What Are Blood Libels?

An Ancient Myth Slanders Jews Throughout History

Since becoming the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife have regularly hosted dinners for the first-year students.  This year, the Chemerinskys invited the third-year class who missed the dinner due to COVID and designated three nights in April for them to choose from.  But things didn’t go as planned.  In his April 13 statement, Dean Chemerinsky wrote: “The week before the dinners, there was an awful poster on social media and bulletin boards in the law school building of a caricature of me holding a bloody knife and fork and with blood around my lips, with the words in large letters: NO DINNER WITH ZIONIST CHEM WHILE GAZA STARVES.  I never thought I would see such blatant antisemitism, with an image that invokes the horrible antisemitic trope of blood libel and that attacks me for no apparent reason other than I am Jewish.”

  Although deeply offended, Dean Chemerinsky acknowledged that the posters constituted speech protected by the First Amendment, but was upset that others in the community had to see these disturbing antisemitic posters around the law school.  He made clear that the dinners would go as planned, despite expecting protests, but believed those would be peaceful and not disruptive.

On April 9, the Dean and his wife opened their home to sixty students, setting up tables for them in the backyard.  While everyone was eating, a woman, who led the group responsible for the posters, stood up with a microphone and began a speech mentioning the plight of the Palestinians.  The Dean and his wife approached her and asked her to stop and leave.  But the woman continued while the Chemerinskys repeatedly asked her to stop since there was no First Amendment right in their home.  Eventually the woman and ten students left.

This modern incident involving Dean Chemerinsky serves as a stark reminder of the persistent and destructive nature of antisemitic myths such as blood libel.  Blood libel, a slanderous lie that has cost many Jewish lives throughout history, represents a specific type of hate directed at Jews.  Dean Chemerinsky, a distinguished law professor who has spent his career defending freedom of speech, found himself the target of this ancient and baseless accusation.  This contemporary example underscores the need to understand the historical context of such harmful myths and their devastating impact on Jewish communities throughout the ages.

The term ‘blood libel’ refers to the false allegations, usually close to Passover, that Jews used the blood of non-Jews for ritual purposes such as baking matzah.  Other false allegations against Jews were often associated with blood libels such as blaming them for the crucifixion of Jesus and the poisoning of wells.  These fictional accusations became major themes in Jewish persecution in Europe during the Middle Ages and into the modern period.  Blood libels were central components in the development of modern antisemitism in the 19^th century leading to pogroms and violent riots that were often encouraged by government authorities.  However, blood libels are rooted in ancient history, from which they borrowed these grotesque and absurd elements.

Early references to blood libels can be found in the Hellenistic writing (the golden age of Greek poetry) of Apion in the second century BCE.  Apion, a Greek grammarian, was noted for his hostile animosity toward Jews.  In his writing, Apion ridiculed the religion of the Jews with detailed outrageous and slanderous tales of Jews making human sacrifice in the Temple of Jerusalem.

Apion’s defamatory claims about Jews originated in pagan legend and have been repeated throughout history in astonishing formulaic similarity.  They regularly embodied damaging remarks about the Jewish race, derogatory statements concerning the Jews’ patriotism and loyalty as citizens, and finally, they included a malicious misrepresentation of the Jewish faith, beliefs, and rituals.  Despite the absurdity of those claims, they did not fade over time, but became more elaborate and bizarre.

In the aftermath of the First Crusade, the 12^th century saw an increase in popularity of the blood libel myth.  The first recorded case of blood libel, that of William of Norwich was recorded in 1144 when the Jews of Norwich, England, were charged with ritual murder after the body of a young boy, William, was found stabbed to death in the woods.  The Jews were alleged to have “brought a Christian child (the ‘boy-martyr’ William) before Easter and tortured him with all the tortures our Lord was tortured, and on Long Friday hanged him on the roof in hatred of our Lord.”  More than 90 Jews were arrested and tortured to force their confession.  Eighteen of them died hanging, and some were burned at the stake, two converted to Christianity and were then beheaded.

The blood libel of Jewish appetite for Christian blood spread around the Middle Ages and was mingled with allegations of well poisoning by Jews during the bubonic plague in the 14^th century.  By the following century this myth became common in western and central Europe, inspiring another myth about miracles performed by the victims of blood libels.

In 1475, a two-year-old boy named Simon disappeared in the city of Trent, Italy, shortly before Easter.  His father accused the Jewish community of kidnapping and murdering the boy for the purpose of using his blood to make Passover matzah.  As a result, the entire Jewish community was arrested and forced to confess under torture before fifteen of them were sentenced to death and burned alive.  In a peculiar turn of events, hundreds of miracles were ascribed to Simon of Trent, which led to the formation of a religious cult in Italy, Germany, and Austria in his name.  He was granted sainthood in the 16^th century (which was removed by The Pope in 1965).

