<BLOOD LIBEL, the allegation that Jews murder non-Jews
especially Christians, in order to obtain blood for the Passover or
other rituals; a complex of deliberate lies, trumped-up accusations,
and popular beliefs about the murder-lust of the Jews and their
bloodthirstiness, based on the conception that Jews hate Christianity
and mankind in general.
It is combined with the delusion that Jews are in some way not human
and must have recourse to special remedies and subterfuges in order to
appear, at least outwardly, like other men. The blood libel led to
trials and massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages and early modern times;
it was revived by the Nazis. Its origin is rooted in ancient, almost
primordial, concepts concerning the potency and energies of *blood.>
(col. 1120)
[One has to consider that in former times there was no free press,
there was no free information, and there was not even a telephone in
former times. By this a stupid story could spread up to a severe rumour
and to severe action of stupid people when no justice existed, and
mostly, there was no good justice, and until now justice is
manipulated, also with
telephone, with TV,
even with the
internet justice is sometimes very stupid and not at all a justice].
[Fact: Torah forbids blood
sacrifice - missing images and statues in Jewish religion leads to
accusations]
<Origins [defamations in the
Greek and Roman time].
Blood sacrifices were practices by many pagan religions. They are
expressly forbidden by the Torah. The law of meat-salting (*melihah) is designed to prevent the
least drop of avoidable blood remaining in food. Yet pagan
incomprehension of the Jewish monotheist cult, lacking the customary
images and statues, led to charges of ritual killing.
[The story about a kidnapped
Greek, fattened in the forest and hanged with an oath against the
Greeks]
At a time of tension between Hellenism and Judaism, it was alleged that
the Jews would kidnap a Greek (col. 1120)
foreigner, fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood,
where they slew him, sacrificed his body with the customary ritual,
partook of his flesh, and while immolating the Greek swore and oath of
hostility to the Greeks. This was told, according to "Apion, to King
"Antiochus Epiphanes by an intended Greek victim who had been found in
the Jewish Temple being fattened by the Jews for this sacrifice and was
saved by the king (Jos., Apion, 2:89-102).
Some suspect that stories like this were spread intentionally as
propaganda for Antiochus Epiphanes to justify his profanation of the
Temple. Whatever the immediate cause, the tale is the outcome of
hatred of the Jews and incomprehension of their religion.
[The rumours about eating of
babies]
To be victims of this accusation was also the fate of other
misunderstood religious minorities. In the second century C.E. the
*Church Father Tertullian complained:
"We are said to be the most criminal of men, on the score of our
sacramental baby-killing, and the baby-eating that goes with it."
He complains that judicial torture was applied to Christians because of
this accusation, for
"it ought ... to be wrung out of us [whenever that false charge is
made] how many murdered babies each of us has tasted ... Oh! the glory
of that magistrate who had brought to light some Christian who had
eaten up to date a hundred babies!"
(Apologeticus, 7:1 and 1:12,
Loeb edition (1931), 8, 36).
Middle Ages.
[The rumours against Christian
splinter groups - questions about the Jesus body]
During the Middle Ages some heretical Christian sects were afflicted by
similar accusations. The general attitude of Christians toward the holy
bread of the Communion created an emotional atmosphere in which it was
felt that the divine child was mysteriously hidden in the partaken
bread.
The popular preacher, Friar Berthold of Regensburg (13th century), felt
obliged to explain why communicants do not actually see the holy child
by asking the rhetorical question,
"Who would like to bite off a baby's head or hand or foot?"
[The rumours about healing or
damaging blood in Christianity - blood accusations coming up]
Popular beliefs and imaginings of the time, either of classical origin
or rooted in Germanic superstitions, held that blood, even the blood of
executed malefactors or from corpses, possesses the property of healing
or causing injury. Thus, combined with the general hatred of Jews then
prevailing, a charge of clandestine cruel practices and blood-hunting,
which had evolved among the pagans and was used against the Christians,
was deflected by Christian society to the most visible and persistent
minority in opposition to its tenets.
As Christianity spread in Western Europe and penetrated the popular
consciousness [since 13th century by inquisition], influencing the
emotions and imagination even more than thought and dogma, various
story elements began to evolve around the alleged inhumanity and sadism
of the Jews.
[Norwich in 1144: Rumour about a
boy on a crucifix - more processes about the same theme until 1491]
In the first distinct case of blood libel against Jews in the Middle
Ages, that of *Norwich in 1144, it was alleged that the Jews had
"bought a Christian child [the 'boy-martyr' William] before Easter and
tortured him with all the tortures wherewith our Lord was tortured, and
on Long Friday hanged him on a rood in hatred of our Lord."
