Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis [Paperback]

On Sunday, March 20, 1911, children playing in a cave near Kiev made a gruesome discovery: the blood-soaked body of a partially clad boy. After right-wing groups asserted that the killing was a ritual murder, the police, with no direct evidence, arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish manager at a factory near the site of the crime. Beilis's trial in 1913 quickly became an international cause c?l?bre. The jury ultimately acquitted Beilis but held that the crime had the hallmarks of a ritual murder. Robert Weinberg's account of the Beilis Affair explores the reasons why the tsarist government framed Beilis, shedding light on the excesses of antisemitism in late Imperial Russia. Primary documents culled from the trial transcript, newspaper articles, Beilis's memoirs, and archival sources, many appearing in English for the first time, bring readers face to face with this notorious trial.

Weinbergs research is based on a wealth of published and unpublished sources, including trial transcripts, newspaper articles, political cartoons and Beiliss memoirs. . . This is an excellent historical reconstruction told in a gripping and deeply engaging style.Feb/March 2015Lucidly written, well argued, and rich with primary source material . . . the story unfolds like a gripping detective novel. . . . It is social history at its finest.This concisely written book forcefully tells the story of the outrageous ritual murder trial of Mendel Beilis in Kiev. Through careful review of published and unpublished sources . . . the author lays out the process resulting in a trial during which the state prosecution attempted to convict the entire Jewish religion of the crime of ritual murder. . . What concerns the author is that readers should come to recognize the power of prejudice, hatred, fear, and suspicion, combined with state interest, to suppress challenges to traditional authority.11/14/14

Robert Weinberg is Professor of History at Swarthmore College and author lS¨