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Historian gives credence to blood libel
By LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG
ROME
An Israeli historian of Italian origin has revived "blood libel" in an historical study set to hit Italian bookstores on Thursday. Ariel Toaff, son of Rabbi Elio Toaff, claims that there is some historic truth in the accusation that for centuries provided incentives for pogroms against Jews throughout Europe.
Toaff's tome, Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders, received high praise from another Italian Jewish historian, Sergio Luzzatto, in an article in the Corriere della Serra daily entitled "Those Bloody Passovers."
Luzzatto describes Toaff's work as a "magnificent book of history...Toaff holds that from 1100 to about 1500...several crucifixions of Christian children really happened, bringing about retaliations against entire Jewish communities - punitive massacres of men, women, children. Neither in Trent in 1475 nor in other areas of Europe in the late Middle Ages were Jews always innocent victims."
"A minority of fundamentalist Ashkenazis...carried out human sacrifices," Luzzatto continued.
Toaff offers as an example the case of Saint Simonino of Trent. In March 1475, shortly after a child's body was found in a canal near the Jewish area of Trent, the city's Jews were accused of murdering Simonino and using his blood to make matzot.
After a medieval trial in which confessions were extracted by torture, 16 members of Trent's Jewish community were hanged.
Toaff reveals that the accusations against the Jews of Trent "might have been true."
Toaff refers to kabbalistic descriptions of the therapeutic uses of blood and asserts that "a black market flourished on both sides of the Alps, with Jewish merchants selling human blood, complete with rabbinic certification of the product - kosher blood."
Dr. Amos Luzzatto, former president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities said, "I would expect a more serious statement than 'it might have been true.'" He also expressed dismay at the sensationalism with which Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily, treated the issue.
"It is totally inappropriate to utilize declarations extorted under torture centuries ago to reconstruct bizarre and devious historical theses," declared 12 of Italy's chief rabbis in a press release refuting Toaff's claims.
"The only blood spilled in these stories was that of so many innocent Jews, massacred on account of unjust and infamous accusations," the statement continued.
The town of Trent, near the Austrian border, commemorated Simonino's "martyrdom" for five centuries, until, in 1965, the Vatican published the Nostra Aetate, which aimed at extirpating anti-Semitsm from Catholic doctrine. The Bishop of Trent signed a decree proclaiming that the blood libel against the city's Jews of that city was unfounded.
Alessandro Martinelli, the Catholic Church's delegate for Interreligious Dialogue in the Diocese of Trent, recalls a well-documented DVD and historical monograph by historian Diego Quaglioni disproving Jewish responsibility for Simonino's death. A plaque the community had erected to mark the tragedy of the Jews who were martyred called for atonement and reconciliation between Catholics and Jews based on adherence to historical truth.
To all this, Dr. Amos Luzzatto comments, "Even if the author should manage to prove that a deviant sect existed for centuries...clearly it could never be identified as a Jewish group, or as part of a Jewish community. This would be comparable to saying that the rabbis who were present at [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Denial Conference in Teheran represent mainstream Judaism."
Historian gives credence to blood libel
By LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG
ROME
An Israeli historian of Italian origin has revived "blood libel" in an historical study set to hit Italian bookstores on Thursday. Ariel Toaff, son of Rabbi Elio Toaff, claims that there is some historic truth in the accusation that for centuries provided incentives for pogroms against Jews throughout Europe.
Toaff's tome, Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders, received high praise from another Italian Jewish historian, Sergio Luzzatto, in an article in the Corriere della Serra daily entitled "Those Bloody Passovers."
Luzzatto describes Toaff's work as a "magnificent book of history...Toaff holds that from 1100 to about 1500...several crucifixions of Christian children really happened, bringing about retaliations against entire Jewish communities - punitive massacres of men, women, children. Neither in Trent in 1475 nor in other areas of Europe in the late Middle Ages were Jews always innocent victims."
"A minority of fundamentalist Ashkenazis...carried out human sacrifices," Luzzatto continued.
Toaff offers as an example the case of Saint Simonino of Trent. In March 1475, shortly after a child's body was found in a canal near the Jewish area of Trent, the city's Jews were accused of murdering Simonino and using his blood to make matzot.
After a medieval trial in which confessions were extracted by torture, 16 members of Trent's Jewish community were hanged.
Toaff reveals that the accusations against the Jews of Trent "might have been true."
Toaff refers to kabbalistic descriptions of the therapeutic uses of blood and asserts that "a black market flourished on both sides of the Alps, with Jewish merchants selling human blood, complete with rabbinic certification of the product - kosher blood."
Dr. Amos Luzzatto, former president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities said, "I would expect a more serious statement than 'it might have been true.'" He also expressed dismay at the sensationalism with which Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily, treated the issue.
