Italian Jewish historian confirms'' blood libel'' theory

[GreekAmerican]

:cantbeli: :cantbeli: :cantbeli: :cantbeli:


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.


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1170359806416&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Javehn]

A . Blood can't be kosher . That's why it is forbidden to eat meat with any sign of blood in it .

B. Wass de heil ?

[Hollis]

A . Blood can't be kosher . That's why it is forbidden to eat meat with any sign of blood in it .

B. Wass de heil ?

That is the bases of how a lie survives and grows, ignorance.

[Thor]

The son of a rabbi would probably not publish a book attacking his own community without a viable theory.

[Hollis]

The son of a rabbi would probably not publish a book attacking his own community without a viable theory.

Could be, one never knows with people or "recorded information". He could have been a member of some bizarre cult, religious weirdo, misquoted, hateful of his dad... again who knows. The prohibitions against blood, is pretty well spelt out in Judaism.

As with all people, individuals can act out in the highest sense of ethics to the worse that human can do regardless of faith, philosophy or self proclaimed morality.

[tanks_alot]

The son of a rabbi would probably not publish a book attacking his own community without a viable theory.

From what i've heard in the mroning news, he is basing it on medieval records of jews supposedly admitting to those acts. problem is that anyone could have wrriten those records and that if you'll give me 2 hours in a room with someone, i'm fairly certain i could get that person to put in writing that he is in fact an incarnation of Satan and that he should be hanged for it.

[Doublethinker]

That's one fishy story.

The story about humanc sacrifices practiced by some Orthodox Jewish groups rang in all Russia after the "Bailey's case", when a Jew was accused of sacrificing a child as part of some ancient ritual.
Don't know if its true, but these accusating aren't really new.

[Connaught Ranger]

:cantbeli: :cantbeli: :cantbeli: :cantbeli: 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.

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."

So confessions extracted by torture and the use of the words "SOME" & "MIGHT" now means they did it!!!!:roll:

Connaught Ranger

[Hollis]

So confessions extracted by torture and the use of the words "SOME" & "MIGHT" now means they did it!!!!:roll:

Connaught Ranger


I agree the first sign of guilt is denial.............

[Doublethinker]

Russian investigation established that the murder of a child DID happen for some obvious religious purposes, but Baileys was let go due to lack of evidence to prove that he was exactly the one guilty of the murder and as historical notes specify "to prevent this from turning into a massive Pogrom", because if it proved true and the results were brought to a public eye, the results for the Jewish community would have been disastrous, they'd probably be annihilated.

[Doublethinker]

In fact, it is still debated whether jews have human sacrifices of non-jews. Dark and eerie topic.

[Thor]

From what i've heard in the mroning news, he is basing it on medieval records of jews supposedly admitting to those acts. problem is that anyone could have wrriten those records and that if you'll give me 2 hours in a room with someone, i'm fairly certain i could get that person to put in writing that he is in fact an incarnation of Satan and that he should be hanged for it.
I hope it doesn't come as a surprise for you, but in medieval Europe people did horrible, horrendous acts against other human beings.

I don't think italians, jews or any other ethnic group was excepted.

[Connaught Ranger]

I hope it doesn't come as a surprise for you, but in medieval Europe people did horrible, horrendous acts against other human beings.

I don't think italians, jews or any other ethnic group was excepted.

I agree with the above, after all look what the Spanish managed to do with the Inqusition against their own people and the Jewish community.

Connaught Ranger

[AROUETLJ]

I agree with the above, after all look what the Spanish managed to do with the Inqusition against their own people and the Jewish community.

Connaught Ranger


The Inquisition dealt with Catholics, not Jews. Careful with your history when putting the blame on certain organisations.

[tanks_alot]

I hope it doesn't come as a surprise for you, but in medieval Europe people did horrible, horrendous acts against other human beings.

I don't think italians, jews or any other ethnic group was excepted.

.... my point is that the supposed records that were taken out by torture from a prescuated minority are not exactly proof enough to claim that jews actualy commited the blood tales that they accused off.

tortured people will say anything to make the torture stop and if someone is going to touch such a sensitive subject, he might want to back it up with other historical evidence.

Not to mention the obvious, that according to judaism, people aren't Kosher and neither is blood of any kind.

[Connaught Ranger]

The Inquisition dealt with Catholics, not Jews. Careful with your history when putting the blame on certain organisations.

So according to YOU the SPANISH Inguisition didnt "interview" people of the Jewish persuasion, along with "interviewing" Jews who had converted to the Catholic persuasion, or Jews who were intermarried??

