41845358-Antisemitism

44 ANTISEMITISM
McCann: “Was there ever a time when the Jewish people used human blood?”
Rabbi Brennglass: “No never, that is a slander against the entire Jewish people.”
McCann: “Please don’t think the idea originated with me; somebody else, a
foreigner, impressed me with it.” 1
An enraged Brennglass demanded of McCann: “You will have to reveal
the name of the party who gave the information, that he should be taught he is
not in Poland or Rumania.” 2 As the rabbi exited the station, his path was
blocked by a hostile crowd, which he addressed angrily: “What are you doing
here? Isn’t it bad enough that a little girl has been lost? Why aren’t you looking
for her instead of standing around? You should be absolutely ashamed of
yourselves. By what nerve do you insinuate such things against your Jewish
neighbors? ... Go home and pray to God that He’ll forgive you for what you
are thinking.” 3 The crowd drew back, allowing the rabbi to pass.
The child, who had lost her way in the woods and fallen asleep, was subsequently
found. But, for some people, the Jews were still guilty. As the Jews
congregated on Yom Kippur eve, they were taunted by a mob that blocked
their path: “Scared you into returning the girl, didn’t we.” This time the blood
accusation did not escalate into wholesale arrests and massacre, as it had many
times in medieval Europe. After all, this was the United States and the twentieth
century, not the “Dark Ages.”*
Allegations of ritual murder, and the accompanying tortures, trials, burnings,
massacres, expulsions, and pillaging of property, occurred frequently in
the Middle Ages. In modern times, enlightened people dismissed the charge of
Jewish ritual murder as so much nonsense, a lingering medieval fabrication
and superstition. Scholars conclusively refuted all the historical accusations. In
1912 a Catholic scholar, Abbé Elphège Vacandard, concluded that “not a single
case [of ritual murder] has ever been historically established.” 4 Nevertheless,
as Hermann Strack, a German Christian theologian, wrote in 1892, “the
‘blood-superstition’ is even nowadays very wide-spread.” 5 In a later edition of his
massive work on the blood libel, Strack noted that in March-April 1892, an
* Allegations of ritual murder were far fewer in the United States than in Europe and,
unlike in Europe, did not lead to violence against Jews. Nevertheless, there were incidents
in Clayton, Pennsylvania (1913), Fall River and Pittsfield, Massachusetts (1919),
and Chicago (1919). In all four cases, the accusers were of Eastern European background;
three were of Polish descent. In one instance, the hoax was staged by a priest.
See Abraham G. Duker, “Ritual Murder Accusations in the United States,” The Blood
Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1991).