Overview

This innovative reassessment of ritual murder accusations brings together scholars working in history, folklore, ethnography, and literature. Favoring dynamic explanations of the mechanisms, evolution, popular appeal, and responses to the blood libel, the essays rigorously engage with the larger social and cultural worlds that made these phenomena possible. In doing so, the book helps to explain why blood libel accusations continued to spread in Europe even after modernization seemingly made them obsolete. Drawing on untapped and unconventional historical sources, the collection explores a range of intriguing topics: popular belief and scientific knowledge; the connections between antisemitism, prejudice, and violence; the rule of law versus the power of rumors; the politics of memory; and humanitarian intervention on a global scale.

Full Product Details

Author:   Eugene M. Avrutin ,  Jonathan Dekel-Chen ,  Robert Weinberg ,  Michael Ostling
Publisher:   Indiana University Press
Imprint:   Indiana University Press
ISBN:  

9780253026408

ISBN 10:   0253026407
Pages:   294
Publication Date:   12 July 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Ritual Murder Accusations in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond / Eugene M. Avrutin, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, and Robert Weinberg 1. Imagined Crimes, Real Victims: Hermeneutical Witches and Jews in Early Modern Poland / Michael Ostling 2. The Jewish Blood Libel Legend—A Folkloristic Perspective / Haya Bar-Itzhak 3. Ritual Murder in a Russian Border Town / Eugene M. Avrutin 4. The Saratov Affair as a Critical Juncture in Ritual Murder History / Andrew C. Reed 5. The Blood Libel in Nineteenth-Century Lithuania: A Comparison of Two Cases / Darius Staliūnas 6. Yahrzeits, Condolences, and Other Close Encounters: Neighborly Relations and Ritual Murder Trials in Germany and Austria-Hungary / Hillel J. Kieval 7. Human Sacrifice in the Name of a Nation: The Religion of Common Blood / Marina Mogilner 8. The Predatory Jew and Russian Vitalism: Dostoevsky, Rozanov, and Babel / Harriet Murav 9. Connecting the Dots: Jewish Mysticism, Ritual Murder, and the Trial of Mendel Beilis / Robert Weinberg 10. A Half-Full Cup? Transnational Responses to the Beilis Affair / Jonathan Dekel-Chen 11. Simulating Justice: The Blood Libel Case in Moscow, April 1922 / Gennady Estraikh 12. The Blood Libel and Its Wartime Permutations: Cannibalism in Soviet Lviv / Elissa Bemporad 13. Was the Doctors' Plot a Blood Libel? / Jeffrey Veidlinger 14. The Sandomierz Paintings of Ritual Murder as Lieux de mémoire / Magda Teter List of Contributors Index

Reviews

While the topic was not exactly novel to me, I enjoyed reading this book and I was constantly learning from the significant new information and fresh insights from the authors' analyses. Shaul Stampfer, Hebrew University</p>

Author Information

Eugene M. Avrutin is Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois. Jonathan Dekel-Chen is Professor of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Robert Weinberg is Professor of History at Swarthmore College.

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