Slander of Blood Libel and How It Started

 Nadene Goldfoot                           

Jack, born in 1980 in Damascus, Syria, heard Israel being blamed for whatever happened, even the weather.  Jews had become the scapegoat of all of the world's problems way before that date. Actually, the scapegoat concept started in Judaism, but used in a very different way.  Sins of the community  were thought to be placed on a goat which was taken out into the desert. (Scapegoat, Hebrew saʿir la-ʿAzaʾzel, (“goat for Azazel”), in the Yom Kippur ritual described in the Torah (Leviticus 16:8–10), goat ritually burdened with the sins of the Jewish people.) This goes back to the year 1391 BCE, a very long time ago of 3,412 years ago.    

                                                 

      Iranian President Ahmadinejad riding a rocket to hit Israel.  
     Iran has been catching up and blaming  Israel for all problems in their world. It's been happening since the Ayatollahs took over the country, before thought of nuclear missiles hitting Israel.  Ahmadinejad had been very vocal.  Now Iran plots to wipe out Israel with their nuclear facilities. Israel is taking defensive steps.

                                                 

 

Saint William Depicted holding nails, with nail wounds or     undergoing crucifixion  b: February 2, 1132-d: March 22, 1144.                                             

 The last of the Crusades were petering out.  The Christian world no longer waited for wars to attack Jewish people.  By 1144, the notorious "BLOOD LIBEL" was invented in England. March 22 – The first example of an anti-Semitic blood libel is recorded in England, in connection with the murder of William of Norwich was when a 12-year-old boy, William, was found murdered in Norwich.  His death was unexplained, and there was no evidence linking Jews to this. 

                                                  

 However, around four years later, the monk ,Thomas of Monmouth, visited Norwich. He soon claimed that the Jews of the town had tortured and killed William. Soon accusations of ritual murders of children were spread across the country.

These accusations were almost always followed by intense persecution and the murder of Jews in the local community. Blood Libel accusations have continued throughout history. In 1928 in New York, Jews were falsely accused of kidnapping a four-year-old girl.                                            

What is so disgusting to Jews, is that in the 613 laws of Moses that they follow is to NOT eat any blood from any source whatever.  That's why Jews only eat certain parts of an animal, that part with less veins carrying blood.  Then they remove such arteries or veins, and soak the meat in salted water to remove blood. Meat is not served rare; but very much overdone by others' standards.  No one wants to see or eat blood if they are followers of Jewish laws.  At this period, there wasn't any fraternizing between Jews and others.  Others did not realize the stupidity of such a claim about Jews putting blood in the food.  The very thought is digusting to them.  Blood sausages, oy vey, how others can eat that!  Black pudding is a distinct regional type of blood sausage originating in Great Britain and Ireland. It is made from pork or beef blood, with pork fat or beef suet, and a cereal, usually oatmeal, oat groats or barley groats.              

 In fact,  it was in the late 6th century, that a man was sent from Rome to England to bring Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons. He would ultimately become the first Archbishop of Canterbury, who establish one of medieval England's most important abbeys, and kickstarted the country's conversion to Christianity.  The first archbishop of Canterbury was St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604/605), a Benedictine monk who was sent from Rome by Pope Gregory I to convert the Anglo-Saxons in England.   Whatever religion were the English in 1144? 

                              Woden, a Germanic god, 

Woden was widely known as a god of war, but he was important also as a god of learning, of poetry, and of magic. His wife was Frigg, and his children included Thor, Balder, and Tiw. He was identified with the Roman god Mercury, and among Germanic peoples Mercury's day became Woden's day (Wednesday).  This was common among the Scandinavian countries as well.  

Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism ,  refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons. This refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 8th centuries AD, during the initial period of Early Medieval England. A variant of Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation.                    

Thunor was the god of weather. ... Anglo-Saxons believed that the sound of thunder was made by Thunor using his incredible strength to strike his hammer against his anvil. Thunor was probably the most famous of all the gods - archaeologists have found loads of pendants devoted to him in Anglo-Saxon graves.

