A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel

by Levin, Edmund

  Abbreviations

  GAKO (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Kievskoi Oblasti)

  GAKO-DpdB (GAKO-Dokumenty po delu Beilisa)

  STEN (Delo Beilisa: Stenographicheskii Otchet)

  Archival Notation

  f. fond (collection)

  d. delo (file)

  op. opis’ (inventory)

  l. list (folio)

  ob. oborot (verso)

  Preface

  1. “The Yids have tortured”: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 17.

  2. Protocols: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion originated in Russia and were originally spread in the West after the Russian revolution by Russian émigrés. Their fabrication has generally been ascribed to the Russian secret police, but recent scholarship has raised serious doubts about that theory. See Michael Hagemeister, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction,” New German Critique 103, vol. 35, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 83–95; Ruud and Stepanov, in Fontanka 16, “conclusively rule out police involvement,” p. 215.

  3. A hundred years: Weinberg, “The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe,” pp. 284–85.

  4. Beilis case has been strangely neglected: Samuel’s Blood Accusation has been considered the standard account; Robert Weinberg’s Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis is an excellent collection of documents with narrative introductions to each chapter; until the present work, Tager, Tsarskaia Rossiia i delo Beilisa (Tsarist Russia and the Beilis Case), first published in 1933, was the only full-length, nonfiction account of the case based on primary sources; Katsis, Krovavyi navet, comprises an exhaustive analysis of the trial testimony on religion; Pidzharenko’s Ne ritual’noe ubiistvo is an odd mixture of fictional recreations with original documents, some of them available nowhere else.

  5. “master libel”: Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, p. 69.

  6. Middle East: The Syrian defense minister, Mustafa Tlas, wrote a book called The Matzah of Zion in 1986, which was being reprinted and cited into the 2000s. From an October 2001 article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram: “The bestial drive to knead Passover matzahs with the blood of non-Jews is [confirmed] in the records of the Palestinian police where there are many recorded cases of the bodies of Arab children who had disappeared being found, torn to pieces without a single drop of blood. The most reasonable explanation is that the blood was taken to be kneaded into the dough of extremist Jews to be used in matzahs to be devoured during Passover.” Such references can be found ad nauseam. Judith Apter Klinghoffer, “Blood Libel,” History News Network, December 19, 2006, http://hnn.us/articles/664.html; Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, pp. 96–101; Frankel, The Damascus Affair, p. 419. (The cover of Tlas’s book is reproduced on p. 421. Frankel transliterates the name as Talas.) Less than three years before he became president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi described Zionists as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.” David D. Kirkpatrick, “Morsi’s Slurs Against Jews Stir Concern,” New York Times, January 14, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/world/middleeast/egypts-leader-morsi-made-anti-jewish-slurs.html?_r=0.

  1. “Why Should I Be Afraid?”

  1. buried treasure: Stepanov, Chernaia Sotnia (1992), p. 266.

  2. caves had been uncovered: Evropeiskaia Rossiia: Illiustrirovannyi geograficheskii, sbornik (Moscow: I.I. Kushnerov i ko., 1909), p. 419; Vladimir Antonovich, “Kiev v dokhristianskoe vremia,” in Moia spovid’: Vibrani istorichni ta publistichni tvori (Kiev: Lybid’, 1995), p. 578, http://litopys.org.ua/anton/ant22.htm.

  3. pulverize the stone to powder: Antonovich, “Kiev,” p. 578.

  4. two thousand human skeletons: “Kiev,” Encylopaedia Britannica, vol. 15, p. 788.

  5. “Lukianovka children’s games”: STEN I, p. 605, reproducing: Kievskaia Mysl’, “Zagadochnaia Ubiistvo na Luk’ianovke” (“A Mysterious Murder in Lukianovka”), March 22, 1911.

  6. crest of the slope: description draws on Vladimir Korolenko, “1. Na Luk’ianovke (vo vremia dela Beilisa),” subheading VI, published in October 1913. Korolenko’s articles about the case were published in a number of Russian newspapers, including Rech’ and Russkie Viedmosti. http://ldn-knigi.lib.ru/JUDAICA/Korol_Stat.htm.

  7. The entrance to the cave: Description of the discovery of the body draws on the indictment, depositions, and witness testimony in STEN I. Indictment, pp. 17–21; Elandsky, pp. 115–17; Sinitsky, pp. 118–21.

  8. “It’s Goblin”: STEN I, p. 304.

  9. avoided saying his last name: Statement of Georgy Konovalov, GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 387.

