Blood libel

[1][2][6] Echoing very old myths of secret cultic practices in many prehistoric societies, the claim, as it is leveled against Jews, was rarely attested to in antiquity.

According to Tertullian, it originally emerged in late antiquity as an accusation made against members of the early Christian community of the Roman Empire.

This libel, alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration, became a major theme of the persecution of Jews in Europe from that period down to modern times.

In Jewish lore, blood libels served as the impetus for the creation of the Golem of Prague by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the 16th century.

[15] The earliest known antecedent is tenth century, from Damocritus (not Democritus the philosopher) mentioned in the Suda,[16] who alleged that "every seven years the Jews captured a stranger, brought him to the temple in Jerusalem, and sacrificed him, cutting his flesh into bits.

Here, the writer states that when Antiochus Epiphanes entered the temple in Jerusalem, he discovered a Greek captive, who told him that he was being fattened for sacrifice.

5th century) reported that in a drunken frolic, a group of Jews bound a Christian child to a cross in mockery of the death of Christ and scourged him until he died.

These were later reinforced through the Church council Lateran IV which mandated the segregation of Christian and Jewish society, and built an apparatus of enforcement across Europe.

[citation needed] At a local context, many of the English examples may have included an element of church competition for saintly cults, with the income that veneration produced.

[citation needed] Israel Yuval proposed that the blood libel may have originated in the 12th century due to Christian views on Jewish behavior during the First Crusade.

According to Monmouth, England was chosen in 1144, and the leaders of the Jewish community delegated the Jews of Norwich to perform the killing, after which they abducted and crucified William.

In 1190, on 16 March, 150 Jews were attacked in York and then massacred when they took refuge in the royal castle, where Clifford's Tower now stands, with some committing suicide rather than being taken by the mob.

[25] The remains of 17 bodies thrown in a well in Norwich between the 12th and 13th century (five that were shown by DNA testing to likely be members of a single Jewish family) were very possibly killed as part of one of these pogroms.

[29] After the expulsion, Edward I renovated "Little Saint Hugh's" shrine and decorated it with his Royal insignia, as part of his efforts to justify his actions.

Thomas of Monmouth's story of the annual Jewish meeting to decide which local community would kill a Christian child also quickly spread to the continent.

Thomas of Cantimpré also believed that since the time when the Jews called out to Pontius Pilate, "His blood be on us, and on our children" (Matthew 27:25), they have been afflicted with hemorrhages, a condition equated with male menstruation:[32] 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").'

Nicholas Donin and another Jewish convert, Theobald of Cambridge, are greatly credited with the adoption and the belief of the blood libel myth in Europe.

This was the site of a blood libel accusation against the town's entire Jewish community that led to around 31–33 Jews (with 17 women making up this total[34])[35][36] being burned to death[37] on 29 May of that year, or the 20th of Sivan of 4931.

[38] There is significant primary source material from this case including a letter revealing moves for Jewish protection with King Louis VII.

[42] That a judicial execution was summarily committed in consequence of the accusation is evident from the manner in which the Nuremberg "Memorbuch" and the synagogal poems refer to the incident.

[48] A statement was made, in the Chronicle of Konrad Justinger of 1423, that at Bern in 1293[49] or 1294 the Jews tortured and murdered a boy called Rudolph (sometimes also referred to as Ruff, or Ruof).

[60] The revival of the cult in Belarus was cited as a dangerous expression of antisemitism in international reports on human rights and religious freedoms[61][62][63][64][65] which were passed to the UNHCR.

In 1911, the Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, an important French Catholic encyclopedia, published an analysis of the blood libel accusations.

Other contemporary Catholic sources (notably the Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica) promoted the blood libel as truth.

[118] In late 1553 or 1554, Suleiman the Magnificent, the reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire, issued a firman (royal decree) which formally denounced blood libels against the Jews.

[122] In 1840, following the Western outrage arising from the Damascus affair, British politician and leader of the British Jewish community, Sir Moses Montefiore, backed by other influential westerners including Britain's Lord Palmerston and Damascus consul Charles Henry Churchill,[123] the French lawyer Adolphe Crémieux, Austrian consul Giovanni Gasparo Merlato, Danish missionary John Nicolayson,[123] and Solomon Munk, persuaded Sultan Abdulmejid I in Constantinople, to issue a firman on 6 November 1840 intended to halt the spread of blood libel accusations in the Ottoman Empire.

The edict declared that blood libel accusations were a slander against Jews and they would be prohibited throughout the Ottoman Empire, and read in part: ... and for the love we bear to our subjects, we cannot permit the Jewish nation, whose innocence for the crime alleged against them is evident, to be worried and tormented as a consequence of accusations which have not the least foundation in truth...In the remainder of the 19th century and into the 20th century, there were many instances of the blood libel in Ottoman lands,[124] such as the 1881 Fornaraki affair.

[125] In this book, he argues that the true religious beliefs of Jews are "black hatred against all humans and religions", and no Arab country should ever sign a peace treaty with Israel.