And of course they never "interviewed" anybody, who was not a Catholic or a so called "Heratic" Protestant:roll:

And as far as I am concerned the Spanish Inqusition was nothing short of being Religious Fanatics.

And the original quote was:
I hope it doesn't come as a surprise for you, but in medieval Europe people did horrible, horrendous acts against other human beings.

Although the Jews who continued practicing their religion were not an object of persecution on the part of Holy Office, they were a target of suspicion because it was thought that they urged conversos to practice their former faith: in the trial at Santo Niño de la Guardia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Santo_Ni%C3%B1o_de_la_Guardia&action=edit) in 1491, two Jews and six conversos were condemned to be burned for practicing a supposedly blasphemous ritual.
On March 31 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_31), 1492 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1492), scarcely three months after the reconquest concluded with the fall of the last Nazari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazari) Kingdom of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella promulgated a decree ordering the expulsion of Jews from all their kingdoms. Jewish subjects were given until July 31 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_31) of the same year to choose between accepting baptism and leaving the country definitively.

Although the decree allowed them to take all their possessions with them, land-holdings, of course, had to be sold, and gold, silver and coined money were forfeited. The reason given to justify this measure was that the proximity of unconverted Jews served as a reminder of their former faith and seduced many conversos into relapsing and returning to the practice of Judaism.

A delegation of Jews, headed by Isaac Abravanel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Abravanel), offered a large sum to the monarchs as compensation for the revocation of the edict. It is believed that the kings rejected the offer under pressure of the Inquisitor General. It is said that he burst into the room and threw thirty pieces of silver on the table, asking what would be the price this time to sell Jesus to the Jews. Although likely apocryphal, along the margins of this story one sees the influence of the Inquisition on the idea of the expulsion of the Jews.

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

Wether they were physicaly tortured or physicaly removed from their homes forefiting their property and possessions and forced out of Spain as paupers, to me it was wrong.
It is also dicumented that many of those who were converted sometimes forcibly were always suspect of practising their former beliefs and had to endure "interviews" by Inquisitors.

Connaught Ranger.

[AROUETLJ]

So according to YOU the SPANISH Inguisition didnt "interview" people of the Jewish persuasion, along with "interviewing" Jews who had converted to the Catholic persuasion, or Jews who were intermarried??

And of course they never "interviewed" anybody, who was not a Catholic or a so called "Heratic" Protestant:roll:


Converted Jews yes, Jews no. Now you'll write back to tell me I'm an apologist for the Spanish Inquisition.

[GreekAmerican]

the Inguisition manual :

THE
MALLEUS MALEFICARUM


The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer), first published in 1486, is arguably one of the most infamous books ever written, due primarily to its position and regard during the Middle Ages. It served as a guidebook for Inquisitors during the Inquisition, and was designed to aid them in the identification, prosecution, and dispatching of Witches. It set forth, as well, many of the modern misconceptions and fears concerning witches and the influence of witchcraft. The questions, definitions, and accusations it set forth in regard to witches, which were reinforced by its use during the Inquisition, came to be widely regarded as irrefutable truth


http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/



this place gives me chills :)

[Connaught Ranger]

"If the cap fits wear it" . . . . . . Auld Irish saying. . .

"Those (Jews) who remained enlarged the group of conversos, who were the principal concern of the Inquisition. Given that all the Jews who remained in the kingdoms of Spain had been baptized, continuing to practice Judaism put them at risk of being denounced. Given that during the three months prior to the expulsion there were numerous baptisms, some 40,000 if one accepts the totals given by Kamen, one can logically assume that a large number of them were not sincere, but were simply a result of necessity to avoid the expulsion decree.

The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted through 1530. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials lowered significantly, down to 3% of the total.

There was a rebirth of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews was discovered in Quintanar de la Orden (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quintanar_de_la_Orden&action=edit) in 1588; and the last decade of the 16th century saw a rise in denunciations of conversos.

At the beginning of the 17th century, some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Inquisition) that was founded in 1532. This translated into a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691, during a number of Autos de Fe in Mallorca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallorca), 36 chuetas, or conversos of Mallorca, were burned.

During the 18th century, the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition dropped significantly. The last trial of a crypto-Jew was of Manuel Santiago Vivar (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manuel_Santiago_Vivar&action=edit), which took place in Cordoba in 1818.

Connaught Ranger.

[Sevryn]

I knew it, so the jews did do it. :fork:

[Moledet]

The Inquisition dealt with Catholics, not Jews. Careful with your history when putting the blame on certain organisations.
Yeah, because as far as they saw it, there were no Jews in Spain or Portugal they were all "baptized".

