JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

curred in places within the *Pale of Settlement, and the investigations
always ended by exposing the lie on which they were
based. In an attempt to stop their dissemination the minister
of ecclesiastic affairs, A. Golitsyn, sent a circular to the heads
of the guberniyas (provinces) throughout Russia on March 6,
1817, to this effect. Basing his instruction on the fact that both
the Polish monarchs and the popes have invariably invalidated
the libels, and that they had been frequently refuted by judicial
inquiries, he stated in his circular that the czar directed “that
henceforward the Jews shall not be charged with murdering
Christian children, without evidence, and through prejudice
alone that they allegedly require Christian blood.” Nevertheless
Alexander I (1801–25) gave instructions to revive the inquiry
in the case of the murder of a Christian child in *Velizh
(near Vitebsk) where the assassins had not been found and
local Jewish notables had been blamed for the crime. The trial
lasted for about ten years. Although the Jews were finally exonerated,
Nicholas I later refused to endorse the 1817 circular,
giving as a reason that he considered that “there are among
the Jews savage fanatics or sects requiring Christian blood
for their ritual, and especially since to our sorrow such fearful
and astonishing groups also exist among us Christians.”
Other blood libels occurred in Telsiai (Telz) in the guberniya
(province) of Kovno, in 1827, and Zaslav (*Izyaslav), in the government
of Volhynia, in 1830. The Hebrew writer and scholar
I.B. *Levinsohn was stirred by this case to write his book Efes
Damim (Vilna, 1837), in which he exposed the senselessness of
the accusations. A special secret commission was convened by
the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to clarify the problem
concerning “use by Jews of the blood of Christian children,” in
which the Russian lexicographer and folklorist V. Dahl took
part. The result of the inquiry, which reviewed numerous cases
of blood libel in the Middle Ages and modern period, were
published in 1844 in a limited edition and presented by Skripitsin,
the director of the Department for Alien Religions, to
the heads of state. In 1853, a blood libel occurred in *Saratov,
when two Jews and an apostate were found guilty of the murder
of two Christian children – the only instance in Russia of
its kind. The council of state which dealt with the case in its
final stages announced that it had confined itself to the purely
legal aspect of the case and refrained from “anything bearing
on the secret precepts or sects existing within Judaism and
their influence on the crime.” It thereby prima facie deprived
the case of its test character as a blood libel. While the case was
being considered, between 1853 and 1860, various Jews were
accused of “kidnapping” on a number of occasions. The special
committee appointed in 1855 had included a number of
theologians and orientalists, among them two converts from
Judaism, V. Levisohn and D. *Chwolson. The committee reviewed
numerous Hebrew publications and manuscripts, and
came to the conclusion that there was no hint or evidence to
indicate that the Jews made use of Christian blood.
With the growth of an antisemitic movement in Russia
in the 1870s, the blood libel became a regular motif in the
anti-Jewish propaganda campaign conducted in the press and
blood libel
literature. Leading writers in this sphere were H. *Lutostansky,
who wrote a pamphlet “concerning the use of Christian
blood by Jewish sects for religious purposes” (1876), which
ran into many editions, and J. Pranaitis. Numerous further
allegations were made, including a case in Kutais (Georgia)
in 1879, in which Jewish villagers were accused of murdering
a little Christian girl. The case was tried in the district court
and gave the advocates for the defense an opportunity of ventilating
the social implications of the affair and the malicious
intentions of its instigators. The chief agitators of the blood
libels were monks. At the monastery of Suprasl crowds assembled
to gaze on the bones of the “child martyr Gabriello,”
who had been allegedly murdered by Jews in 1690. The wave
of blood libels which occurred at the end of the 19th century
in central Europe, including the cases in Tiszaeszlar in 1881,
*Xanten in 1891, Polna in 1899, etc., also heaped fuel on the
flames of the agitation in Russia.
A number of works were published by Jewish writers
in Russia to contradict the allegations, such as D. Chwolson’s
“Concerning Medieval Libels against Jews” (1861); I.B.
Levinsohn’s Efes Damim of 1837 was translated into Russian
(1883). Some of the calumniators were also prosecuted (see
*Zederbaum v. Lutostansky, 1880). Despite the growing antisemitism
and their officially supported anti-Jewish policy, the
czarist authorities during the reign of Alexander III (1881–94)
did not lend credence to the blood libels. It was only at the
beginning of the 20th century that further attempts were renewed.
These included the *Blondes Case in Vilna, in 1900,
and an attempt in *Dubossary, in the guberniya of Kherson,
where a Russian criminal tried to pin the murder of a child on
the Jews. However, with the victory of the reactionaries in Russia
after the dissolution of the Second *Duma in 1907, and the
strengthening of the extreme right wing (*Union of Russian
People) in the Third Duma, another attempt at official level
was made by the regime to use the blood libel as a weapon in
its struggle against the revolutionary movement and to justify
its policy toward the Jews. An opportunity for doing so occurred
in the *Beilis Case engineered by the minister of justice
Shcheglovitov. The trial, which continued from spring 1911 to
fall 1913, became a major political issue and the focal point for
anti-Jewish agitation in the antisemitic press, in the streets, at
public meetings, and in the Duma. The whole of liberal and
socialist opinion was ranged behind Beilis’ defense, and even
a section of the conservative camp. Leading Russian lawyers
conducted the defense, and in Russia and throughout Europe
hundreds of intellectuals and scholars, headed by V. Korolenko
and M. *Gorki, joined in protest against the trial. The exoneration
of Beilis was a political defeat for the regime. Despite this,
the government continued to assent to the instigation of blood
libels and support their dissemination among the masses until
the 1917 Revolution. The Soviet government’s attitude toward
the blood libel was that it had been a weapon of the reaction
and a tactic to exploit popular superstition by the czarist regime.
The instigators of the Beilis trial were interrogated and
tried at an early stage after the revolution. In later years the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 779