My aunt once told me a story about a young man who had become her friend. He wasn't Jewish, and often asked her questions about Judaism. One spring he asked her - I know you have Chanukah at Christmas, but what do Jews do at Easter. She laughed when she told this. I said "Hide!" and we both laughed.
In the Christian calendar, Lent is a time for spiritual cleansing and preparation for remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the Jewish calendar, Purim and the preparation for Passover have some similar themes, as we are commanded at Purim to drink to excess, and prepare for Passover with a cleansing of the home and a remembrance of the misery of slavery and the story of the exodus from Egypt to freedom.
Unfortunately, in our history we share more at this time of year than the traditional spring symbols of new life.
For the better part of the past two thousand years, Christians have associated Jews with the death of Jesus. The Gospels of John and Matthew are clear in their portrayal of Jewish responsibility for the Passion. And there is another theme our spring holidays share: the significance of blood. Jesus' blood has become associated symbollically with the lamb's blood the Israelites painted on their doorposts during the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn. The curative and transforming power attributed to Jesus' blood, his representation as the Lamb of God, both of which are later ideas, give further credence to this parallel.
None of which really explains the blood-libel.
According to Walter Laqueur,
"Altogether, there have been about 150 recorded cases of blood libel (not to mention thousands of rumors) that resulted in the arrest and killing of Jews throughout history, most of them in the Middle Ages... In almost every case, Jews were murdered, sometimes by a mob, sometimes following torture and a trial."[2]
The blood libel is the belief that some person or group, and historically it is almost always the Jews, kill people (usually children) and use their blood for ritual purposes. The first recorded blood libel was Greek and came before the time of Jesus. More recently, some Muslims have appropriated the idea. Through most of history, however, it has been a Christian belief, and the blood of Christian children has been said to be especially valued.
Jews of Norwich were accused of ritual murder after a boy, William of Norwich, was found dead with stab wounds. The legend was turned into a cult, with William acquiring the status of martyr and crowds of pilgrims bringing wealth to the local church. In 1189, the Jewish deputation attending the coronation of Richard the Lionheart was attacked by the crowd. Massacres of Jews at London and York soon followed. On Feb 6 1190, all the Norwich Jews were found slaughtered in their houses, except a few who found refuge in the castle. Jews would later be expelled from all of England in 1290 and not allowed to return until 1655. In 1171, Blois was the site of a blood libel accusation against its Jewish community that led to 31 Jews (by some accounts 40) being burned to death
- Medieval Sourcebook: Ephraim ben Jacob: The Ritual Murder Accusation at Blois, May, 1171
More Info
In 1171 the Jews of Blois, France, were accused of having crucified a Christian child during the Passover holydays and of having thrown the corpse into the Loire. The accusation that Jews require Christian blood for their Passover ritual has been made against the Jews from that time on.
The blood libel was often a precursor to the Jews being expelled from European countries. Those who denounced the blood libel included Suleiman the Great, and Pope Gregory X.
This is not, however, merely a medieval fluke; examples of the blood libel still occur.
The 1903 Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish revolt was started by an anti-Semitic newspaper wrote that a Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, alleging that the Jews killed him in order to use the blood in preparation of matzo. Around 49 Jews were killed and hundreds were wounded, with over 700 houses being looted and destroyed.
In the 1910 Shiraz blood libel, the Jews of Shiraz, Iran, were falsely accused of murdering a Muslim girl. The entire Jewish quarter was pillaged; the pogrom left 12 Jews dead and about 50 injured.
In Kiev, a Jewish factory manager, Menahem Mendel Beilis, was accused of murdering a Christian child and using his blood in matzos. He was acquitted by an all-Christian jury after a sensational trial in 1913.
In 1928, the Jews of Massena, New York, were falsely accused of kidnapping and killing a Christian girl in the Massena blood libel.
At the end of April 2005, five boys, ages 9 to 12, in Krasnoyarsk (Russia) disappeared. In May 2005, their burnt bodies were found in the city sewage. The crime was not disclosed, and in August 2007 the investigation was extended until November 18, 2007.[27] Some Russian nationalist groups claimed that the children were murdered by a Jewish sect with a ritual purpose.[28][29] Nationalist M. Nazarov, one of the authors of "The Letter of Five Hundred" alleges "the existence of a 'Hasidic sect', whose members kill children before Passover to collect their blood," using the Beilis case mentioned above as evidence. M.Nazarov also alleges that "the ritual murder requires throwing the body away rather than its concealing". "The Union of the Russian People" demanded officials thoroughly investigate the Jews, not stopping at the search in synagogues, Matzah bakeries and their offices
During a December 20, 2005, discussion among Iranian political analysts that aired on Jaam-e Jam 2 Iranian TV, Tehran Times contributor and author of the book The History of the Jews Dr. Hasan Hanizadeh alleged that "the Jews" had carried out "two horrendous incidents" in 19th-century Europe:
"In 1883, about 150 French children were murdered in a horrible way in the suburbs of Paris, before the Jewish Passover holiday. Later research showed that the Jews had killed them and taken their blood. ... A similar incident took place in London, when many English children were killed by Jewish rabbis. ..."[
All quotes are from the Wikipedia article Blood Libel Against the Jews.
Until I was seven years old, I lived next door to a Catholic school, and remember once being called Christ killer. My mother had grown up in that same apartment. Her response to Vatican II? A bemused "whoopie-doo."
I did not know all of this, but the communal memory is strong, and I was raised with an unconscious awareness of the kind of history all Jews shared.
All of this is to explain why reading Pastor Dan's sermons Sunday night triggered a nervous response. The explicitly Christian beliefs around Lent and Easter (and what else would there be in sermons marking the start of Lent?) raised my antennae to watch for danger - unconsciously for the most part. What I experience is a twinge and a rising alertness.