  10. insisting: Statement of Konovalov, GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 387; statement of Vladimir Kostiuchenko, GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 184, op. 5, d. 4, l. 399; also statement of Polishchuk, GAKO-DpdB (reel 2) f. 2, op. 229, d. 264, l. 63.

  11. “Why should I be afraid”: STEN I, p. 362.

  12. borscht: STEN I, p. 86.

  13. “very receptive”: STEN I, p. 54.

  14. Pavel Pushka, saw Andrei: STEN I, p. 69.

  15. bought for thirty kopeks: STEN I, p. 46.

  16. lamplighter named Kazimir Shakhovsky: based on Shakhovsky’s testimony and depositions in STEN I, pp. 172–79.

  17. The neighbor delivered: Beilis, My Sufferings, pp. 26–27.

  18. done the priest: Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 25.

  19. “beaten our millionaires”: Meir, Kiev, p. 126.

  20. Jonah Zaitsev, a sugar magnate: Meir, Kiev, p. 226.

  21. “The Yids have tortured”: The translation is based on Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 17, and Weinberg, Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia, chapter 1, document 8.

  22. Nikolai Pavlovich: Stepanov, Chernaia Sotnia (2005), p. 361.

  23. “consumed by a sense of doom”: Lincoln, In War’s Dark Shadow, p. x.

  24. “smell of burning”: Lincoln, In War’s Dark Shadow, p. 386.

  25. living “on a volcano”: Pipes, Russian Revolution, p. 194; Rogger, “Russia in 1914,” p. 95.

  26. “a mad chauffeur”: David Christian, Imperial Power and Soviet Russia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 170; Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 276.

  27. strong fatalism: Steinberg, “Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intellectual Portrait,” pp. 13–14.

  28. “salient characteristic”: Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 114; Fuhrmann, Rasputin, p. 16.

  29. official badges: Lincoln, In War’s Dark Shadow, p. 331.

  30. modern political terrorism: Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill, p. 21.

  31. “sign of good manners”: Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill, p. 42.

  32. Contrary to suspicions: This is the consensus of the last generation of scholarship despite reasonable suspicions to the contrary. See Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms.

  33. “how the pogroms happened”: “Conclusion and Overview,” in Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, p. 344.

  34. “Mad Monk” Iliodor: For a fascinating account of his rise and fall and Tsar Nicholas’s attitude toward him, see Dixon, “The ‘Mad Monk’ Iliodor.”

  35. “Jews as a race of superhuman”: Langer, “Corruption and Counterrevolution,” p. 137.

  36. “delicate, beautiful”: Dixon, “Mad Monk,” p. 377.

  37. “filthy” songs: Dixon, “Mad Monk,” p. 396.

  38. losing all sense of reality: Contemporary observers viewed Iliodor as a warning sign of the regime’s decay. The monk, in the opinion of Count A. A. Uvarov, revealed “the astonishing lack of resistance to evil exhibited by the clergy, and especially the civil power.” As Dixon argues, it says much about the regime that such a figure was allowed to become “a disruptive political instrument.” Dixon, “Mad Monk,” p. 413.

  39. self-destruct: Just a few years later Iliodor scandalized the right by recanting his reactionary, anti-Semitic views and writing a sensational, confessional autobiography. He moved to America, starred as himself in a silent film, The Fall of the Romanoffs, got into a lawsuit over the rights to his story,
then moved back to Russia, then returned to America in 1923, and became a Baptist preacher. He died in New York in 1952. See Dixon, “Mad Monk,” pp. 409–13.

  40. “walked the halls alone”: STEN I, p. 58.

  41. “There were times when Andrusha’s mother”: STEN I, p. 301.

  42. “I know that Alexandra”: STEN I, p. 400.

  43. “Since I had no children”: STEN I, p. 87.

  44. “I would scream”: STEN I, p. 88.

  45. “They broke everything”: STEN I, p. 84.

  46. “because of a nosebleed”: Stepanov, Chernaia Sotnia (1992), p. 269.

  47. “didn’t know whether to live or die”: STEN I, p. 111.

  48. had long known: Beilis’s wife, Esther, recalled having an altercation in a store with Cheberyak who she said called her a “zhidovka,” the feminine of “Yid.” Esther had heard from her neighbors that “in the house she’s the man and her husband is the woman.” Rech’, September 25, 1913.

  2. “The Vendetta of the Sons of Jacob”

  1. “cold and cloudy weather”: Kievlianin, April 10, 1911.

  2. “Why should we worry about cholera”: Hamm, Kiev, p. 48.

  3. “blood of the unfortunate Yushchinskys”: Moskovskie Vedomosti, April 23, 1911.

  4. Fenenko had been assigned: GAKO DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 4.

  5. indication that Fenenko was chosen: Materialy Chrezvychainoi, p. 92; Rech’, September 22, 1913.