"It is totally inappropriate to utilize declarations extorted under torture centuries ago to reconstruct bizarre and devious historical theses," declared 12 of Italy's chief rabbis in a press release refuting Toaff's claims.
"The only blood spilled in these stories was that of so many innocent Jews, massacred on account of unjust and infamous accusations," the statement continued.
The town of Trent, near the Austrian border, commemorated Simonino's "martyrdom" for five centuries, until, in 1965, the Vatican published the Nostra Aetate, which aimed at extirpating anti-Semitsm from Catholic doctrine. The Bishop of Trent signed a decree proclaiming that the blood libel against the city's Jews of that city was unfounded.
Alessandro Martinelli, the Catholic Church's delegate for Interreligious Dialogue in the Diocese of Trent, recalls a well-documented DVD and historical monograph by historian Diego Quaglioni disproving Jewish responsibility for Simonino's death. A plaque the community had erected to mark the tragedy of the Jews who were martyred called for atonement and reconciliation between Catholics and Jews based on adherence to historical truth.
To all this, Dr. Amos Luzzatto comments, "Even if the author should manage to prove that a deviant sect existed for centuries...clearly it could never be identified as a Jewish group, or as part of a Jewish community. This would be comparable to saying that the rabbis who were present at [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Denial Conference in Teheran represent mainstream Judaism."
Bar-Ilan to order professor to explain research behind blood libel book
By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
Bar-Ilan University on Sunday said it would order Professor Ariel Toaff to explain the research behind his new book about the centuries-old charge that Jews killed Christians in ritual murder.
University historian Toaff has raised a storm by alleging in his book book that some blood libels - accusations that Jews killed Christians in ritual murders to add their blood to matza and wine on Passover - may be based on real ceremonies in which the blood of Christians was actually used.
The university said in a statement that "Bar-Ilan University - its officers and researchers - have condemned, and condemn, any attempt to justify the awful blood libels against Jews."
The university said that as soon as Toaff returned from a trip abroad it would ask him for explanations regarding his research, adding "until then... we should refrain from relying on baseless reports that have been denied by Prof. Toaff himself and which, apparently, lack any connection to the research itself."
"Pasque di Sangue" was just released in Italy. It shocked the country's small Jewish community - in part because he is the son of Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi who welcomed Pope John Paul II to Rome's synagogue two decades ago in a historic visit that helped ease Catholic-Jewish relations after centuries of tensions.
The author, who is considered an international expert on Italian Jewry, delves into allegations that resulted in torture, show trials and executions, periodically devastating Europe's Jewish communities.
Historians have long dismissed the allegations as racism, but blood libel stories remain popular in anti-Semitic literature.
Jewish and Catholic scholars have denounced Toaff's work, saying he simply reinterpreted known documents - and has given credence to confessions extracted under torture.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Toaff responded angrily to his critics, saying, "My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children."
Italian rabbis issued a statement recalling that Jewish law has always banned ingesting blood or using it for rituals.
Toaff's 91-year-old father said he was looking forward to reading his son's book and examining the documents, but stressed that according to the Torah and tradition, the consumption of animal blood was strictly prohibited, not to mention that of humans.
In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Toaff said, "There is no proof that Jews committed such an act." But he added that the confessions do hold some truth - as when the accused recount anti-Christian liturgies that were mainly used on Passover, when the Israelites' liberation from ancient Egypt became a metaphor for Judaism's hope for redemption from its suffering at the hands of Christians.
"These liturgical formulas in Hebrew cannot be projections of the judges who could not know these prayers, which didn't belong to Italian rites but to the Ashkenazi tradition," he said.
The 65-year-old Toaff, a rabbi who holds dual Italian and Israeli citizenship, said, "I wanted to see how the Jews felt in this climate of hatred."
Monsignor Iginio Rogger, a church historian who in the 1960s led the investigation into the murder of a 2-year-old Simon of Trento, for which 16 Jews were hanged, said many scholars have concurred that the confessions were completely unreliable.
"I wouldn't want to be in [Toaff's] shoes, answering for this to historians who have seriously documented this case," he said. "The judges used horrible tortures, to the point where the accused pleaded: 'Tell us what you want us to say.'"
Hebrew University historian Professor Israel J. Yuval, a blood-libel expert, said, "From the information I have received, Professor Toaff's interpretation sounds trumped-up."
The Anti-Defamation League chairman, Abe Foxman, said, "It's hard for me to believe that someone, especially an Israeli historian, would legitimize the baseless claims of the blood libels."
Bar-Ilan University spokesman, Shmulik Algrabli, said, "Professor Toaff is one of the greatest scholars in his field, and we have confidence in his scientific method. The contentions of the study will be clarified when the author returns to Israel."
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