconi said "I can organise a conference in which I will prove communists have really eaten babies and done even worse things. [8]

The decline of belief in ritual murder

Belief in ritual murder has gradually disappeared from mainstream Christianity, and child-martyrs have been purged from the official Catholic calendar of saints. Nevertheless, similar accusations are still being made by some Muslim groups against the Jews^{[citation needed]}, and the same accusations were defended by Nazism and related movements in the twentieth century.

Blood libels against Jews

Blood libels are false accusations that Jews use human blood in certain of their religious rituals. Although the first known instance of blood libel is found in the writings of Apion, an early 1st century pagan Greco-Egyptian who claimed that the Jews sacrificed Greek victims in the Temple, no further incidents are recorded until the 12th century, when blood libels began to proliferate in Christian Europe. Blood libel accusations have often asserted that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victim of human sacrifice, child or adult, has become venerated as a martyr, a holy figure around whom a martyr cult might arise. A few of these have been canonized as saints. Although broadly discredited, these libels have persisted among some segments of Christian and Islamic believers to the present time. In Jewish lore, blood libels were the impetus for the creation of the golem of Prague by Rabbi Judah Lowe ben Bezalel, the Maharal.

Descriptions of alleged ritual murder

Legend of the Jew calling the Devil from a Vessel of Blood. Facsimile of a woodcut in Boaistuau's Histoires Prodigieuses, published in 1560.

In general, the libel alleged something like this: a child, normally a boy who had not yet reached puberty, was kidnapped or sometimes bought and taken to a hidden place (the house of a prominent member of the Jewish community, a synagogue, a cellar, etc.) where he would be kept hidden until the time of his death. Preparations for the sacrifice included the gathering of attendees from near and far and constructing or readying the instruments of torture and execution.^{[citation needed]}

At the time of the sacrifice (usually night), the crowd would gather at the place of execution (in some accounts the synagogue itself) and engage in a mock tribunal to try the child. The boy would be presented to the tribunal naked and tied (sometimes gagged) at the judge's order. He would eventually be condemned to death. Many forms of torture would be inflicted during the boy's "trial," including some of those used by the Inquisition on suspects of heresy. Some of the alleged tortures were mutilation (including circumcision), piercing with needles, punching, slapping, strangulation, strappado and whipping, while being insulted and mocked throughout.

In the end, the half-dead boy would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross. The cross would be raised and the blood dripping from the boy's wounds, particularly those on his hands, feet, and genitals, would be caught in bowls or glasses.

Finally, the boy would be killed with a thrust through the heart from a spear, sword, or dagger. His dead body would be removed from the cross and concealed or disposed of, but in some instances rituals of black magic would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the descriptions of alleged ritual murder by Jews.

The earlier stories describe only the torture and agony of the victim and suggest that the child's death was the sole purpose of the ritual. Over time and as the libel proliferated, the focus shifted to the supposed need to collect the victim's blood for mystical purposes.

The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is the first known case of alleged ritual murder, which was made by a Christian monk. It does not mention the collection of William's blood for any purpose. The story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) said that after the boy was dead, his body was removed from the cross and laid on a table. His belly was cut open and his entrails removed for some occult purpose, such as a divination ritual. The story of Simon of Trent (d. 1475) highly stressed how the boy was held on a large bowl so all his blood could be collected.

According to Walter Laqueur,

"Altogether, there have been about 150 recorded cases of blood label (not to mention thousands of rumors) that resulted in the arrest and killing of Jews throughout history, most of them in the Middle Ages... In almost every case, Jews were murdered, sometimes by a mob, sometimes following torture and a trial."

Actual Jewish practices regarding blood and sacrifice

The descriptions of torture and human sacrifice in the antisemitic blood libels run contrary to many of the teachings of Judaism.

Most obviously, the Ten Commandments in the Torah forbid murder. In addition, the use of blood (human or otherwise) in cooking is prohibited by the Kosher dietary laws. Blood from slaughtered animals may not be consumed, and must be drained out of the animal and covered with dirt. (Lev 17:12-13) According to the book of Leviticus, blood from sacrificed animals may only be placed on the altar of the Great Temple in Jerusalem (which no longer existed at the time of the Christian blood libels). Furthermore, man is not considered a Kosher animal.

