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Blood libels are accusations that Jews use human blood in religious rituals. Historically these are accusations that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted. In many cases, blood libels served as the basis for a blood libel cult, in which the alleged victim of human sacrifice was elevated to the status of martyr, and in some cases, canonized. Although the first known instance of blood libel is found in the writings of Apion, 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. These libels have persisted from then through to the 21st century.

Descriptions of alleged ritual murder

In general, the "procedure" for the alleged sacrifice was 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.

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:

• cutting
• mutilation (including circumcision)
• piercing with needles
• punching
• slapping
• strangulation
• suspension by the hands or feet (strappado)
• whipping

The boy would be insulted and mocked throughout.

In the end, the half-dead boy would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross (crucifixion). 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 ritual murder being alleged 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.

Actual Jewish practices regarding blood and sacrifice

The descriptions of torture and human sacrifice in the anti-Semitic blood libels run contrary to many of the actual teachings of Judaism.

Most obviously, the Ten Commandments in the Jewish Torah forbid murder. In addition, the use of blood (human or otherwise) in cooking is prohibited by Kashrut, or Kosher dietary laws. Blood and other discharges from the human body are ritually unclean.(Lev 15) Blood from slaughtered animals may not be consumed, and must be drained out of the animal and buried. (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 any of these alleged events). Furthermore, humans, since they do not have cloven hooves nor do they chew the cud, are 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 is he who takes their little ones and dashes them against the stones" (www.jrbooksonline.com/leese). However, a more literal rendering of line 137:9 is "How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!", and mainstream Bible scholars interpret this as a reference to Jewish tribulations at the hands of Babylon, which ends with a curse against the oppressor.

Notable instances

There were a great many blood libel accusations and trials of Jews until the modern day. Relatively 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.

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.

Professor Israel Jacob Yuval of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published an article in 1993 that argues that the 12th century blood libel myth may have originated from Christian views of Jewish behavior during the First Crusade. Some Jews committed suicide and killed their own children in acts of martyrdom in the face of crusaders. 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.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). 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 conferences 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.

• On December 20, 2005, in a discussion with Iranian political analysts aired on Jaam-e Jam 2 Iranian TV, the author of the book The History of the Jews who works for the Tehran Times Dr. Hasan Hanizadeh said in particular:

"Unfortunately, the West has forgotten two horrendous incidents, carried out by the Jews in 19th-century Europe - in Paris and London, to be precise. 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. ..."

• 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 hamantashen, 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”.

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 (Template:Lang-ru, "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 (source ).

References

1. Lily Galili (February 18, 2007). "And if it's not good for the Jews?". Ha'aretz. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
2. U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2004 - Syria February 2005
3. L'antisémitisme dans la région du Proche-Orient et de l'Afrique du Nord (US Embassy in Morrocco)
4. Written statement submitted by the Association for World Education, a non-governmental organization on the Roster RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION. QUESTION OF VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD. PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS. 60th session. E/CN.4/2004/NGO/5. 10 February 2004
6. Steven Stalinsky (2006-04-12). "Passover and the Blood Libel". The New York Sun. The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. p. Foreign, page 6. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
7. Saudi Government Daily: Jews Use Teenagers' Blood for 'Purim' Pastries (Saudi Government Daily) March 13, 2002 (Translated my MEM-RI. Special Dispatch No. 354)
8. Israel Is 'Stealing Palestinian Children's Eyes,' Iranian TV Series Says by Susan Jones (CNSNews) December 23, 2004
9. Al-Ahram Weekly Online, January 2-8, 2003 (Issue No. 619)

Further reading

• 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

• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Religion (Blood Feast)
• Historian gives credence to blood libel in Jerusalem Post

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