An interesting article on blood libel and modern ethical issues related to it. (FYI, contains some disturbing descriptions of the 1913 case.) Despite a high-profile international campaign for his release, Beilis was brought up for trial in the autumn of 1913. After prosecution efforts to link the defendant to the murdered boy collapsed, several supposedly learned theological experts were brought forward to make the ridiculous claim that Jews in fact engage in ritual murder. In his instructions to the jury, the judge urged them to never to forget that There are people who drink our blood. To the surprise of many, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty against Beilis. Yet they also ruled that Andrei Yuschinsky had indeed been the victim of a ritual murder; thereby buttressing the blood libel against the Jewish people. The Beilis trial was the subject of Bernard Malamuds great novel, The Fixer. huffingtonpost/oleksandr-feldman/kiev-conference-on-antisemitism_b_4098332.html
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 15:42:54 +0000