While animal sacrifice was part of the practice of ancient Judaism, the Tanakh (Old Testament) and Jewish teaching portray human sacrifice as one of the evils that separated the pagans of Canaan from the Hebrews.(Deut 12:31, 2 Kings 16:3) Jews were prohibited from engaging in these rituals and were punished for doing so (Ex 34:15, Lev 20:2, Deut 18:12, Jer 7:31). In fact, ritual cleanliness for priests prohibited even being in the same room as a human corpse (Lev 21:11).

Proponents of the blood libel, such as British fascist Arnold Leese ("Jewish Ritual Murder" 1938) and sympathetic contemporaries, claim that proof of ritual murder is contained within scripture. The neo-Nazi site www.JRBooksOnline.com lists Psalm 137 as proof that Jews engaged in ritual child murder, citing the line "Happy will be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the stones" (www.jrbooksonline.com/leese). However, in the context of the rest of Psalm 137, this verse expresses a desire for vengeance following Babylonian massacres of the Jews. In context, then: "O daughter of Babylon who is [to be] destroyed, happy will be he who repays you as you have done to us; happy will be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the stones." (Psalms 137:8)

Professor Israel Jacob Yuval of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published an article in 1993 that argues that the blood libel myth may have originated in the 12th century from Christian views of Jewish behavior during the First Crusade. Some Jews committed suicide and killed their own children in acts of martyrdom rather than be subjected to forced conversions. (The Zealots on Masada and their reported mass suicide is perhaps the most famous example.) Yuval investigated Christian reports of these events and found that they were greatly distorted with claims that if Jews could kill their own children they could also kill Christian children. Yuval rejects the blood libel story as a Christian fantasy that was impossible due to the precarious nature of the Jewish minority's existence in Christian Europe.

Notable instances

There have been many blood libel accusations and trials of Jews beginning in the first century and continuing through modern times. A few of them are discussed here.

Alexandria, first century AD

The first recorded blood libel against Jews was by the classical Greek author Apion, who claimed that Jews sacrificed Greek victims in their temple. This blood libel from ancient Greek times pre-dates Christianity and is usually thought of as an act of anti-semitism.

Constantinople, 415

Socrates Scholasticus reported that Jews bound a child on a cross and scourged him until he died.

England, 1144

March 20 (Passover), the first blood libel in Europe against Jews. Jews of Norwich were accused of both ritual murder and blood libel after a boy (William of Norwich) was found dead with stab wounds. The legend was turned into a cult, with William acquiring the status of martyr and crowds of pilgrims bringing wealth to the local church. In 1189, the Jewish deputation attending the coronation of Richard the Lionheart was attacked by the crowd. Pogroms in London followed and spread around England. On Feb 6 1190, all the Norwich Jews were found slaughtered in their houses, except a few who found refuge in the castle. Jews would later be expelled from all of England in 1290 and not allowed to return until 1655.

France 1171

In 1171, Blois was the site of a blood libel accusation against its Jewish community that led to 31 Jews (by some accounts 40) being burned to death .

Belgium, c. 1250

An early blood libel against Jews appears in Bonum Universale de Apibus ii. 29, § 23, by Thomas of Cantimpré (a monastery near Cambray). Thomas wrote "It is quite certain that the Jews of every province annually decide by lot which congregation or city is to send Christian blood to the other congregations."

Thomas also believed that since the time when the Jews called out to Pontius Pilate, "His blood be on us, and on our children" (Matt. 27:25), they have been afflicted with hemorrhages:

"A very learned Jew, who in our day has been converted to the (Christian) faith, informs us that one enjoying the reputation of a prophet among them, toward the close of his life, made the following prediction: 'Be assured that relief from this secret ailment, to which you are exposed, can only be obtained through Christian blood ("solo sanguine Christiano").' This suggestion was followed by the ever-blind and impious Jews, who instituted the custom of annually shedding Christian blood in every province, in order that they might recover from their malady."

