Blood libel

Blood libels are false and sensationalized allegations that a person or group engages in human sacrifice, often accompanied by the claim that the blood of the victims is used in various rituals and/or acts of cannibalism. The alleged victims are often children.
Some of the best documented cases of blood libel focus upon accusations against Jews, but many other groups have been accused throughout history, including Christians, Cathars, Carthaginians, Knights Templar, witches, Wiccans, Christian heretics, Romani people, Mormons, pagans, Native Americans, Africans, atheists and communists.
==Against 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
Jews have indeed been the victims of discriminations throughout the centuries. But why? Let them answer this question themselves. The Talmud says that any Jew who does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jew will be damned forever.Israeli, p. 170Cohn-Sherbok, p. 326
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:
Neither the Old nor the New Testament states that the Jews lust for human blood: on the contrary, it is expressly stated in the Bible, in the laws of Moses, and in the Jewish ordinances designated in Hebrew as the 'Talmud,' that they should not defile themselves with blood.Blood Accusations by Richard Gottheil
==Against Christians==
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."
==Blood libels in the 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. 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.Chinese Eating Fetuses: Christian Pornography The only use for "human fetal tissue" is in the medical research field, particularly stem cell research.
Many Jewish groups were shocked in 2003 by the British newspaper The Independent's publication of a cartoon depicting Ariel Sharon eating a baby. 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". 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. "I have been accused many times of saying that communists eat babies," said Berlusconi at a rally of his Forza Italia party. "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." 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."
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. These claims were later repeated in articles by the conservative American website World Net Daily.
Anti-semitic accusations of ritual murder can still be found in Islamist propaganda and in state-sponsored media published in a number of Muslim nations.Examples of these antisemitic accusations in the modern Muslim world include:
*In 1986, Defense Minister of Syria Mustafa Tlass authored the book The Matzah Of Zion. The book renews the anti-Jewish ritual murder accusations of 1840 Damascus affair and alleges that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a factual document. (Frankel, Jonathan. The Damascus Affair: "Ritual Murder," Politics, and the Jews in 1840, pp. 418, 421. Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-521-48396-4) 
* In 2001 an Egyptian film company produced and aired a film called Horseman Without a Horse, partly based on Tlass's book. 
* The TV series Ash-Shatat ("The Diaspora"), sponsored by the Syrian government, depicts Jews engaging in a conspiracy to rule the world, murder Christian children, and use their blood to bake matzah. (U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2004 - Syria February 2005, Written statement submitted by the Association for World Education, a non-governmental organization on the Roster Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and All Forms of Discrimination. Question of Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Any Part of the World. Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. UN Commission on Human Rights. 60th session. E/CN.4/2004/NGO/5. 10 February 2004)
* Iranian TV Blood Libel December 20, 2005
*King Faisal of Saudi Arabia accused Jews of a blood libel in Paris. (Gane S. Gerber (1986): History and hate: the dimensions of anti-Semitism. Jewish Publication Society of America ISBN 0827602677 p. 88
* Israel Is 'Stealing Palestinian Children's Eyes,' Iranian TV Series Says by Susan Jones (CNSNews) December 23, 2004
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."Blood Libel" Documentary Broadcast in Belarus - The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ) Action Alert - campaign against antisemitic programming on state TV. September 16, 1997 The revival of the cult was cited as a dangerous expression of anti-semitism in international reports on human rights and religious freedomsBelarus. International Religious Freedom Report 2003 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and LaborBelarus. International Religious Freedom Report 2006 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and LaborAnnual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004 and were passed to the UNHCR.UNHCR - U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2006 - BelarusUNHCR - Refworld Redirect
In August 2009, Aftonbladet a leading Swedish tabloid, published an op-ed by Donald Boström called "They plunder the organs of our sons", implying that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians to steal their organs at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute. The article prompted furious condemnation and accusations of an anti-Semitic blood libel from the Foreign Ministry of Israel, evolving to a diplomatic controversy between Israel and Sweden when the latter declined to officially condemn the article with reference to freedom of the press.
==See also==
*Host desecration
*Satanic ritual abuse
==References==
==Further reading==
===General===
*Susanna Buttaroni, Stanislaw Musial: Ritualmord. Böhlau Verlag 2002, ISBN 3-205-77028-5 (German)
*Rainer Erb: Die Legende vom Ritualmord. Metropol 1993, ISBN 3-926893-15-X (German)
*Hannelore Fieg: Ritualmord und Satanskultbeschuldigungen in Spätantike, Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Christen und Juden, Ketzer und Hexen, Diploma thesis Universität Innsbruck 2000 (German)
*Gerhard Muller (Hrsg.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie Band 29, Religionspsychologie - Samaritaner. Walter de Gruyter, 1998, ISBN 3-11-016127-3 (entry Ritualmord, pg. 253–265) (German)
===Jews===
*Alan Dundes: The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, ISBN 0-299-13110-6
*Jules Isaac, Die Genesis des Antisemitismus, Wien: Europa Verlag, 1969 (German)
*Stefan Rohrbacher, Michael Schmidt: Judenbilder. Kulturgeschichte antijüdischer Mythen und antisemitischer Vorurteile. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1991, ISBN 3-499-55498-4 (pg. 269–291: Ritualmord und Hostienfrevel; pg. 304–368: Die Barbarei längst verflossener Jahrhunderte)
*Johannes T. Groß: Ritualmordbeschuldigungen gegen Juden im Deutschen Kaiserreich (1871–1914) Berlin: Metropol, 2002. ISBN 3-932482-84-0
*Alexander Baron: Jewish Ritual Murder: Anti-semitic Fabrication or Urban Legend? Anglo-Hebrew Publishing. 1994, ISBN 1898318360
*John M. McCulloh: Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth In: Speculum, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Juli 1997), S. 698–740
*Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia: The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany. Yale University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-300-04746-0 (English)
===Case studies===
*Schmoger, Karl (1974) The Life of Anna Katherina Emmerich: Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishing: 1974: Volume 1: ISBN 0-89555-059-8
==External links==
* Resources > Medieval Jewish History > Blood Libels
* Anti-Defamation League condemns Egyptian blood libel
* Blood libel in 1840 Syria
* Blood Libel, Host Desecration, and other Myths
* The Independent – info on Horseman Without a Horse
* Blood Feast Snopes.com Info page
* Anthony Julius: 'On Blood Libels' on the Engage website
 
Category:Antisemitic attacks and incidents
Category:Religious discrimination