---
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 7
I. AT VENICE WITH HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR FRIEDRICH III (1469) 17
II. SALAMONCINO DA PIOVE DI SACCO, PREDATORY FINANCIER 35
III. ASHER, THE BEARDED JEW (1475) 45
IV. PORTOBUFFOLÈ, VOLPEDO, ARENA PO, MAROSTICA, RINN 61
V. FROM ENDINGEN TO REGENSBORN: RITUAL HOMICIDES OR GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES? 75
VI. MAGICAL AND THERAPEUTIC USES OF BLOOD 93
VII. CRUCIFIXION AND RITUAL CANNIBALISM: FROM NORWICH TO FULDA 111
VIII. DISTANT PRECEDENTS AND THE SAGA OF PURIM 125
IX. SACRIFICE AND CIRCUMCISION: THE MEANING OF PESACH 137
X. BLOOD, LEPROSY AND INFANTICIDE IN THE HAGGADAH 153
XI. DINNER AND INVECTIVE: THE SEDER AND THE CURSES 163
XII. THE MEMORIAL OF THE PASSION 173
XIII. TO DIE AND KILL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 189
XIV. "DOING THE FIG": RITUAL AND OBSCENE GESTURES 197
XV. ISRAEL’S FINAL DEFIANCE 209
NOTES 225
DOCUMENTARY APPENDIX 307
BIBLIOGRAPHY 325
INDEX OF NAMES 349
INDEX OF PLACES 363
p. 7]
PREFACE
Ritual homicide trials are a difficult knot to unravel. Most researchers simply set out in search of more or less convincing confirmation of previously developed theories of which the researcher himself appears firmly convinced. The significance of any information failing to fit the preconceived picture is often minimized, and sometimes passed over entirely in silence. Oddly, in this type of research, that which is to be proven is simply taken for granted to begin with. There is a clear perception that any other attitude would involve hazards and repercussions which are to be avoided at all costs.
There is no doubt that the uniformity of the defendant’s confessions, contradicted only by variants and incongruities generally relating to details of secondary importance, was assumed by the judges and so-called "public opinion" to constitute “proof” that the Jews, characterized by their great mobility and widespread dispersion, practiced horrible, murderous rituals in hatred of the Christian religion. The stereotype of ritual murder, like that of profanation of the Host and cannibal sacrifice, was present in their minds from the outset, suggesting to both judges and inquisitors alike the possibility of extorting symmetrical, harmonious and significant confessions, triggering a chain reaction of denunciations, veritable and proper manhunts and indiscriminate massacres.
While attempts have been made, in certain cases, to reconstruct the ideological mechanisms and underlying theological and mythological beliefs, with their theological and mythological justifications, which rendered the persecution of the Jews possible as the practitioners of outrageous and blood-thirsty rituals, particularly in the German-speaking countries of Europe, little or nothing has been done to investigate the beliefs of
p. 8]
the men and women accused -- or who accused themselves -- of ritual crucifixion, desecration of the host, haematophagy [eating of blood products] and cannibalism.
On the other hand -- if an exception be made for the first sensational case of ritual crucifixion, which occurred in Norwich, England, in 1146, or the equally well-known “blood libel” case at Trent, Italy, in 1475 -- the trial records and transcripts (usually referred to under the generic term “historical documentation”) constitute, in actual fact, very poor and often purely circumstantial evidence, highly condensed in form and very sparse in detail, totally insufficient for research purposes. Perhaps for this very same reason, that which is missing is often artificially added, assumed or formulated as a hypothesis, in the absence of any explicit probative evidence one way or another (i.e., in the desired direction); in the meantime, the entire matter is immersed in a tinted bath, from which the emerging image is superficial at best, enveloped in a cloud of mystery, with all the related paraphernalia from a distant past, and must remain forever incomprehensible to researchers intent on examining these problems through the application of anachronistic interpretive categories. These efforts -- obviously unreliable -- are generally performed in good faith. Or, more exactly, almost always in good faith.
Thus, in Anglo-Saxon (British and American) historical-anthropological research on Jews and ritual murder (from Joshua Trachtenberg to Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia), magic and witchcraft traditionally feature among the favorite aspects under examination. This approach, for a variety of reasons, is enjoying an extraordinary rebirth at the present time [1]. But that which seems to obtain a high degree of popularity at the moment is not necessarily convincing to meticulous scholars, not content with superficial and impressionistic responses.
Nearly all the studies on Jews and the so-called “blood libel” accusation to date have concentrated almost exclusively on persecutions and persecutors; on the ideologies and presumed motives of those same persecutors: their hatred of Jews; their political and/or religious cynicism; their xenophobic and racist rancor; their contempt for minorities. Little or no attention has been paid to the attitudes of the persecuted Jews themselves and their underlying patterns of ideological behavior – even when they confessed themselves guilty of the specific accusations brought against them. Even less attention has been paid to the behavioral patterns and attitudes of these same Jews; nor have these matters been considered worthy even of interest, attention or serious investigation. On the contrary: these behavioral patterns and attitudes have simply been incontrovertibly dismissed as non-existent -- as invented out of whole cloth by the sick minds of anti-Semites and fanatical, obtusely dogmatic Christians.
Nevertheless, although difficult to digest, these actions, once their authenticity is demonstrated or even supposed as possible,
p. 9]
should be the object of serious study by reputable scholars. The condemnation, or, alternatively, the aberrant justification of these rituals cannot be imposed upon researchers as the sole, and banal, options. Scholars must be permitted the possibility of attempting serious research on the actual, or presumed, religious, theological and historical motivations of the Jewish protagonists themselves. Blind excuses are just as worthless as blindly dogmatic condemnation: neither can demonstrate anything other than that which already existed in the mind of the observer to begin with. It is precisely the possibility of evading any clear, precise and unambiguous definition of the reality of ritual child murders rooted in religious faith which has facilitated the intentional or involuntary blindness of Christian and Jewish scholars alike, both pro- and anti-Jewish.
1
J. Trachtenberg,