[2] After a long search by townspeople and state police, a rumor began to circulate that the girl had been kidnapped and killed by the town's Jews for a religious ritual associated with the impending holiday.
[4] At that point, the state police sought to interrogate Rabbi Berel Brennglass, leader of the town's Adath Israel synagogue.
[6] Through the efforts of Rabbi Brennglass, the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress denounced the town's leaders, prompting apologies from the mayor and the state police to the rabbi, the town's Jews, and all Jews of the United States.
[2] In his apology, the mayor wrote: In light of the solemn protest of my Jewish neighbors, I feel I ought to express clearly and unequivocally ... my sincere regret that by any act of commission or omission, I should have seemed to lend countenance ... to what I should have known to be a cruel libel imputing human sacrifice as a practice now or at any time in the history of the Jewish people.
[1]The Blood Lie, a novel about the incident by Shirley Reva Vernick (ISBN 978-1933693842), was published in 2011 by Cinco Puntos Press.