  6. Fenenko regarded his integrity: Shulgin, The Years, 116; Margolin, Jews of Eastern Europe, pp. 161, 164.

  7. autopsy report: V. M. Bekhterev, “The Iushchinskii Murder,” pp. 24–33.

  8. the first wounds: V. M. Bekhterev, “The Iushchinskii Murder,” pp. 10–14.

  9. minister of justice was being copied: Pidzharenko, Ne ritual’noe, p. 13.

  10. public requiem for Andrei: Pidzharenko, Ne ritual’noe, pp. 22, 31.

  11. The authorities did not want a pogrom: Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, pp. 231, 348; E. Semenoff, The Russian Government and the Massacres, pp. 193–94.

  12. owe his position to the empress Alexandra: Gerasimov, Na lezvii, p. 171; Fuller, The Foe Within, p. 89; Stepanov, Zagadki, p. 162.

  13. “pogrom must be avoided”: Ruud and Stepanov, Fontanka 16, p. 249 (Russian edition, p. 304).

  14. “inflames people’s passions”: Novyi Voskhod (1911) no. 17; Lowe, The Tsars and the Jews, p. 287.

  15. “Black Hundred idealist”: Stepanov, Chernaia (2005), 367.

  16. William of Norwich: This section draws heavily on Langmuir, Toward a Definition, pp. 209–36. There are two accounts in antiquity of ritual murder by Jews, but Langmuir argues that they played no role in the creation of the medieval myth. The first dates to the second century B.C. during the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes who, on sacking the Temple in Jerusalem, supposedly learned that Jews had the custom of fattening up and eating a Greek (obviously not Christian) captive. The story was repeated and embellished by the first-century Greek sophist Apion and refuted by the Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his Against Apion. The second account, and first known accusation of the ritual murder of a Christian, dates to around A.D. 415 in Inmestar in Syria. During Purim celebrations there, Jews were said to have so abused a Christian boy, tied to a cross to represent the biblical villain Haman, that he died. Neither tale gained wide currency. See Langmuir, Toward a Definition, pp. 212–16.

  17. “did not alter the course”: Langmuir, Toward a Definition, pp. 234–35.

  18. “a certain poor maid-servant”: Quotes about William of Norwich are from Langmuir, Toward a Definition, p. 222, and Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles, pp. 28, 93–94.

  19. Chaucer’s story: In the words of Alan Dundes, there is “little doubt that the most famous literary articulation of Jewish ritual murder is Chaucer’s ‘The Prioress’s Tale’ ” (The Blood Libel Legend, p. 91). Strictly speaking, it is not an example of the blood libel, since there is no mention in it of the draining or ingesting of blood. Chaucer, though, may well have been aware of that charge against the Jews, given that it had already been in existence for a century and a half.

  20. Fulda: Langmuir, Toward a Definition, pp. 264–65, 275, 278; Strack, The Jew and Human Sacrifice, pp. 179, 240–41.

  21. papal bull from Innocent IV: Langmuir, Toward a Definition, p. 265; Smith, The Butcher’s Tale, p. 94.

  22. most reliable count: Smith, The Butcher’s Tale, p. 123. For the best overview of the history and sources of the blood accusation, see Smith, chapter 3, pp. 91–133.

  23. “Golubev has quieted down”: Tager, Tsarskaia, p. 66.

  24. On April 18: Tager, Tsarskaia, p. 67.

  25. Black Hundred thugs: Haynt, April 28, 1911, p. 2.

  26. Jews and Gentiles could mix easily: Meir, Kiev, p. 203.

  27. “Bronze Horseman”: Stepanov, Chernaia (1995), p. 123.

  28. views were extreme: Lowe, The Tsars, p. 286.

  29. “pursue the whole malignant sect”: Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 84–85.

  30. boisterous floor fight: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 27.

  31. “most fearful two days”: Haynt, May 8, 1911.

  32. Liadov—vice director: Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 86–87. In Materialy Chrezvychainoi—depositions of Liadov, pp. 68–71; Fenenko, pp. 56–58; Chaplinsky, p. 208.

  33. ritual-murder theory: Haynt, May 13, 1911.

  34. “patiently refrain”: Haynt, May 8, 1911, p. 2.

  35. record was disturbingly mixed: Klier, The Blood Libel, p. 14. Klier’s article is available in English only in an unpublished manuscript. It was published in Russian as: “Krovavyi navet v Russkoi pravoslavnoi traditsii,” in M. Dimitriev, ed., Evrei i khristiane v pravoslavnykh obshchestvakh vostochnoi evropy, pp. 181–205 (Moscow: Indrik, 2011).

