The Origins of the Blood Libel

A Christian child has gone missing or been found dead. Rumors start to fly thick and fast about the guilt of the neighboring community, strange people known for their demonic customs. They “obviously” kidnapped the child to do horrible things to him—maybe even to draw out his blood to drink it. A local official hears these rumors and arrests many members of the accused community to put them on trial for their crimes, subjecting them to horrible torture to get them to confess—while the other members of the community race to stop the proceedings before the imprisoned die in jail or are convicted of the insane charges.

It sounds like a somewhat hackneyed plot from The Twilight Zone, or a badly written political allegory. But it was the lived reality—and terrifying fear—of Jews across Europe for the better part of a thousand years, from the time of the Crusades until just after the Shoah. Until the modern era, “blood libel” was the most powerful and dangerous of anti-Jewish accusations.

How did this accusation even come to be, let alone come to be widely repeated? How is it that even literate and educated people came to believe, or at least consider possible, such outrageous falsehoods? And how were the Jews able to fight against it, if at all?