The "blood libel" (with respect to the Jews) consists of the false claim that Jews murder non-Jews in order to obtain their blood for use in religious rituals. This allegation is still widely believed throughout the Muslim world.
It is my understanding that Orthodox Jews use the Koshering process involving the use of course salt to draw blood out of meat because they are NOT to consume blood hebraic law.
What then could be the origin of the libel?
Is it a misunderstanding stemming from the Christian ritual of drinking Christs blood during the Eucharest?
Do any modern religions use human blood in worship rituals.
2007-02-09 00:27:56 · 11 answers · asked by dollparty.geo 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
It is next to impossible to explain the accusations that were hurled at the Jews during this time. Jews were persecuted not only for being "Christ-killers" but as "baby-killers."
The first such accusation -- better known as a "blood libel" -- was leveled in 1144 in Norwich, England. There, Jews were charged with kidnapping a Christian baby and draining the baby of blood. The charge became so popular it would sweep, in various forms, through Europe and then spread to other parts of the world.
Now why did Jews need blood in Christian opinion? This is a multiple-choice question:
Jews suffered from hemorrhoids as a punishment for killing Jesus and drinking blood was the best cure for hemorrhoids at the time.
All Jewish men menstruate and need a monthly blood transfusion.
Jewish men, when they're circumcised, lose so much blood because of that surgical procedure that they need to drink Christian babies' blood.
It's the chief ingredient in matzah, and therefore prior to every Passover Jews would be requiring a large supply.
All of the above.
What do you think the correct answer is? Shockingly, it's (e) -- all of the above.
This is a very important lesson in anti-Semitism. You can say anything about the Jews and people will believe it.
It's ironic that Jews, who are prohibited by Jewish law of consuming any blood whatsoever (kosher meat is carefully washed and salted to remove all traces of blood) were precisely the people accused of drinking blood.
The blood libel makes even less sense when you consider that in the 13th century the Church adopted the doctrine of transubstantiation. This is a mystical idea which maintains that when the priest says mass over the wafer and wine, these objects mystically change into the body and blood of Jesus. Christians who consume the wafer and drink the wine are said to be mystically eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood.
It's ironic that the Christian world, while engaged in the ritual of "drinking the blood of Jesus" would accuse the Jews -- who are forbidden to drink blood -- of this totally fabricated hideous crime.
2007-02-09 00:36:27 · answer #1 · answered by Kallan 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The origin of the blood libel is the remarkable creativity that Jew-haters show when it comes to horror stories about Jews. Christians in the middle ages didn't know anything about what Judaism teaches and what its laws are. They hated and feared the unknown and imagined the worst. Many Christians then regarded Judaism as some kind of Satanic cult, because they didn't know anything about it and because they thought that whoever doesn't believe in Jesus must be with the devil. So they alleged the Jews of the worst and most disgusting things they could imagine.
2007-02-09 06:41:39 · answer #2 · answered by Elly 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
1144 CE: Jews in Norwich, England were accused of the ritual murder. This is believed to be the first recorded case of the "blood libel" myth. Jewish leaders in the area were executed.
1171: Jews in Blois, France were accused of ritual murder. All of the Jews in that town (34 men, 16 or 17 women) were "dragged to a wooden tower where they were given the option of baptism or death. None chose the former." 7 They were burned alive. A second source says that 31 were killed.
1181: Three Christian boys disappeared after playing on a frozen river in Vienna, Austrai. Several "witnesses" swore that Jews had slaughtered the boys. Three hundred Jews were burned at the stake. After the spring thaw, the bodies of the boys were recovered. They had drowned, and were otherwise unharmed. 7
1243: All Jews in Berlitz, Germany were burned alive for allegedly torturing a stolen host. 4
1255: The body of a little boy, Hugh, was found in a cesspool near the house of a Jew in Lincoln, England. The latter was tortured, confessed that he had engaged in ritual murder, dragged through the streets, and finally hung. 100 Jews were transported to London and charged with ritual murder. One was acquitted; 2 were pardoned; the rest were hanged, either with or without a trial. One source states that 19 Jews were hung without benefit of trial.
1283-5: Following a series of ritual murder charges, 10 Jews were murdered by a mob in Mainz; 26 were executed in Bacharach, 40 in Oberwellil, and 180 in Munich.
1370: Jews in Brabant, Belgium, were accused of defiling the host and were burned alive. 5
1389: Jews in Prague were accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. All of the Jews in the city were offered the choice of conversion to Christianity or death. They were all killed. 4
1399: A rabbi and 13 elders in Posen, Poland, were charged with stabbing the host and tossing it into a pit. They were slowly roasted to death. Some townspeople believed that the host had bled.
1431: After ritual murder charges, several Jewish communities were destroyed in southern Germany: Ravensburg, Uberlingen and Lindau. 7
2007-02-09 00:57:41 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Pagans and Satanist use human blood in some rituals, of a magical charachter. There were practitioners of magic among the Jews (for example Solomon), maybe this is the connection?
2007-02-09 00:37:45 · answer #4 · answered by carl 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I can't find any validity to the "blood libel" claim. Some sources trace the claim back nearly 2000 years, but others say it rose up in the Middle Ages, so kind of hard to pin down, but all agree it's false.
2007-02-09 00:35:53 · answer #5 · answered by cmw 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the protestant church, communion, is more in the direction of the communion being a sign with the messiah spiritual present and in fellowship spiritually (I lean toward this view).
but Catholics and Lutherns do have transubstantiation and consubstantiation explanation of communion respectively as you mention. In all cases they start with bread and wine Christians have to love the truth according to thessalonians have to receive the love of truth to be saved... but will not necessarily agree on all points as people have imperfect understanding of truth
sadly, some muslims in Iraq were taught that Jewish people can morph into monkeys
it is not a good reflection on the teachers when they pass on weird stuff from th eimaginations of men instead of pursue truth
2007-02-09 00:42:10 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It is false rumors perpetuated by antisemitic people to portray Jews in general as evil killers,many innocent Jews have been killed by rioting mobs made with these false rumors
2015-01-07 02:24:03 · answer #7 · answered by Kevin7 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Catholic Church flogged it for centuries, which helped law the groundwork for the Holocaust.
2007-02-09 01:08:36 · answer #8 · answered by Brendan G 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
If the Jewish people would have accepted Christ, none of this would be an issue.
2007-02-09 00:45:50 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
All rumors - let it stop here.
2007-02-09 00:32:04 · answer #10 · answered by Charles H 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