The motif of torture and murder of Christian children in imitation of
Jesus' Passion persisted with slight variations throughout the 12th
century (Gloucester, England, 1168; Blois, France, 1171; Saragossa,
Spain, 1182), and was repeated in many libels of the 13th century.
In the case of Little Saint Hugh of *Lincoln, 1255, it would seem that
an element taken directly from Apion's libel (see above) was interwoven
into the Passion motif, for the chronicler Matthew Paris relates,
"that the Child was first fattened for ten days with white bread and
milk and then ... almost all the Jews of England were invited to the
crucifixion."
The crucifixion motif was generalized in the Siete Partidas law code of Spain,
1263:
"We have heard it said that in certain places on Good Friday the Jews
do steal children and set them on the cross (col. 1121)
in a mocking manner."
[Rumours about the motives of the
child abuse of Christian children]
Even when other motifs eventually predominated in the libel, the
crucifixion motif did not disappear altogether. On the eve of the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain, there occurred the blood-libel case
of "the Holy Child of *La Guardia" (1490-91). There, *Conversos were
made to confess under torture that with the knowledge of the chief
rabbi of the Jews they had assembled in a cave, crucified the child,
and abused him and cursed him to his face, as was done to Jesus in
ancient times. The crucifixion motif explains why the blood libels
occurred at the time of Passover.
The Jews were well aware of the implications of sheer sadism involved
in the libel. In a dirge lamenting the Jews massacred at Munich because
of a blood libel in 1286, the anonymous poet supposedly quotes the
words of the Christian killers:
"These unhappy Jews are sinning, they kill Christian children, they
torture them in all their limbs, they take the blood cruelly to drink"
(A. M. Habermann (ed.): Sefer
Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Zarefat (1946), 199).
This ironical "quotation" contains an added motif in the libels, the
thirst of the Jew for blood, out of his hatred for the good and true.
This is combined in 13th-century Germany with the conception that the
Jew cannot endure purity: he hates the innocence of the Christian
child, its joyous song and appearance.
This motif, found in the legendary tales of the monk Caesarius of
Heisterbach in Germany, underwent various transmutations. In the source
from which Caesarius took his story the child killed by the Jews sings erubescat judaeus ("let the Jew be
shamed"). In Caesarius' version, the child sings the Salve Regina. The Jews cannot
endure this pure laudatory song and try to frighten him and stop him
from singing it. When he refuses they cut off his tongue and hack him
to pieces.
About a century after the expulsion of the Jews from England the
cultural motif only became the basis of Geoffrey *Chaucer's "Prioress'
Tale". Here the widow's little child sings the Alma Redemptoris Mater while "the
serpent Sathanas, That hath in Jews herte his waspes nest" awakens
indignation in the cruel Jewish haeart:
"O Hebraik peple, allas! /
Is this to yow a thing that is honest, /
That swich a boy shal wacken as him lest /
In your despyt, and singe of swich sentence /
Which is agayn your lawes reverence?"
The Jews obey the promptings of their (col. 1122)
Satanic master and kill the child; a miracle brings about their
deserved punishment. Though the scene of this tale is laid in Asia, at
the end of the story Chaucer takes care to connect Asia explicitly with
bygone libels in England, and the motif of hatred of the innocent with
the motif of mockery of the crucifixion:
"O younge Hugh of Lincoln, slayn also /
With cursed Jewes, as it is notable, /
For it nis but a litel shyel ago; /
Preye eek for us."
[The rumour that Jews take
Christian blood for making remedies]
In the blood libel of *Fulda (1236) another motif comes to the fore:
the Jews taking blood for medicinal remedies (here of five young
Christian boys).
The strange medley of ideas about the use of blood by the Jews is
summed up by the end of the Middle Ages, in 1494, by the citizens of
Tyrnau (*Trnava). The Jews need blood because "firstly, they were
convinced by the judgment of their ancestors, that the blood of a
Christian was a good remedy for the alleviation of the wound of
circumcision. Secondly, they were of opinion that this blood, put into
food, is very efficacious for the awakening of mutual love. Thirdly,
they had discovered, as men and women among them suffered equally from
menstruation, that the blood of a Christian is a specific medicine for
it, when drunk. Fourthly, they had an ancient but secret ordinance by
which they are under obligation to shed Christian blood in honor of
God, in daily sacrifices, in some spot or other ... the lot for the
present year had fallen on the Tyrnau Jews."
