Non­fic­tion

Blood Libel in Late Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia: The Rit­u­al Mur­der Tri­al of Mendel Beilis

Robert Wein­berg
  • Review
By – September 19, 2014

Ear­ly on in Robert Weinberg’s riv­et­ing his­to­ry of the 1913 Beilis blood libel tri­al, the author explains that his inter­est in the case began when he vis­it­ed Moscow in 1992. He noticed a small group of pro­test­ers who were upset with a recent deci­sion of the Russ­ian Supreme Court which ordered the Lenin Library to relin­quish some 12,000 books, man­u­scripts, and pam­phlets that once com­prised the library of the fifth Lubav­itch­er rebbe. Wein­berg dis­cov­ered that some of the pro­test­ers were clam­or­ing for pos­ses­sion of the col­lec­tion because they believed that the books and man­u­scripts in dis­pute held the secrets to the rit­u­al blood libel. 

On Sun­day, March 20, 1911 the dead, blood-soaked body of a par­tial­ly clad Chris­t­ian boy was found in a cave near Kiev. Almost imme­di­ate­ly anti-Semit­ic right wing groups, includ­ing the press, and anti-Semit­ic czarist offi­cials, labeled the killing a rit­u­al mur­der. Despite the lack of evi­dence, the police ar­rested Men­achem Mendel Beilis, a thir­ty-nine year old man­ag­er of a fac­to­ry near the scene of the crime. At the time of his arrest, Beilis was estranged from Judaism but, neverthe­less, the Czarist pros­e­cu­tors attempt­ed to asso­ciate him with long held Chris­t­ian beliefs that the Jews were bent on revenge against Chris­tian­i­ty through the rit­u­al mur­der of Chris­t­ian children. 

The canard that Jews engaged in rit­u­al mur­der of Chris­tians, par­tic­u­lar­ly young girls and boys, dates back to the twelfth cen­tu­ry in Eng­land when it was charged that Jews were said to have mur­dered a Chris­t­ian youth in order to mock the Pas­sion of Christ. Dur­ing the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry the rit­u­al mur­der accusa­tion expe­ri­enced a revival in Cen­tral Europe, cul­mi­nat­ing in sev­en­ty-nine rit­u­al mur­der charges in the 1890s alone. The Beilis tri­al was the first and last of these rit­u­al mur­der accusa­tions in twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Europe, although the Nazis did use rit­u­al mur­der accu­sa­tions against Jews in the pages of Der Sturmer. The tri­al took place in the wan­ing days of Czarist Rus­sia and quick­ly became an inter­na­tion­al event that brought togeth­er Jews and non- Jews alike in defense of Beilis. Although Beilis was acquit­ted of the crime, the jury also stat­ed that the crime had the hall­marks of a rit­u­al mur­der. Wein­berg, who is a pro­fes­sor of his­tory at Swarth­more Col­lege, not only pro­vides a schol­ar­ly his­to­ry of the events lead­ing up to the rit­u­al mur­der accu­sa­tion but also includes an invalu­able col­lec­tion of doc­u­ments tak­en from the tri­al record. 

Wein­berg notes that the sig­nif­i­cance of the Beilis Affair has rel­e­vance to the contem­porary world sit­u­a­tion. As we show con­cern about the revival of anti-Semi­tism in Ukraine, Wein­berg reminds us that the grave of Andrei Iushchin­skii, the mur­dered Chris­t­ian boy, has become a shrine for nation­al­ists and anti- Semi­tes who view him as a mar­tyr, a vic­tim of a vast Jew­ish con­spir­a­cy to destroy the fab­ric of Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian cul­ture and soci­ety. Wein­berg has culled doc­u­ments from the tri­al tran­scripts, news­pa­per arti­cles, and Beilis’s mem­oirs, many appear­ing for the first time in Eng­lish, to bring us face to face with this noto­ri­ous trial.

Addi­tion­al Review

Review by Robert Moses Shapiro

This con­cise­ly writ­ten book force­ful­ly tells the sto­ry of the out­ra­geous rit­u­al mur­der tri­al of Mendel Beilis in Kiev. Through care­ful review of pub­lished and unpub­lished sources — includ­ing police inter­ro­ga­tions, court tran­scripts, pho­tographs, news­pa­per arti­cles, and polit­i­cal car­toons — the author lays out the process result­ing in a tri­al dur­ing which the state pros­e­cu­tion attempt­ed to con­vict the entire Jew­ish reli­gion of the crime of rit­u­al murder. 

The hap­less Mendel Beilis was impris­oned for two years before being brought to tri­al in 1913. The book details the cir­cum­stances of the victim’s death and the evi­dence that was found, sup­pressed, ten­den­tious­ly inter­pret­ed, or man­u­fac­tured by cor­rupt pros­e­cu­tors and biased judges, while alleged experts and eye­witnesses repeat­ed­ly changed their tes­ti­mo­ny. The his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive of the case is punctu­ated with ref­er­ences to how it was tried in the Russ­ian and for­eign press. 

The large­ly peas­ant jury in Kiev decid­ed that rit­u­al mur­der did exist, but that there was not enough evi­dence to con­vince a major­i­ty that Mendel Beilis was guilty of mur­der. This book enables read­ers to con­duct their own inves­ti­ga­tion, not so much about whether Beilis was guilty or whether rit­u­al mur­der was an authen­tic part of Judaism. What con­cerns the author is that read­ers should come to rec­og­nize the pow­er of prej­u­dice, hatred, fear, and sus­pi­cion, com­bined with state inter­est, to sup­press chal­lenges to tra­di­tion­al author­ity. This is a book that will like­ly serve well in many class­rooms. Bib­li­og­ra­phy, fac­sim­i­les, index, maps, notes, pho­tographs, sketches.

Relat­ed content:

Jack Fis­chel is pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of his­to­ry at Millersville Uni­ver­si­ty, Millersville, PA and author of The Holo­caust (Green­wood Press) and His­tor­i­cal Dic­tio­nary of the Holo­caust (Row­man and Littlefield).

Discussion Questions