Anglo-Saxon paganism was a polytheistic belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése . The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden; other prominent gods included Thunor and Tiw. There was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor, and dragons. Cultic practice largely revolved around demonstrations of devotion, including sacrifice of inanimate objects and animals, to these deities, particularly at certain religious festivals during the year.  Little is known about pagan conceptions of an afterlife, although such beliefs likely influenced funerary practices, in which the dead were either inhumed or cremated, typically with a selection of grave goods. The belief system also likely included ideas about magic and witchcraft, and elements that could be classified as a form of shamanism. The pre-Christian society of Anglo-Saxon England was illiterate. Thus there is no contemporary written evidence produced by Anglo-Saxon pagans themselves.  This history comes from other sources.   The people themselves had to rely on gossip, hearsay.   

                                                                           

By 1290, England kicked out all Jews living in their country.  They didn't let them back in until 365 YEARS LATER, IN 1655. Talk about an anti-Semitic country!  This was the most extreme in the world. 

Somehow, either through Rome's attitude towards Jews or England, this idea of Blood Libelism was picked up and repeated on the European mainland.  The "guilty" Jews were Massacred, their property taken, and the goods given to the local church.  More than a few parishes gained sudden wealth from such attacks.

                                                 

Another slander of slightly later origin was that of "desecrating the Host."  Thee Host is a wafer of unleavened bread which, according to Catholic belief, becomes the body of Jesus during their religious service.  Jews were accused of stealing the the wafer and torturing it. It was even said that they had been able to force the blood of the suffering Jesus to flow from it!  

Silly, even ridiculous as all this sounds to us today, it was given as a reason for waves of violence that in one case alone, resulted in attacks on 140 Jews communities.  If 200 people lived in one community each, that would be the suffering of 28,000 Jews being attacked by such nonsensical belief.                  

Jews have been blamed for events that had never taken place, and also blamed for any real disasters.  when wells went bad, the Jews were blamed for poisoning them.  for every calamity, Jews were blamed then and in Syria today.                    

 The worst time was when Jews were named as the cause of the Black Death, a plague which killed about 1/3 of the population of Europe in 1347 and 1351. This was the  bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353. 

Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed. Jews in Basel were burned in a structure created solely for that purpose, walking distance from the casino in which the First Zionist Congress was held 550 years later. More than 1,000 Jews were killed on the night of Valentine’s Day, and Jews were forbidden from living in the city for 100 years. A mass suicide of Jews took place in Frankfurt and the Jewish community of Erfurt was completely wiped out. 

It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people in Europe, Eurasia and North Africa. 

The Jewish people, because of their knowledge and practice of their keeping kosher, understanding about health and medicine, had a lower death rate than the Christian communities, but they too suffered heavy losses-clear proof that they had not set out to infect Christians.  Nevertheless,  amongst illiterate Christians, many Jews were murdered, even in healthy towns which hoped that by killing their Jews they could escape the dreaded disease.  

A protester wearing a shirt with the QAnon slogan 'Trust the plan' talks to police inside the US Capitol building on Wednesday

Some specialized groups in the US are still practicing such anti-Semitic accusations.  The QAnon conspiracy theory's main tenet, that a secret world-dominating cabal is posing a danger to children worldwide, builds on centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes. The movement's anonymous figurehead, "Q," posts "Q drops" with cryptic messages on the 8kun messageboard that have sometimes contained anti-Semitic references.  Sunrise DC is another one.  The popularity of QAnon comes at a time when anti-Semitism has already been on the rise in the US, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a nongovernmental organization that tracks racism and anti-Semitism worldwide. The ADL reported in May that there was a 12% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the US from 2018 to 2019. 

Today, everyone has been in a public educational system and should be able to read.  It doesn't seem to stop their hatred towards Jews.  Once a bad thing gets started, its not easily dropped out of the culture.  

Resource: 

Book:  My People-Abba Eban's History of the Jews, volume 1, adapted by David Bamberger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_paganism#:~:text=Anglo%2DSaxon%20paganism%2C%20sometimes%20termed,followed%20by%20the%20Anglo%2DSaxons

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-William-Norwich-Origins-Medieval/dp/0190219629