I see that we have a little problem with Jew hating jerks trolling around. For your information, here is the REAL story behind blood libel.
In 1255 there was a massive Jewish wedding in Lincoln, England. (If you know any Jews, you know that they can PARTY.) The guest list is said to have been several hundred strong. At that time, the body of a little toddler, Hugh, was found in a sewage pit, face down. It's easy to see that he had wandered away from his parents, fallen in, and drowned.
Unfortunately, 13th century peasants were not rational. Soon, the wedding and the dead boy were linked, and the story soon became that the Jews had kidnapped the boy, tortured him as Jesus was tortured, then killed him and drank his blood. When the Jews tried to skedaddle, they were caught. Subsequent torturing led to "full confessions", and 19 Jews were hanged without trial.
The story didn't die, however, but only got bigger and more menacing. By the mid 14th century the story was that the Jews killed Christian boys to show their hatred of Jesus and Christians, then drained the blood to use in the Passover matzos and in the special wine. With various little details changing, this is the story that persists today. The story is so patently ridiculous-prohibitions against eating human flesh and human blood appear as early as Genesis 22 in the Bible-that it stands as testament to the power of mass hysteria.
Hundreds if not thousands of Jews have been put on trial for this over the centuries, with the juries (if a jury is involved) universally believing confessions extracted by torture. Jew haters will usually respond with lists of trials "proving" blood libel when challenged. A popular cite is a Depression era trial in the US in which Jews were convicted of ritual murder. Unfortunately for the Jew haters, trials in the 30s had much lower standards than today. Beatings of accused persons by police to extract confessions were still common. There was the Constitution, but it was applied unevenly, with many juries taking the view that the Constitution came second to frontier justice.
Also, the depression was a time of revived antisemitism in the US, although it never got nearly as bad as in Europe. Jews were also targets of Deep Southern lynchings in the early 20th century along with blacks, the hanging of Leo Frank in 1914 being especially notable. All in all, that 1930s ritual murder trial vanishes under the microscope, like all the rest.
Also popular are "full confessions" by former Jews that supposedly substantiate antisemitic charges. It is indeed odd that a "pathological liar Jew" suddenly becomes a rock solid witness when his allegations back up antisemitic claims. Also, it is hard to know what motivates people. There have been a number of cases of former Jews virulently turning against their people and advocating harm to Jews. What could motivate such horror, aside from mental illness or just pure evil, is still a mystery.
29 Jul 2008, 9:19 pm