  36. David Blondes: “Blondes, David Abramovich,” Evreiskaia entsiklopediia Brokgauza i Efrona, http://brockhaus-efron-jewish-encyclopedia.ru/beje/02-7/014.htm.

  37. the “Christian Letters”: GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, 1. 413–418.

  38. “At the market they’re saying”: Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 89–90.

  39. “Now it seems to me”: Tager, Tsarskaia, p. 88.

  40. “if the Jews were beaten up”: Materialy Chrezvychainoi, p. 56.

  41. danger of a pogrom: GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 32.

  42. Brandorf recommended: GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 22, 22 ob.

  43. spiritual awakening: On the imperial couple’s mental world, see Mark Steinberg’s superb “Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intellectual Portrait.” On spiritual life and God-seeking: Steinberg, “Russia’s Fin de Siècle,” pp. 80–81; on lower classes, Steinberg, Proletarian Imagination, pp. 228–29, and Steinberg and Coleman, “Introduction” in Sacred Stories.

  44. Nizier-Vachod: Steinberg, “Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intellectual Portrait,” p. 12.

  45. Sikorsky’s worldview: Menzhulin, Drugoi Sikorskii, pp. 243, 311, 320–22.

  46. races could be divided into two types: Menzhulin, Drugoi, p. 317.

  47. “hereditary degeneration”: Menzhulin, Drugoi, p. 155.

  48. “but gone rotten”: Menzhulin, Drugoi, pp. 25–26.

  49. fanatical anti-Semitism: Menzhulin, Drugoi, pp. 371–73.

  50. Their autopsy report differed: STEN II, pp. 245–46.

  51. Ambrosius: STEN II, pp. 144–45; GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 170 ob.

  52. “racial revenge and vendetta”: STEN I, p. 30.

  53. “a certain Yid”: Tager, Tsarskaia, 90; Stepanov, Chernaia (2005), p. 367.

  3. “A Certain Jew Mendel”

  1. “By order of”: STEN II, p. 536.

  2. “King of Thieves”: “Korol’ vorov,” Rannee Utro, November 12, 1908, http://starosti.ru/article.php?id=16887; Stepanov, Zagadki, p. 213.

  3. “It seemed as if a dark cloud”: Shulgin, The Years, p. 62.

  4. Krasovsky displayed: Pidzharenko, Kriminal’nyi sysk Kieva, pp. 20
4–38.

  5. Tallish and kindly: Stepan Kondurushkin, “Vpechatleniia,” Rech’, October 14, 1913.

  6. defendants appealed for help: U Tolstogo, 1904–1910: Iasnopolianskie zapiski D.P. Makovitskogo, vol. 3. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo nauka, 1979), p. 241.

  7. Tolstoy told: New York Times, August 9, 1908, p. SM6.

  8. “intrigues and trouble”: STEN I, p. 536.

  9. “regarding the factual side”: Tager, Tsarskaia, 94.

  10. “Worldwide Yid”: Russkoe Znamia, May 14, 1911.

  11. “was not distinguished by”: Materialy Chrezvychainoi, p. 91.

  12. detailed survey: STEN I, pp. 542–44.

  13. “one of his own”: STEN I, p. 161.

  14. having an affair: STEN I, p. 398.

  15. “promissory note”: STEN I, p. 97; GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 69.

  16. Chirkov: STEN I, pp. 21, 41, 87.

  17. “not especially reputable”: STEN I, p. 66.

  18. Alexandra would often boast: STEN I, p. 99.

  19. lived on the interest: GAKO f. 864, op. 10, d. 5, l. 10.

  20. Alexandra had behaved quite suspiciously: STEN I, p. 131.

  21. the police arrested Fyodor: STEN I, p. 561. Suspicion about him, STEN, p. 161; GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 68 ob.–69 ob.

  22. Yashchenko: STEN I, pp. 140, 539; Rech’, September 30, 1913.

  23. “He ended his investigation”: Stepanov, Chernaia (1992), p. 274.

  24. “Nezhinsky’s story”: GAKO-DpdB (reel 3) f. 183, op. 5, d. 4, l. 72–73.

  25. Father Glagolev: Kal’nitskii, “Ekspertiza professora Glagoleva,” p. 164.

  26. sat himself down: Mikhailov memoir, pp. 6–9. This memoir, by a tsarist officer named Vasily Alexandrovich Mikhailov, is based on notes of a conversation with Mishchuk in 1918 when both were fleeing the Bolsheviks. The memoir, composed many years later, contains factual errors about the Beilis case but has the palpable feel of truth when relating Mishchuk’s personal experiences.