In his 1543 publication On the Jews and Their Lies, the German theologian Martin Luther accepted the Jewish use of Christian blood as fact.  By the 17^th century, blood libels became more common in eastern Europe, mainly in Poland and Lithuania.  In the 19^th century blood libels spread to the Arab world, with the first incident recorded in Damascus in 1840.

Blood libel charges often led to pogroms.  The 1903 Kishinev pogrom started with the murder of a Christian boy near Kishinev, Bessarabia, in the Russian empire.  Incited by articles published in the Russian-language antisemitic newspaper The Bessarabian, the pogrom started on April 19, 1903 which was Easter Sunday, and lasted for three days.  Almost 50 Jews were killed, hundreds were wounded, and many Jewish homes and businesses were looted and destroyed.

Leading up to the devastation of the Holocaust, the Nazis used blood libel in their propaganda.  In 1923, Julius Streicher established an antisemitic newspaper, Der Stürmer (The Attacker), where he regularly used the blood libel motif.  In the May 1934 issue, under the headline “Jewish Murder Plan Against Gentile Humanity Revealed,” Streicher accused Jews of murdering Christians to secure blood for use in religious rituals.  Even after the war, blood libels were often the cause for pogroms breaking out in Europe, sparking a widespread exodus of Jews out of Poland.

The blood libel myth against Jews remains powerful in the 21^st century.  A 2003 television series broadcast in Syria and Lebanon based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a widely distributed antisemitic publication in modern times) shows Jewish people engaged in a conspiracy to rule the world, and presents them as people who murder Christian children to drain their blood for the making of matzah.  In 2014, a Hamas spokesman told a Lebanese television station: “We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos.  It is not a figment of our imagination or something taken from a film.  It is fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence.”  Not unexpectedly, he did not have any “evidence” to present, or any counter-argument for the fact that Jewish kosher laws prohibit the consumption of blood.

This absolute prohibition of consuming animal blood, coupled with the prohibition of murder, is first mentioned in Genesis 9:4, as the sons of Noah are given the right to eat meat, provided they drain off the life-blood first.  This prohibition was not found anywhere else in the Near East and is a result of a deliberate and reasoned pronouncement, as mentioned in Genesis 9:3-4: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these.  You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, blood libel accusations have resurfaced in the wake of October 7.  The ADL reports that anti-Israeli voices in the Middle East, Europe, Australia, and the United States have been using cartoons and social media posts to accuse Israel of stealing organs from Palestinians killed in Gaza, and to claim that “child murder” was a preferred “ritual” for Israel, with babies being “favorite targets.”  Some include depictions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as consuming Palestinian blood, while others use images of bleeding babies to play up charges of blood libel.

As an Israeli I find the images difficult to look at.  I am stumped that this type of slander and libel had taken place so ubiquitously throughout history with grave consequence and harm to the Jewish people.  From the Inquisition to the Holocaust, to the current Iranian regime and it’s credible threat to annihilate Israel, it is critical to give this ugly stain on humanity very serious consideration.  Knowing that the origins of blood libels are so primitive, dating back to Pagan beliefs, it is deeply concerning and troubling that blood libels continue to take hold.  Like Dean Chemerinsky, I am a supporter of the right to free speech granted to us by the First Amendment.  Nonetheless, I am alarmed that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is still in circulation today for the simple reason that so many people are actively engaged in spreading this powerful hate.  This dangerous, racist, and slanderous rhetoric comes from a place of deep ignorance and takes us in a direction which is the opposite of progress.  And despite our desire to live in a modern, progressive society, the current rise of antisemitism indicates that we are far from being enlightened.

It is urgent for our society to emphasize the deep contemplation and learning about causes of racism in general, and antisemitism in particular, not only to reckon with the past, but also to develop the agency to prevent future acts of violence and hatred.  I still want to trust that, no matter how slow the wheels of change may be, as humans we have the capacity to evolve.  I still want to hold on to the hope that we may improve our ways by re-examining some of the myths, like blood libels, which formed the foundation on which long-lasting and misguided belief systems were built.

A small but significant step towards progress took place in the Spring of 2023, when the British city of Norwich apologized for the historic assault on the local Jews 900 years ago.  The city went further when it decided to transfer its oldest non-Church building to the local community to use as a Jewish heritage center.

Notes:

Statement from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/statement-from-dean-erwin-chemerinsky/#:~:text=The%20week%20before%20the%20dinners,thought%20I%20would%20see%20such

Blood Libel, Holocaust Encyclopedia

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/blood-libel

Apion

https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1641-apion

Blood Libel Accusations Resurface in the Wake of Oct. 7

https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/blood-libel-accusations-resurface-wake-oct-7

The Origins of Blood Libel

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-origins-of-blood-libel/

Blood

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/blood

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion

UK Town Where Blood Libel Theory Was Born could Get a Jewish Heritage Center

https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-town-where-blood-libel-theory-was-born-could-get-a-jewish-heritage-center/