Thomas added that the Jews had misunderstood the words of their prophet, who by his expression "solo sanguine Christiano" had meant not the blood of any Christian, but that of Jesus—the only true remedy for all physical and spiritual suffering.

Thomas did not mention the name of the "very learned" proselyte, but it may have been Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, who in 1240 had a disputation on the Talmud with Yechiel of Paris, and who in 1242 caused the burning of numerous Talmudic manuscripts in Paris. It is known that Thomas was personally acquainted with this Nicholas.

England, 1255

The case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln is mentioned by Chaucer, and thus has become well known. A child of eight years, named Hugh, son of a woman named Beatrice, disappeared at Lincoln on the 31st of July. His body was discovered on the 29th of August, covered with filth, in a pit or well belonging to a Jewish man named Copin or Koppin.

On being promised by John of Lexington, a judge, who happened to be present, that his life should be spared, Copin is said to have confessed that the boy had been crucified by the Jews, who had assembled at Lincoln for that purpose. King Henry III, on reaching Lincoln some five weeks afterward, at the beginning of October, refused to carry out the promise of John of Lexington, and had Copin executed and ninety-one of the Jews of Lincoln seized and sent up to London, where eighteen of them were executed. The rest were pardoned at the intercession of the Franciscans (Jacobs, "Jewish Ideals," pp. 192-224).

Germany, 1267

At Pforzheim, Baden, the corpse of a seven-year-old girl was found in the river by fishermen. The Jews were suspected, and when they were led to the corpse, blood allegedly began to flow from the wounds; led to it a second time, the face of the child became flushed, and both arms were raised. In addition to these miracles, there was the testimony of the daughter of the wicked woman who had sold the child to the Jews.

A regular judicial examination did not take place; it is probable that the above-mentioned "wicked woman" was the murderess. That a judicial murder was then and there committed against the Jews in consequence of the accusation is evident from the manner in which the Nuremberg "Memorbuch" and the synagogal poems refer to the incident (Siegmund Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches (1898), pp. 15, 128-130).

Alsace, 1270

At Weissenburg, a miracle alone decided the charge against the Jews. According to the accusation, the Jews had suspended a child (whose body was found in the Lauter river) by the feet, and had opened every artery in its body in order to obtain all the blood. Again, supernatural claims were made: the child's wounds were said to have bled for five days afterward, despite its treatment.

Germany, 1286

At Oberwesel, "miracles" again constituted the only evidence against the Jews. The corpse of the eleven-year-old Werner is said to have floated up the Rhine (against the current) as far as Bacharach, emitting radiance, and being invested with healing powers. In consequence, the Jews of Oberwesel and many other adjacent localities were severely persecuted during the years 1286-89. Emperor Rudolph I., to whom the Jews had appealed for protection, issued a public proclamation to the effect that great wrong had been done to the Jews, and that the corpse of Werner was to be burned and the ashes scattered to the winds.

Switzerland, early 1400s

The statement was made, in the "Chronicle" of Konrad Justinger of 1423, that at Bern in 1294 the Jews had tortured and murdered a boy called Rudolph. The historical impossibility of this widely credited story was demonstrated by Jakob Stammler, pastor of Bern, in 1888 (see "Katholische Schweizer-Blätter," Lucerne, 1888).

Tyrol, Austria 1462

At Rinn, near Innsbruck, a boy named Andreas Oxner (also known as Anderl von Rinn) was said to have been bought by Jewish merchants and cruelly murdered by them in a forest near the city, his blood being carefully collected in vessels. The accusation of drawing off the blood (without murder) was not made until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the cult was founded. The older inscription in the church of Rinn, dating from 1575, is distorted by fabulous embellishments; as, for example, that the money which had been paid for the boy to his godfather was found to have turned into leaves, and that a lily blossomed upon his grave. The cult continued until it was officially prohibited in 1994 by the Bishop of Innsbruck. (source [9]).