Dunno if you know this, but the Jews that fled Spain to Portugal served the kingdom for years until one day the king of Portugal wished to marry his son with a Spanish princess, the Spaniards told him to get rid of all the Jews.
Because the king knew it will be a huge blow to the kingdom (after all most of the talented craftsmen were Jewish) he tricked them. He called all of them to the main square and told them to bring all their belongings and he will send them on a ship somewhere. All the Jews came there and then thousands of priests surrounded them and sprayed water on them and in that way "baptized" them.

Of course later the inquisition monitored the new "Catholics".

[Atlantic Friend]

What would really shock me would be if there was NO truth whatsoever in a claim that ancient religious rites could have a very historical and very sinister aspect.

From the very beginning of recorded time, religion has dealt with the old and bloody mysteries of life, death, suffering, crime, and punishment. Of course there are some sinister apects to this, in every religion, and Judaism is only one of them.

[Palmach]

I have a couple points to make about this.

1. The guy is being nailed to a ... well, Maged Dovid, before anyone has read the book, based almost exclusively on a single review. Can't help but to feel bad for him.

2. It is truely sad that unbiased scholarship of Jewish history became so difficult. Any sort of negative information that might be discovered, no matter how benign, immidiately becomes a polemical ammunition for the usual suspects, which in term forces the Jewish community to react in an explicitly hostile manner to the publication of such information. Naturally, not many scholars want to have these tzores in their lives. Obviously, I am talking about honest historians, rather then political hacks - Peppe, Shlaim,Teddy Katz, and the rest of their ilk.

Yet I can not blaim the Jewish communities that are cognisant of the dangers such information might bring to them, which is also quite upsetting: somehow the wholesale slaughter that took place in various parts of Europe over the last 1000 years does not reflect on the modern Europeans, but crap, 6 jewish that might've done something bad in the 1400s, well, that is reason enough to bash someone's head in :(

[Moledet]

Historian stops publication of book on ‘blood libels’

Professor Ariel Toaff decides to halt distribution of his book studying Jewish blood libels in Middle Ages after it was interpreted as justifying anti-Semitic accusations. Bar-Ilan University slams book’s 'insensitivity and harm to Judaism'


Professor Ariel Toaff has decided to halt distribution of his book on Jewish blood libels in the Middle Ages after it was interpreted as justifying anti-Semitic accusations.


Toaff, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, released an official statement expressing his deepest apologies for what he considered to be the “horrible distortions” and misunderstandings of his book, "Pasque di Sangue" (Bloody Passovers) released in Italy. The book's publication and reception caused an uproar in the Jewish world.


“I extend my sincerest apologies to all those who were offended by the articles and twisted facts that were attributed to me and to my book,” the statement read.


Toaff, a rabbi who holds dual Italian and Israeli citizenship, said he directed the Italian El-Molino publishing house to stop distribution in order that he may “re-edit those passages which comprised the basis of the distortions and falsehoods that have been published in the media.”

“I am taking these steps in order to prevent the further misuse of my book as anti-Semitic propaganda,” the statement said.


Toaff also promised to donate all forthcoming funds from the sale of his book to the Anti-Defamation League to express his “profound regret regarding the misrepresentations that were attributed to me and which hurt the Jewish people.”


Immediately following its publication and exploitation by anti-Semitic elements to justify blood libels against the Jews, Bar-Ilan University expressed its “severe reservations” concerning the controversial book.


The university released a statement

expressing

“great anger and extreme displeasure at Prof. Ariel Toaff, for his lack of sensitivity in publishing his book about blood libels in Italy.


“Prof. Toaff should have demonstrated greater sensitivity and caution in his handling of the book and its publication, in a manner that would have prevented the distorted and offensive reports and interpretations,” the statement said.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3365249,00.html

[Bandeirante]

A delegation of Jews, headed by Isaac Abravanel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Abravanel), offered a large sum to the monarchs as compensation for the revocation of the edict. It is believed that the kings rejected the offer under pressure of the Inquisitor General. It is said that he burst into the room and threw thirty pieces of silver on the table, asking what would be the price this time to sell Jesus to the Jews. Although likely apocryphal, along the margins of this story one sees the influence of the Inquisition on the idea of the expulsion of the Jews.

Connaught Ranger.

The Abravanel family is still alive. A rich and important family in Brazil.

Of course we can find maniacs and lunatics from any religious and ethnic background. Mainstream organized Judaism has never killed children. The same could be said about witchcraft. How many people were killed in Salem due to ignorance ? So we could say that Protestants used to kill people. Unfortunately we can find extremists everywhere and they are trying to kill innocent people anywhere.
So get your guns and be prepared to defend yourselves !

[GreekAmerican]

i agree with the guns ready attitude. Be prepared :)