Imperial Valley press., 1913-10-28
Germany Wrought
upOver Bells Trial
(By Carl II. VonWiegand)
(Berlin Correspondent of the United
Press)

Y
Press)
Berlin, Oct 2S.-Perhaps no trial
since the Dreyfus case in Paris has
created such general interest in Ger
many as that of the Jew, Mendol
Bells, in Kieff, on the ridiculous
charge Of ritual murder. The very
fact that it takes the mind back to
the days of the middle ages, has
caused thousands Of people of other
faiths, and no faiths at all, in Ger
many to evince the keenest interest in
the daily newspaper reports from
Kieff of trial that seems as much
out Of place in the new century as
would be the witch trials" at Salem,
Mass, two centuries ago
It is not generally known that the
Bells trial is the fifth ritual mur-
der" case charged against the Jews
in the last 25 years. Invariably these
charges have been the climax to
wave of anti-Semitism or were
brought to rekindle the fires of hatred
against the Jews when prosecutions
were on the wane
The first time in the last half cen
tury that there was staged in tribu-
nal of justice the legendary medieval
superstition that Jews drew the blood
of Christian children with which to
knead the dough Of their Passover
cakes at Easter time, occurred in 1882
1t came at the height of an anti-Jew-
ish wave in Hungary when a young
girl, Esther Selimossy, was literally
butchered at Tisza- -Eszlar 1t was
charged to the Jews as ritual mur-
der, as if they had merely sought
for another opportunity to draw down
upon their heads greater racial and
religious hatred and prosecutions.
When the anti-Semitic wave was at
high tide again in Germany in 1881
and again in 1900, boy at Xantan
and one at KonitX were murdered.
Jews were charged with ritual mur-
DER Shortly after the "Christian So
cialsts", a Catholic organization, not
Identical with the Social Democrats,
spread from Vienna to Bohemia and
stirred up bitter anti-Jewish move
nent, two peasant maids We're muir
dered. The bodies were terribly mu-
tilated. The cry of a "JewiSh ritual
murder" was Immediately raised and
Leopold Hilsner, half-witted Jewish
cripple whom either of the two girls
could have handled with one hand
was charged with the crime. The
charges, naturally, were brought by
"Christians"
After ten years of more or less
continuous "Pogroms", endless perse-
cutions and indescribable horrors in
Russia that seem incredible in the
twentieth century, Mendel Bells, .
Jewish brickyard foreman is charged
with "ritual murder" when the bitter
racial and religious anti-Jewish wave
is waning from exhaustion in the land
of the Great White Gar.
In the Tisza- -Eszlar case, the prose
cution's sole evidence was the testi-
mony of an 11-year-old boy. He said
he peeked through the keyhole of a
door and saw the nude body of the girl
lying on the altar in the eynagogue.
The head of the community said the
boy, with the rabbi by his side, stood
in front of the altar. Around it were
a number of high church officials. The
rabbi raised his arms and blessed the
victim. While the others were sing
ing psalm, the "Schaechter" or Jew
ish butcher of the community, stepped
forward, deity cut off the head of the
girl, and caught the blood in a vessel
the boy said.
In the Polna ritual murder" case in
Bohemia, it was impossible to make it
appear that the half-witted cripple,
Ililsner, was the official representa-
rive of the Jewish communities, and
that he had killed the two girls under
the direction or instirat ton Of the rab