Trentino, Italy, 1475

Simon of Trent, aged two, disappeared, and his father alleged that he had been kidnapped and murdered by the local Jewish community. Fifteen local Jews were sentenced to death and burned. Simon was regarded as a saint, and was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. His status as a saint was removed in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, though his murder is still promoted as a fact by a handful of extremists.

Spain, 1491

Christopher of Toledo, also known as Christopher of La Guardia or "the Holy Child of La Guardia," was a four-year-old Christian boy supposedly murdered by two Jews and three Conversos (converts to Christianity). In total, eight men were executed. It is now believed that this case was constructed by the Spanish Inquisition to facilitate the expulsion of Jews from Spain. He was canonized by Pope Pius VII in 1805. Christopher has since been removed from the canon, though once again, a handful of individuals still claim the validity of this case.

Hungary, 1494

In a case at Tyrnau (Nagyszombat, today Trnava, Slovakia), the absurdity, even the impossibility, of the statements forced by torture from women and children shows that the accused preferred death as a means of escape from the torture, and admitted everything that was asked of them. They even said that Jewish men menstruated, and that the latter therefore practiced the drinking of Christian blood as a remedy.

Hungary, 1529

At Bösing (Bazin, today Pezinok, Slovakia), it was charged that a nine-year-old boy had been bled to death, suffering cruel torture; thirty Jews confessed to the crime and were publicly burned. The true facts of the case were disclosed later, when the child was found alive in Vienna. He had been stolen by the accuser, Count Wolf of Bazin, as an easy but fiendish means of ridding himself of his Jewish creditors at Bazin.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1690

The only child-saint in the Russian Orthodox Church is the six-year-old boy Gavriil Belostoksky from the village Zverki. According to the legend supported by the church, the boy was kidnapped from his home during the holiday of Passover while his parents were away. Shutko, a Jew from Białystok, was accused in bringing the boy to Białystok, poking him with sharp objects and draining his blood for nine days, then bringing the body back to Zverki and dumping at a local field. A cult developed, and the boy was canonized in 1820. His relics are still the object of pilgrimage. On All Saints Day, July 27, 1997, the Belorussian state TV showed a film alleging the story is true. The revival of the cult in Belarus was cited as a dangerous expression of antisemitism in international reports on human rights and religious freedoms and were passed to the UNHCR.

Syria, 1840

In February, at Damascus, a Catholic monk named Father Thomas and his servant were murdered. In this instance, also, confessions were obtained only after the infliction of torture.

Rhodes, 1840

The Jews of Rhodes, then in the Ottoman Empire, were accused of murdering a Greek Christian boy. The libel was supported by the local governor and the European consuls posted to Rhodes. Several Jews were arrested and tortured, and the entire Jewish quarter was blockaded for twelve days. An investigation carried out by the central Ottoman government found the Jews to be innocent.

Hungary, 1882

The Jews of the village Tiszaeszlár were accused with the ritual murder of a fourteen-year-old Christian girl, Eszter Solymosi. The case was one of the main causes of the rise of anti-Semitism in the country. The accused persons were eventually acquitted.

Bohemia, 1899

Leopold Hilsner, a Jewish vagabond, was accused of murdering a nineteen-year-old Christian woman, Anežka Hrůzová, with a slash to the throat. Despite the absurdity of the charge and the relatively progressive nature of society in Austria-Hungary, Hilsner was convicted and sentenced to death. He was later convicted of an additional unsolved murder, also involving a Christian woman. In 1901, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Tomáš Masaryk, a prominent Austro-Czech philosophy professor and future president of Czechoslovakia, spearheaded Hilsner's defense. He was later blamed by Czech media because of this. In March 1918, Hilsner was pardoned by Austrian emperor Charles I. He was never exonerated, and the true guilty parties were never found.

Shiraz, 1910

The Jews of Shiraz, Iran, were falsely accused of murdering a Muslim girl. The entire Jewish quarter was pillaged; the pogrom left 12 Jews dead and about 50 injured.

