Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of zionists claim that online rhetoric surrounding Israel, and specifically accusations of it intentionally killing Palestinians, is blood libel. I think this warrants a discussion of what blood libel actually is, how it’s legitimately applied today, and how zionists claiming “charges of genocide against Israel are blood libel” damages conversations about antisemitic tropes. I’ll probably cover other antisemitic canards (such as well-poisoning) another time, since they’re also frequently weaponized by zionists to shield Israel from legitimate accusations of wrongdoing.
History and Background
Blood libel is an antisemitic canard that accuses Jewish people of ritual murder and blood sacrifice, specifically that we kill Christians to use their blood for various rituals. Many of the historic accusations of blood libel suggest that Jews use the blood of Christians to bake Passover matzah. Primarily, though, the accusations of blood libel sprang up when a Christian child (often a young boy) went missing or was killed in a town. The local Jewish community would be blamed, often by the actual perpetrators (if a crime had taken place at all), and Jews would be brutally tortured until a confession was given. Sometimes, the specifics of these accusations tied into deicide, another antisemitic trope blaming all Jews throughout all of time for the crucifixion of Jesus. Jews are frequently used as scapegoats for countless disasters throughout history, and the death of young children is no exception.
Though the first documented occurrence of blood libel dates back to 40 BCE, the examples we usually see originate from Europe in the Middle Ages, where it was an incredibly dangerous time and place to be Jewish. Blood libel was used alongside various other antisemitic canards to justify the mass-murder and expulsion of Jewish people, especially from Central and Western Europe, like modern-day England, France, and Germany (who is always at the scene of the crime).
In 1144, Jews in Norwich, England were accused of blood libel after a young boy named William was found to have been stabbed to death on Good Friday. A monk named Thomas of Monmouth wrote The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich about the murder of the boy and the alleged miracles occurring near his burial site. It’s his fabrication that solidified the rumors of blood libel stirring in Norwich. William was treated as a Christian martyr (someone killed for being Christian/professing love for Jesus) and even canonized as a saint. A cult began to form around him not long after that.
After several more instances of blood libel popped up in England in the following decades, the pogroms started. Jewish communities across the country were raided and their people massacred. A few decades after the death of Hugh of Lincoln, another young boy who was killed in 1255, England expelled its entire Jewish population in 1290 and they were not allowed to return until 1657, four hundred years later.
Another notable case of blood libel – perhaps the most famous – occurred after the death of a two-year-old boy in modern-day Italy, Simon of Trent. Simon was killed in 1475 and like a majority of other children used in blood libel accusations, was venerated as a saint. His cult spread throughout Europe and to this day, I’ve still seen him referenced by antisemitic Christians.
Blood libels have persisted throughout time since then, including being published in Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer. Though their more modern iterations haven’t really resulted in the mass-murder or expulsion of Jews, like all antisemitic tropes, they’re still extremely dangerous and we absolutely should take great lengths to avoid them.
Modern Applications
Now with the background on blood libel accusations of the past, we can see what they look like today. The most common example I can think of is the adrenochrome conspiracy theory, a popular one amongst the QAnon crowd. The adrenochrome conspiracy posits that “Hollywood elites” participate in child-trafficking rings to harvest their blood for adrenochrome, which would allegedly make them immortal somehow. Of course, the usage of “elites” makes it easier for the promoters of these antisemitic conspiracy theories to deny that they’re talking about Jews, but dogwhistles are very common with contemporary antisemitism (which we’ll discuss more in depth another time).
The trope has also “accidentally” been regurgitated by modern media plenty of times. I think this may sometimes be unintended, because of how antisemitic tropes have worked their way into acceptable public consciousness, but it’s still negligence on the part of the creators. A good example would be Inside Job on Netflix (see this article about why). Or perhaps Roald Dahl’s The Witches (but this one’s not really hard to put together considering Dahl was a raging antisemite). Disney’s Tangled suffers enormously from the Jewish-coding of Mother Gothel, in appearance and behavior and using her blonde-haired, stolen child’s powers to keep herself young.
It can also sometimes be applied to vampire media in particular, and it’s definitely not uncommon for there to be a connection between vampire imagery and antisemitism, but that’s something I’ll cover another time.
What Blood Libel is Not
Blood libel absolutely is a trope that still exists today in the media we consume, but that doesn’t mean the label of “blood libel” can be ascribed to something that doesn’t fit in with the libel itself. Today, Israel has leveled the accusation of blood libel against South Africa for describing the attacks on Gaza as “genocide” as South Africa attempts to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice. The same accusations are regularly directed towards anyone else being vocally pro-Palestine.
Accusing supporters of Palestine of blood libel for pointing out that Israel is committing genocide is a blatant attempt to take legitimacy away from these statements. None of these discussions bring up ritual murder or consumption of blood, which are very key parts of categorizing a claim as blood libel. Zionists also pretend any “blood libel accusation” against Israel is the same as one being made against Jews in general; it’s not. Israel is a militaristic, apartheid state that commits atrocities in the name of the Jewish people, but it is not “us”.
Most importantly, the genocide of Palestinians is actually happening. There is an overwhelming amount of photo and video evidence documenting the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, along with testimonies from the people involved, including admissions from the perpetrators themselves.
Another consequence of unjustly accusing people of antisemitism is that antisemitism is taken less seriously, or legitimate accusations of antisemitism are met with denial or indifference. I would argue that this is intentional, because Israel relies heavily on the lack of safety of Jews in diaspora to legitimize itself.
By combatting antisemitism in all its forms worldwide, we make sure that Israel can no longer claim to be the only safe place in the world for us. We will thrive where we are, and education about antisemitism is imperative to that goal.
Sources
Passover and Blood Libels | My Jewish Learning
The Adrenochrome Conspiracy Theory—Pushed By ‘Sound Of Freedom’ Star—Explained (forbes.com)
Does Netflix’s ‘Inside Job’ encourage antisemitic conspiracy theorists? – The Forward
Israel-Hamas war: List of key events, day 85 | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
Republished from the author’s blog, Doikayt Delivered.
