Thread by @rabbisolomons

@MPeakeOfficial uses a modern version of blood libel to slander Israel, as being responsible for the death of George Floyd for training police in counter terrorism.

Ironically @amnestyintl put out a press release contradicting her.

An old libel 1/
google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j…

Thread 👇🏼 a history of Blood Libel and associated lies:
It dates back at least to 250BCE, when the Greeks, puzzled by the Jews' lack of a tangible corporeal God, started making daft allegations about our modes of worship, alleging that we kidnap and consume Greeks or gentiles. 2/

Damocritus is first cited using the smear. Roman Jewish turncoat historian Josephus defended Jews against the libel w "In Apion", who alleged that Jews fatten Greek captive annually for sacrifice and consumption. The lie was current; others used it. 3/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_A…

It was not a great step from this to further smears, this time through the Christian Church. Socrates Scholasticus reported that some Jews in a drunken frolic bound a Christian child on a cross in mockery of the death of Christ and scourged him until he died. 4/

It seems to have made the leap to Europe in the 12th Century.

Prof. Israel Jacob Yuval of the
@HebrewU posits so many Jews committed suicide w their families in the 1st Crusade, Xtians "reasoned" they were capable of doing it to Xtian children. 5/
haaretz.com/1.4806558

There were several blood libels in England. The "Christian" This started w the disappearance of William in Norwich in 1144. Jews blamed for ritual killing. It repeated in Gloucester (1168) Bury (1181) Bristol (1183) and Lincoln (1255). 1290 Edward I expelled all Jews. 6/

William was alleged to have been tortured at Eastertide, although no allegations seem to have been made that his blood was used in Pesach food. "Only" crucifiction and satanic perversion of religion.
Other crimes were laid at Jews' feet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_o…

I would like to stress at this point that I do not blame today’s Christianity for what was done in the Middle Ages. It’s not your fault, you’re my friends.

It is vital that we educate ourselves to avoid repetitions.

8/

These mediaeval libels spread all round Europe. They generally surfaced about Eastertide, when hatred of Jews was whipped up against the alleged "killers of Christ".
Similarly they allege use of the body or blood of the child in Jewish ritual, notably in Passover matzah. 9/

Jews (in the libel) obtained blood by torturing the child on a cross, in mockery of Jesus.
To this day, Jews in less liberal countries grow concerned if a child goes missing, at this time of year. We have not forgotten the evil of this libel, and what it has done to us.
10/

The Norwich libel has another dimension students of #antisemitism should be aware of: it alleges international conspiracy to commit crime, choosing a country where the ritual murder would happen.
This foreshadows the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 11/
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…

The first continental European case of blood libel happened in 1171 in Blois, France. Some 33 Jews were burnt to death. This libel has much documentary evidence, including a letter to Louis VII seeking to protect Jews.
The libel became particularly popular in Germany.
12/

In 1475 Simon of Trent (aged 2) disappeared. 15 Jews were burned. In 1490 the same thing happened: Jews were blamed for the death of Christopher. It was taught well into the 19th century. 13.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Chil……

I have given a few instances here - there are several books on this irrational hatred and the evil things people allege of Jews.
It all stems from a misunderstanding of the Christian story, where Jews are blamed for Jesus' death in perpetuity. Most people reject this view. 14/

In 1670 Raphael Levy of Metz was burned at the stake for his alleged murder of a Christian child.

Blood libel became popular in Eastern Europe. Notable is Gabriel of Bialystok, who was canonized in the Russian Orthodox church in 1820 and whose remains are venerated today.
15/

In the Ottoman Empire the Damascus Affair (1840) was the most notorious of several instances: Jews were arrested accused of murdering an Orthodox monk. In correspondence with Sir Moses Montefiore, Col. Charles Churchill suggested establishment of a Jewish State in response. 14/

In 1903 the Kishinev pogrom started when an anti-Semitic newspaper wrote that a Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town, allegedly for matzah. 49 Jews dead, hundreds wounded, over 700 homes destroyed and looted. 15/

In 1911 in Russia a little Russian boy was murdered. The authorities arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, and tried him for the death in a notorious blood libel case. He was acquitted in 1913.
16/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menahem_M…

It also happened in America:
In 1928 in Massena New York, a little girl disappeared. The police blamed the Jews, and even interviewed the local rabbi who told them they should be ashamed of themselves. The girl was found alive.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massena_b…
16/

The Nazis loved the Blood libel. It allowed them to portray us Jews as vampires, demons, perverts, and also to portray Christian Communion as a similarly twisted ritual. It featured repeatedly in Der Sturmer, the Fascist "newspaper" 17/

The old lie brought about a pogrom again in Kielce 1946, Poland, after WWII. That Holocaust survivors were murdered on this pretext only a year after the end of the Holocaust is utterly disgusting. 18/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_po…

The lie made its way into the Arab world through the Arab alliance w the Nazis, tho' it was already present in the Damascus affair.
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia alleged Parisian Jews practiced it.
The Syrians used it to attack Zionism 19/
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-semitism-…

The Syrians and Hezbollah in Lebanon used a television programme to repeat it. Millions of Israel's neighbours watch this stuff and believe it.
20/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash-Shatat

The problem is also present in Egypt, and notasbly amongst the Palestinians.

Raed Salah, @JeremyCorbyn's honoured guest to Parliament, was convicted of the blood libel. Hamas freqently use it.
haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…
21/

...and of course there are those cartoons by Steve Bell in the Guardian which depict Jews as eating others' blood and bodies, as well as the notorious one in the Sunday Times.
This is unacceptably antisemitic. It is part of this picture that paints our ethnicity as vampires. 22/

It is unspeakably antisemitic to say Israel is responsible for the death of a man in New York who is seen by millions as a martyr. It raises the spectre of previous blood libels and is utterly outside civilized norms. H`atred of a Jewish country that created this tweet.

/end

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