From Medieval Ritual Murder to Modern Blood Libel: The Narrative of “Saint” Dominguito de Val in Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Soyer
Keyword(s):  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel

Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menses

2000 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irven M. Resnick
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
The Middle Ages

Good historical fiction reveals not only the realities of a particular epoch, but also its cultural attitudes. An excellent example is Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, which succeeds in disclosing the nature of Russian anti-semitism by artfully weaving together enduring themes of anti-Jewish Christian mythology—the blood libel and accusations of ritual murder—to illustrate the fabric of Jewish life in early modern Russia. Perhaps almost unnoticed in his work, however, are references to the myth of Jewish male menses. Consider the following passages from The Fixer, in which the Jewish defendant, Yakov Bok, is confronted by this bizarre contention:“You saw the blood?” the Prosecuting Attorney said sarcastically. “Did that have some religious meaning to you as a Jew? Do you know that in the Middle Ages Jewish men were said to menstruate?” Yakov looked at him in surprise and fright. “I don't know anything about that, your honor, although I don't see how it could be.”

The Afterlife of the Beilis Affair

2019 ◽  
pp. 35-56
Author(s):  
Elissa Bemporad
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Criminal Investigations ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Press ◽  
Jewish Ritual

Chapter 2 explores the place that the claim of Jewish ritual murder held in interwar Soviet society. The Bolsheviks dealt a blow to the blood libel tradition by confronting aggressively the legacy of the Beilis Affair, and prosecuting those responsible for orchestrating the trial. But ritual murder accusations did not wane in Soviet society. In fact, there were numerous cases of criminal investigations of blood libels that involved investigative commissions, medical experts, the press, and the secret police. If for the Bolshevik state, the Beilis case remained the symbol of the tsarist corrupt system, written and oral references to Beilis echoed through the instances of blood libel in the Soviet Union and validated ritual murder. This chapter also examines the Jewish responses to the blood allegation, showing the assertiveness to denounce the ineptness of local authorities at bringing to justice those responsible for spreading the lie.

Rainer Erb (Ed.) Die Legende vom Ritualmord: Zur Geschichte der Blutbeschuldigung gegen Juden

1998 ◽  
pp. 338-340
Author(s):  
Jerzy Tomaszewski
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
University Of Berlin ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical University ◽  
Vast Area

This chapter describes the thirteen studies included in The Ritual Murder Legends: The History of Blood Libel against Jews, which were prepared for the conference organized by the Centre for Research into Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin in October 1990. They cover the vast area of historical, sociological, psychological, and legal issues connected to the ‘blood libel’, from the Middle Ages up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The authors are mainly concerned with developments in the German lands, but they also discuss how the relevant issues were influenced by the situation of Jews in Great Britain, France, and Spain. The Jews of Poland receive only marginal treatment, and it is sometimes inaccurate. The authors' conclusion is that the history of blood libel in Poland is relatively unknown and should be further investigated.

Hungary's Antisemitic Provinces: Violence and Ritual Murder in the 1880s

Slavic Review ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Nemes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Jewish Ritual

The subject of this article is the Tiszaeszlár blood libel, one of several sensational Jewish ritual murder cases to unfold in central and eastern Europe in the last decades of the nineteenth century. By focusing on a region far removed from Tiszaeszlár, the article underscores the rapidity with which antisemitic violence traversed Hungary in the early 1880s. In examining the causes, function, and impact of this violence, Robert Nemes demonstrates the centrality of the provinces for understanding the depth and dynamism of political antisemitism in Hungary. Nemes also argues that Tiszaeszlár acted as a formative political experience for many people in the provinces and explores the wider consequences of this event, both in the near and in the long term.

Catholic Anti-Judaism in Reformation Germany: The Case of Johann Eck

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 253-263
Author(s):  
David Bagchi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
Systematic Formulation ◽  
The Devil

In any inquiry into Christian attitudes to Judaism in sixteenth-century Germany, exhibit A would undoubtedly be the later writings of Martin Luther against the Jews. The choice for exhibit B presents more of a problem, but a strong case can be made out for an almost contemporary anti-Jewish treatise from the pen of Luther’s staunchest Catholic opponent, Johann Eck. His Refutation of a Jew Pamphlet tends to attract superlatives—‘the most abusive to have been written against the Jews’, ‘the most massive and systematic formulation of the blood libel… the summa of learned discourse on ritual murder’, ‘the absolute nadir of anti-Jewish polemic in the early-modern period’—and something of its unpleasantness can be gauged from the fact that Trachtenberg cited it so often in his disturbing book, The Devil and the Jews. The year in which our Society has chosen to take for its theme ‘Christianity and Judaism’ is also the 450th anniversary of the publication of Eck’s remarkable treatise. It is perhaps an appropriate occasion on which to explore, in rather more detail than has been done before, the context and nature of Eck’s anti-Jewish polemic.

Eugene M. Avrutin, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, and Robert Weinberg (eds.), Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017. 292 pp.

2020 ◽  
pp. 251-253
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Indiana University ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel

The ritual murder (or blood libel) continues to exert enormous fascination on scholarly and lay communities alike. Perhaps the most perplexing question is why it enjoyed its heyday in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Originating in England and Germany in the 12th...

How the Ritual Murder Accusation Persisted in the Soviet Landscape

2019 ◽  
pp. 88-106
Author(s):  
Elissa Bemporad
Keyword(s):  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
Socioeconomic Structures

Chapter 4 explains the endurance and permutation of the ritual murder accusation in the Soviet landscape of the interwar years. The occurrence of the blood libel epitomizes some aspects of the nature of the Bolshevik experiment, and becomes an indicator of the limits (and triumphs) of the Soviet attempt to modernize society. Ritual murder accusations grew out of the power of slander and denunciatory frenzy that enveloped Soviet society. But the accusation also resulted from the encounter between Jews and peasants in the context of a system that violently promoted urbanization and new socioeconomic structures. The intensity of the anti-religious propaganda inadvertently played a role in maintaining this powerful anti-Jewish myth, as the attack on circumcision and kosher slaughtering reinforced anti-Jewish stereotypes. Finally, the transformation of ritual murder echoes the process of Jewish women’s empowerment: only in Soviet society could Jewish women become perpetrators of ritual murder.

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