[More elements mixed into the
rumours - tortured Jews for centuries]
To the motifs of crucifixion, sadism, hatred of the innocent and of
Christianity, and the unnaturalness of the Jews and its cure by the use
of good Christian blood, there were added, from time to time, the
ingredients of sorcery, perversity, and a kind of "blind obedience to a
cruel tradition".
Generation ofter generation of Jews in Europe was tortured, and Jewish
communities were massacred or dispersed and broken up because of this
libel (see map).> (col. 1123)
MAP (col. 1125-1126)
[How the rumours were spread:
Agents, preachers, tales]
<It was spread by various agents. Popular preachers ingrained it in
the minds of the common people. It became embedded, through miracle
tales, in their imagination and beliefs.
[The rumours become superstition]
This caused in Moravia, in about 1343, "a woman of ill fame to come
with the help of another woman and propose to an old Jew of Brno, named
Osel, her child for sale for six marks, because the child was red in
hair and in face. The Jew simulated gladness, immediately gave three
marks to the woman, and invited them to come with the child to a cellar
the next day, early in the morning, under the pretext that he had to
consult about the buying of the child with the bishop of the Jews and
the elders." The Jew invited Christian officials, who imprisoned the
women and punished them horribly (B. Bretholz: Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in
Maerchen (1935), 27-28).
[Fulda: Emperor Frederick II
blames all Jews - all Christians are torn into the Fulda conflict -
statement of the church - the Jewish religion does not need any blood]
The majority of the heads of state and the church opposed the
circulation of the libel. Emperor *Frederick II of Hohenstaufen
decided, after the Fulda libel, to clear up the matter definitively,
and have all the Jews in the empire killed if the accusation proved to
be true, or exonerate them publicly if false, using this as an occasion
to arbitrate in a matter affecting the whole of Christendom. The
enquiry into the blood libel was thus turned into an all-Christian
problem.
The emperor, who first consulted the recognized church authorities,
later had to turn to a device of his own. In the words of his
summing-up of the enquiry (see ZGJD), 1 (1887), 142-4), the usual
church authorities
"expressed various opinions about the case, and as they have been
proved incapable of coming to a conclusive decision ... we found it
necessary ... to turn to such people that were once Jews and have
converted to the worship of the Christian faith; for they, as
opponents, will not be silent about anything that they may know in this
matter against the Jews."
The emperor adds that he himself was already convinced, through his
knowledge and wisdom, that the (col. 1123)
Jews were innocent. He sent to the kings of the West, asking them to
send him decent and learned converts to Christianity to consult in the
matter. The synod of converts took place and came to the conclusion,
which the emperor published:
"There is not to be found, either in the Old or the New Testament, that
the Jews are desirous of human blood. On the contrary, they avoid
contamination with any kind of blood."
The document quotes from various Jewish texts in support, adding,
"There is also a strong likelihood that those to whom even the blood of
permitted animals is forbidden, cannot have a hankering after human
blood. Against this accusation stand its cruelty, its unnaturalness,
and the sound human emotions which the Jews have also in relation to
the Christians. It is also unlikely that they would risk [through such
a dangerous action] their life and property."
A few years later, in 1247, Pope Innocent IV wrote that
"Christians charge falsely ... that [the Jews] hold a communion rite
... with the heart of a murdered child; and should the cadaver of a
dead man happen to be found anywhere they maliciously lay it to their
charge."
[The Emperor and the Pope are not
heard by the other church authorities - stop of the libel only in 1965]
Neither emperor nor pope were heeded.
Jewish scholars in the Middle Ages bitterly rejected this inhuman
accusation. They quoted the Law and instanced the Jewish way of life in
order to refute it. The general opinion of the Jews is summed up thus:
"You are libeling us for you want to find a reason to permit the
shedding of our blood" (the 12th-13th centuries Sefer Nizzahon Yashan-Liber Nizzachon Vetus,
p. 159, in: Tela Ignaea Satanae,
ed. J. Ch. Wagenseil, 1681). However, the Jewish denials, like the
opinion of enlightened Christian leaders, did not succeed in preventing
the blood libels from shaping to a large extent the image of the Jew
transmitted from the Middle Ages to modern times. (It was only in 1965
that the church officially repudiated the blood libel of *Trent by
canceling the beatification of Simon and the celebrations in his
honor).> (col. 1124)