Kiev, Ukraine, Russia 1911

In Kiev, a Jewish factory manager, Mendel Beilis, was accused of murdering a Christian child and using his blood in matzos. He was acquitted by an all-Christian jury after a sensational trial in 1913.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States 1913

In a case very similar to the above, Leo Frank, a Jewish manager at a local pencil factory was accused of raping and killing 12 year old Mary Phagan. Though he was never accused of using her blood in any kind of ritual, there was a consistent yellow press campaign to portray Frank as a pervert and a sadist. After he was pardoned by the governor in 1915 Frank was lynched by a group calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan, which would become the kernel of a revived Ku Klux Klan. The Leo Frank lynching was also related to racist tensions and policies in Georgia, as many other people had been lynched in Georgia.

Kielce, Poland 1946

The Kielce pogrom against Holocaust survivors in Poland was sparked by an accusation of blood libel. The fundamental motivation for the Kielce pogrom, however, was that Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had returned to reclaim their land and property, which their Polish neighbors had stolen. The Poles would not relinquish their stolen goods and instead murdered the Jews.

Contemporary blood libels

In Arab and Muslim nations

Blood libel stories have appeared a number of times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab and Muslim nations, their television shows and websites. Books alleging occurrences of Jewish blood libel are not uncommon.

• The Matzah Of Zion was written by the Syrian Defense Minister, Mustafa Tlass in 1986. The book concentrates on two issues: renewed ritual murder accusations against the Jews in the Damascus affair of 1840, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
  • On October 21, 2002, the London based Arabic paper Al-Hayat reported that the book was undergoing its eighth reprint and was being translated into English, French, and Italian.
  • In 2001 an Egyptian film company produced and aired a film called Horseman Without a Horse, partly based on Tlass's book. The book was cited at a United Nations conference in 1991 by a Syrian delegate.

• Multiple branches of the Syrian government, including the Damascus Police Command and the Department of Antiquities and Museums, the security ministry, the culture ministry, created an anti-Semitic television TV series called Ash-Shatat ("The Diaspora".) This series originally aired in Syria and in Lebanon late 2003, and was broadcast by Al-Manar, a satellite television network owned by Hezbollah. This TV series is based on the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, shows the Jewish people as engaging in a conspiracy to rule the world, and presents Jews as people who murder Christian children, drain their blood, and use this blood to bake matzah.

• During a December 20, 2005, discussion among Iranian political analysts that aired on Jaam-e Jam 2 Iranian TV, Tehran Times contributor and author of the book The History of the Jews Dr. Hasan Hanizadeh alleged that "the Jews" had carried out "two horrendous incidents" in 19th century Europe:

In 1883, about 150 French children were murdered in a horrible way in the suburbs of Paris, before the Jewish Passover holiday. Later research showed that the Jews had killed them and taken their blood. ... A similar incident took place in London, when many English children were killed by Jewish rabbis. ..."

• King Faisal of Saudi Arabia made accusations against Parisian Jews which took the nature of a blood libel.

• In a twist on the libel of Jews using blood in matzah, a Passover food, in 2002, a Saudi newspaper claimed that Jews use blood in homentashn, triangular cookies eaten on the Jewish holiday of Purim. The story celebrated on Purim, recounted in the Book of Esther, takes place in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran).

• A 2004 story from Iran speaks of Jewish doctors stealing organs of Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals:

Some Arab writers have condemned these blood libels. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published a series of articles by Osam Al-Baz, a senior advisor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Amongst other things, Osam Al-Baz explained the origins of the anti-Jewish blood libel. He said that Arabs and Muslims have never been anti-Semitic, as a group, but accepted that a few Arab writers and media figures attack Jews "on the basis of the racist fallacies and myths that originated in Europe." He urged people not to succumb to "myths" such as the blood libel.

In Russia

In early January 2005, some 20 members of the Russian State Duma publicly made a blood libel against the Jewish people. They approached the Prosecutor General’s Office, and demanded that Russia "ban all Jewish organizations.” They accused all Jewish groups of being extremists, and of being “anti-Christian and inhumane, which practices extend even to ritual murders”.^{[citation needed]}

Alluding to previous anti-Semitic Russian court decrees which accused the Jews of ritual murder, they wrote that “Many facts of such religious extremism were proven in courts.” The accusation included traditional anti-Semitic canards, such as “the whole democratic world today is under the financial and political control of international Jewry. And we do not want our Russia to be among such unfree countries.”

