Jews Use Teenagers’ Blood for Purim Pastries

Abstract

“Of all the accusations which fanaticism and ignorance have used as a weapon against Judaism, there is none which can be compared in terms of improbability and absurdity to that of ritual murder,” wrote a Jewish scholar more than a hundred years ago. During the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of murdering Christian children in order to use their blood for making matzo, the unleavened bread, for the Passover holiday. To Christians it seemed totally consistent with Jewish behavior that the people who had spilled Christ’s blood would seek to reenact the crucifixion by torturing and draining the blood of an innocent child and that they would use that blood for some magical rite. The charge of ritual murder, which led to the torture and burning alive of thousands of Jews, demonstrated the power and appeal of myths that disparaged and demonized the Jewish people. It showed the willingness, even eagerness, of many Christians to believe any absurdity about Jews and to expect the worst of them.

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