The Last Blood Libel Trial

The Slate ^ | October 8, 2013 | Edmund Levin

[cunning_fish]

100 years ago, a Jewish man went on trial for his life. Inside the most sensational murder case you’ve never heard of.

One hundred years ago today, in a courtroom in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, the most famous accused murderer on Earth rose to declare, “I am innocent.” Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old father of five, had spent more than two years in squalid prison cells waiting to say those words. The Russian and world press had been waiting, as well, to cover one of the most bizarre cases ever tried in an ostensibly civilized society. The Russian state had charged Beilis, a Jew, with the ritual religious killing of a Christian child to drain his blood for the baking of Passover matzo.

Beilis’ 34-day trial in the fall of 1913 made international headlines. The frame-up of an innocent man on a charge seemingly out of the Dark Ages provoked widespread indignation and drew the attention some of the era’s greatest personages. Leading cultural, political and religious figures such as Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, Anatole France, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Archbishop of Canterbury rallied to Beilis’ defense. In America, the Beilis case made for inspiring collaboration between Jews and non-Jews. Rallies headlined by the likes of social reformer Jane Addams and Booker T. Washington drew thousands. The New York Times headlined an editorial “The Czar on Trial.”

The blood libel—the notion that Jews commit ritual murder to obtain Christian blood, generally the blood of children—originated in Western Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. The historian Anthony Julius has called the blood libel the “master libel” against the Jews. It directly inspired the rampant metaphor of the Jews as economic “bloodsuckers.” More subtly, it underlies the slander of the Jews as a disloyal, conspirat....

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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Still widely believed amongst Arabs and western Jewhaters.

These things must have happened, else Czar Alexander III wouldn't have commissioned a painting.

[SJackson]

Forgot the painting, that was a photo of the accused.

[left that other site]

In 1913, wasn’t the Czar Nicholas II? Either way, the story and the painting are horrible. I had never seen that nasty thing before.

My late husband’s grandfather fled Kiev in 1905 because of this type of thing.

[SJackson]

Painting is from an earlier incident, 1880s I believe. Nice painting, fine artist whose works are rarely seen.

[left that other site]

Yes...Academically, it is a “fine” painting. Composition, Figure drawing, lighting effects, etc are all top-of-the-line. It’s style is reminiscent of the high Dutch Renaissance, but the subject matter and the way it is presented ,IMO, reduces what could be “Art” into “Propaganda”.

I feel similarly about movies like “Avatar”, which, while being a triumph of the filmmaker’s art, is a vehicle for anti-business, anti-capitalist, anti-military, anti-technology, anti-American, green propaganda.

Like I said...Just My Opinion! (I have a LOT of those!) LOL.