The Blood Libel Legend

John Obi Ifediora, University of Wisconsin, has published The Blood Libel Legend: Its Longevity and Popularity. Here is the abstract.

Jewish ritual murder accusations, in their common apprehension, refer to alleged killing of Christians by Jews in furtherance of religious rites, or specifically Jewish practice. The blood libel, however, is a special variant, and a subset of the broader ritual murder accusation, and came much later into the panoply of accusations leveled at the Jews in the Middle Ages. This essay seeks to address the explanations given by scholars for the popularity and longevity of the blood libel as it touches on the following aspects of the legend: what gave rise to the blood accusations in the Middle Ages when the consequences were so horrific and brutal? Who “first” made the accusations against the Jews in medieval times, and who stood to benefit from such charges, or were they occasioned by economic, social, and religious circumstances that defined medieval Europe? But most importantly, what sustained and popularized it from the twelfth to the twentieth century?

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

More On the LHI/Cardozo Blood Libel Conference

More on the Blood Libel Conference, sponsored by the Law and Humanities Institute and Cardozo Law School, here. The Conference takes place at Cardozo, November 14-15.

Update On Conference on Blood Libel To Be Held November 14-15, 2013, at Cardozo Law School

On Nov.14-15, the Cardozo Law School Program on Holocaust Human Rights Studies, and the Law & Humanities Institute, will sponsor a conference on the tragic history of the "Blood Libel", in which Jews have been accused across the millennia of killing Christian children to use their blood in the Passover ritual. Originating in England early in the second millennium, the libel spread eastward to Russia, and it is not unknown in the United States and Canada.  

One of the most infamous of these libels was the Mendel Beilis case in the waning days of Tsarist Russia, and it is the 100th anniversary of the near-miraculous acquittal of Beilis that occasionalizes this conference. The scholarly centerpiece of our discussions will be Hannah R. Johnson's influential recent book, BLOOD LIBEL, a complex history of the phenomenon, and Prof. Johnson of the U. of Pittsburgh will speak; the literary centerpiece will be 
Bernhard Malamud's fictional rendering of the Beilis case,THE FIXER, which will be discussed widely by various speakers. Panelists include the grandson of Beilis and attorney Jeremy Garber, who have a major bone to pick with the novel; Prof. Vivian Curran of the U. of Pittsburgh Law School; Prof. David Fraser of the U. of Nottingham (UK); Prof. Jeffrey Mehlman of Boston U.; Prof. Harriet Murav of the U. of Illinois; Prof. Sanford Levinson of U. Texas Law School; and Prof. Richard Weisberg of Cardozo.


The event takes place in the Moot Court room of the Cardozo Law School,   55 Fifth Avenue,  NYC (12th and Fifth). The Thursday sessions, which include a lunch for all in attendance, are from 8:30-5:30; and the Friday sessions are from 9-12:30.


For further details and to reserve for the symposium, contact Johanna Rubbert at johannac.rubbert@gmail,com or Alyssa Grzesh, agrzesh@gmail.com

Law and Humanities Institute and Cardozo Law School Sponsor Conference On History of Blood Libel

Upcoming: a fall conference sponsored by the Law and Humanities Institute and the Program on Holocaust Human Rights Studies, Cardozo Law School. Here is the description of the program from the Cardozo website:

On Nov.14-15, the Program on Holocaust Human Rights Studies and the Law & Humanities Institute will sponsor a conference on the tragic history of the "Blood Libel", in which Jews have been accused across the millennia of killing Christian children to use their blood in the Passover ritual. Originating in England early in the second millennium, the libel spread eastward to Russia, and it is not unknown in the United States and Canada. One of the most infamous of these libels was the Mendel Beilis case in the waning days of Tsarist Russia, and it is the 100th anniversary of the near-miraculous acquittal of Beilis that occasionalizes this conference. The scholarly centerpiece of our discussions will be Hannah R. Johnson's influential recent book, BLOOD LIBEL, a complex history of the phenomenon, and Prof. Johnson of the U. of Pittsburgh will speak; the literary centerpiece will be Bernhard Malamud's fictional rendering of the Beilis case,THE FIXER, which will be discussed widely by various speakers. Panelists include the grandson of Beilis and attorney Jeremy Garber, who have a major bone to pick with the novel; Prof. Vivian Curran of the U. of Pittsburgh Law School; Prof. David Fraser of the U. of Nottingham (UK); Prof. Jeffrey Mehlman of Boston U.; Prof. Harriet Murav of the U. of Illinois; Prof. Sanford Levinson of U. Texas Law School; and Prof. Richard Weisberg of Cardozo.
For further details and to reserve for the symposium, contact Johanna Rubbert at johannac.rubbert@gmail.com