Aish.com's timely article on Blood Libel

[muman613]

For those who are not familiar with the term 'blood libel' Aish.com has a very good explanation of this antisemitic claim...


http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48951151.html

Blood Libel
By Rabbi Ken Shapiro


We are about to begin discussing an excruciating period of Jewish history that is marked by constant and unrelenting Christian persecution.

During this period we will see:

    * the Jews expelled from England (1290)
    * the Jews expelled from France (1306 and 1394)
    * the Jews expelled from Hungary (1349 and 1360)
    * the Jews expelled from German states (1348 and 1498)
    * the Jews expelled from Austria (1421)
    * the Jews expelled from Lithuania (1445 and 1495)
    * the Jews expelled from Spain (1492)
    * the Jews expelled from Portugal (1497)

And that's only a partial list.

(As often as not, the Jews were expelled and then, when a significant economic decline was noted in their absence, they were re-admitted only to be expelled again. It was the classic "can't live with them, can't live without them" philosophy.)

The story of these persecutions really begins around the year 1000the first millennium. It seems that people get nervous about big dates, especially Christians whose Book of Revelations predicts that at the end of a thousand years Satan will be released from prison and then he's going to wreak havoc on the world.

The approaching millennium led to a religious revival in the Christian world which historians call the "New Piety." The New Piety focused especially on the historicity of Jesus. Focusing on the life of Jesus meant focusing on his death. And, even though the Christian "New Testament" says that the Romans killed Jesus, the Jews were blamed for wanting him to die.

And so at this time, we see the notion of Jews as "Christ-killers"which first surfaced in the 4th century really growing in popularity.

But that alone does not explain the vehemence of Christian persecutions. To fully understand the issue, we have to look at other, more complex reasons.
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Blood Libel

It is next to impossible to explain the accusations that were hurled at the Jews during this time. Jews were persecuted not only for being "Christ-killers" but as "baby-killers."

The first such accusation better known as a "blood libel"was leveled in 1144 in Norwich, England. There, Jews were charged with kidnapping a Christian baby and draining the baby of blood. The charge became so popular it would sweep, in various forms, through Europe and then spread to other parts of the world.

The most famous of all blood libel legends is that of the ritual murder of the child Hugh of Lincoln, England in 1255. The story was immortalized in a ballad so well-known in England and Scotland that is number 155 in the standard cannon of English and Scottish ballads compiled by Francis James Child in the 19th century. The best-know tale of ritual murder is the Prioress's Tale, found in Chaucer's 14th century classic work or early English fiction, Canterbury Tales. One verse of the tale goes like this: (2)

From that time forward these Jews conspired to chase this innocent child from the earth's face. Down a dark alley-way they found and hired a murderer who owned that secret place; and as the boy passed at his happy pace this cursed Jew grabbed him and held him, slit his little throat and cast him in a pit.

Blood libel is the accusation that Jews use Christian blood in our religious rituals. What is obviously clear is that a Jew is commanded to not eat blood at all... But that did not stop them from making insane accusations against Jews for 1000+ years...