Blood libel :: The W2N.net

During the first and second centuries, some Roman commentators had various interpretations of the ritual of the Eucharist and related teachings. While celebrating the Eucharist, Christians drink red wine in response to the words "This is the blood of Christ". Propaganda arguing that the Christians literally drank blood based on their belief in transubstantiation was written and used to persecute Christians. The Romans were highly suspicious of Christian adoptions of abandoned Roman babies and this was suggested as a possible source of the blood.

In the Mandaean scripture, the Ginza Rba, a supposed Christian group called the "Minunei" are accused of a blood libel against Jewish children: "They kill a Jewish child, they take his blood, they cook it in bread and they proffer it to them as food."¹

Jews

The first recorded instance of a blood libel against the Jews was in the writings of Apion, who claimed that certain Jews sacrificed Greek victims in the Temple of Jerusalem. After this, there are no known records of the blood libel brought against Jews until the 12th century legend surrounding William of Norwich, first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle. The accusation became more common afterward . In some subsequent cases, antisemitic blood libels served as the basis for a blood libel cult, in which the alleged victim of human sacrifice was venerated as a Christian martyr. Many Jews have been killed as a result of blood libels, which continue up to the present day, with the Beilis Trial in Russia and the Kielce pogrom in post-World War II Poland. Probably the most recent high profile claim is that from December 1984, when the Saudi Arabian delegate and President of the World Muslim Congress Dr. Ma'ruf al-Dawalibi, speaking before the UN Human Rights Commission conference on religious tolerance, stated

A thorough exploration of these various claims was carried out by a group of scholars and distinguished Jewish converts to Christianity from all parts of Europe convened by German emperor, Frederick II which replied to the claims by stating:

Modern world

Accusations of ritual murder have gradually disappeared from mainstream Christianity, and some child martyrs have been removed from the official Catholic calendar of saints. In the modern world, only radical groups and individuals advance accusations of ritual murder and blood libels.

One claim states that physicians in the People's Republic of China who perform abortions consider the fetus a delicacy and eat it.⁵ The story, reported from Hong Kong by Bruce Gilley, was investigated by Senator Jesse Helms, and gruesome artwork reminiscent of traditional depictions of blood libel was featured in several pro-life campaigns.⁶ The only use for "human fetal tissue" is in the medical research field, particularly stem cell research.⁷⁸

Many Jewish groups were shocked in 2003 by the British newspaper The Independent's publication of a cartoon depicting Ariel Sharon eating a baby.⁹ The Israeli government complained to the Press Complaints Commission that the cartoon alluded to the blood libel of Jews eating the children of Christians; Dave Brown, the author, responded by saying that the cartoon was in fact inspired by Francisco de Goya's painting Saturn Devouring His Son and was not anti-Semitic in intent. The PCC accepted Brown's argument, stating "There is nothing inherently anti-semitic about the Goya image or about the myth of Saturn devouring his children, which has been used previously to satirise other politicians accused of sacrificing their own 'children' for political purposes".¹⁰ The cartoon ultimately earned Brown the British Political Cartoon Society's Political Cartoon of the Year award.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, during his March 2006 failed bid for re-election, said that communists had a history of boiling babies.¹¹ "I have been accused many times of saying that communists eat babies," said Berlusconi at a rally of his Forza Italia party.¹¹ "Go and read the Black Book on Communism and you'll find that in Mao's China they didn't eat babies but they boiled them to fertilise the fields."¹¹ Despite Berlusconi's 2006 denial that he has ever said that 'communists eat babies,' in the 2001 campaign, Berlusconi said "I can organise a conference in which I will prove that communists have really eaten babies and done even worse things."¹¹

In July 2007, American Michael Yon reported that Lieutenant David Wallach, an Arabic translator, had told him about an Iraqi official's allegations that Al-Qaeda in Iraq has baked a young boy and served the boy's body to his family.¹² These claims were later repeated in articles by the conservative American website World Net Daily.¹³¹⁴

Antisemitic accusations of ritual murder can still be found in Islamist propaganda and in state-sponsored media published in a number of Muslim nations.¹⁵

In the 1990s, a number of publications by the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as radio and TV broadcasts in Belarus revived the cult of child saint Gavriil Belostoksky.¹⁶ The revival of the cult was cited as a dangerous expression of antisemitism in international reports on human rights and religious freedoms¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹ and were passed to the UNHCR.²⁰²¹

In August 2009, Aftonbladet, a leading Swedish tabloid, published an op-ed by Donald Boström containing claims that during the 1980s and 1990s Israeli soldiers had killed and abducted Palestinians whose organs were then taken without permission at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.²² Later reports indicated that organs had been taken without permission, but from Israelis and Palestinians. The article initially prompted furious condemnation and accusations of an anti-Semitic blood libel from the Foreign Ministry of Israel, evolving into a diplomatic controversy between Israel and Sweden when the latter declined to officially condemn the article. More details here: Aftonbladet-Israel_controversy.

Contents

Christians

Jews

Modern world

See also

References

Further reading

General information

German readings

Jewish readings

German

English

Case studies

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