This demand was published as an open letter to the prosecutor general, in Rus Pravoslavnaya (Russian: Русь православная, "Orthodox Russia"), a right-wing conservative newspaper. This group consisted of members of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats, the Communist faction, and the nationalist Motherland party, with some 500 supporters. Their supporters included editors of nationalist newspapers as well as journalists. By the end of the month this group had received stiff criticism, and retracted its demand.

Views of the Catholic Church

The Church's attitude towards these accusations and the cults venerating children supposedly killed by Jews varied. The church sometimes opposed them, but it generally did little to stop them, and in some cases gave its clear approval. Pope Benedict XIV permitted the continuation of the cult of Anderl von Rinn as a local cult, but refused to canonize him as a saint. On the other hand, Pope Gregory X issued a letter rejecting the blood libel accusations.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Susanna Buttaroni, Stanislaw Musial: Ritualmord. Böhlau Verlag 2002, ISBN 3-205-77028-5 (German)
• Rainer Erb: Die Legende vom Ritualmord. Metropol 1993, ISBN 3-926893-15-X (German)
• Hannelore Fieg: Ritualmord und Satanskultbeschuldigungen in Spätantike, Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Christen und Juden, Ketzer und Hexen, Diploma thesis Universität Innsbruck 2000 (German)
• Gerhard Muller (Hrsg.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie Band 29, Religionspsychologie - Samaritaner. Walter de Gruyter, 1998, ISBN 3-11-016127-3 (entry Ritualmord, pg. 253-265) (German)

• Alan Dundes: The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, ISBN 0-299-13110-6
• Jules Isaac, Die Genesis des Antisemitismus, Wien: Europa Verlag, 1969 (German)
• Stefan Rohrbacher, Michael Schmidt: Judenbilder. Kulturgeschichte antijüdischer Mythen und antisemitischer Vorurteile. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1991, ISBN 3-499-55498-4 (pg. 269-291: Ritualmord und Hostienfrevel; pg. 304-368: Die Barbarei längst verflossener Jahrhunderte)
• Johannes T. Groß: Ritualmordbeschuldigungen gegen Juden im Deutschen Kaiserreich (1871-1914) Berlin: Metropol, 2002. ISBN 3-932482-84-0
• Alexander Baron: Jewish Ritual Murder: Anti-semitic Fabrication or Urban Legend? Anglo-Hebrew Publishing. 1994, ISBN 1898318360
• John M. McCulloh: Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth In: Speculum, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Juli 1997), S. 698-740
• Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia: The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany. Yale University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-300-04746-0 (englisch)

• Schmoger, Karl (1974) The Life of Anna Katherina Emmerich: Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishing: 1974: Volume 1: ISBN 0-89555-059-8

• Jewish Encyclopedia article on "Blood Libel"
• ISBN 0-87668-179-8 The Beilis Transcripts. The Anti-Semitic Trial that Shook the World. by Ezekiel Leikin
• R. Po-chia Hsia, "The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany" (New Haven: Yale UP, 1988). ISBN 0-300-04120-9 (cloth), ISBN 0-300-04746-0 (pbk.).
• Dundes, Alan (1991). The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299131142. 

External links

• Resources > Medieval Jewish History > Blood Libels
• Anti-Defamation League condemns Egyptian blood libel
• Blood libel in 1840 Syria
• Blood Libel, Host Desecration, and other Myths
• The Independent – info on Horseman Without a Horse
• Blood Feast Snopes.com Info page
• The JET report on murerous and cannabalistic Satanist allegations in the Broxtowe child abuse case.
• Anthony Julius: 'On Blood Libels' on the Engage website
• Resources > Medieval Jewish History > Blood Libels Jewish History Resource Center, Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Religion (Blood Feast)

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