Professor Toaff's Blood Libel
lunedì 19 febbraio 2007 English 0 commenti
Professor Ariel Toaff's book “Passover of Blood” has kicked up a storm in Italy for claiming that there is truth in the old myth. The book has been slated by historians, but the fact that a Jewish professor has “proved” the blood libel has overjoyed the Ahmadinejads of this world Fiamma Nirenstein (2/19/2007) This article is published with the kind consent of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Ariel Toaff's book “Passover of Blood” recently published by Il Mulino claims that there is truth in the blood libel myth. Exposing the murder and ritual use of blood by Jews hundreds of years ago is presented by the author as a necessary act of “truth” and “courage”. Rarely, however, has there been a shallower conception of the words “truth” and “courage” in a study that raises so much heated political interest, as in Toaff’s book. Related Articles The New Anti-Judaism And the World Turns a Blind Eye Scandalous Historical Method Toaff is the son of 91 year old Rabbi Eliyahu Toaff, the former Chief Rabbi of Italy, who certainly is not pleased with this affair, which comes after a lifetime of devotion to the Jewish community. The size of the scandal caused by Toaff’s claims, and the possible consequences of his unanticipated conclusions, are unrelated to the science the author brings to justify his claims. In fact Toaff only produces inductive evidence, which relies on documents already published in the past, namely testimonies wrung through agonizing torture from Jews accused of the blood libel, and on the twisted assumption that the correlation between the testimonies proves they are true. In fact, the opposite is true as proved by the many testimonies of women accused of “witchcraft” many of whom confessed to having sexual relations with the devil. The correlation shows a desire to provide the narrative demanded by the torturers. An Outrageous Libel Utterly Rejected It took time, but the case of the child from Trento who was supposedly slaughtered to use his blood was rejected by the Catholic Church itself and even the child’s sainthood, which had existed for hundreds of years, was repealed. On reading the essay by Catholic historian Massimo Introvigne “Catholics, Anti-Semitism and Blood: The Myth of Ritual Homicide”, published in 2004, we can see that Toaff uses the texts selectively: for example, Introvigne rejects outright the idea Toaff raises in his interview with Il Messaggero, that Pope Clemens XIV believed that cases of two boys ostensibly to be used for ritual sacrifice, were true. Blood Libels in Widespread Current Use Toaff knows full well that what he has done has political implications, his publisher, Il Mulino knows it, and so does Luzzatto, the professor who presented the book with great excitement to the Italian press. Only last week, I twice had the misfortune to come across the myth that Jews use gentile blood for ritual purposes (not a lot for someone involved in the Middle East and anti-Semitism): the first involved Ariel Toaff’s book, and was on February 5, when I saw the text for the answers given in an interview with Lebanese poet Marwan Chamoun shown on Lebanon television (Tele-Liban):, “How many Lebanese, how many Arabs know the Talmud? Or the book “Secret Government of the World”, or Blood for Jewish Matzos”, which tells the story of the murder of Tommaso da Camengiano, a Sicilian with French nationality who lived in 1840, in the period of Muhammad Ali Pasha? The book was written by Syrian defense minister, Mustafa Tlas. In it you can find all the documents of the French diplomats and the consul in Lebanon […] the priest was killed in the home of Daoud Al Harari, head of the Jewish community in Damascus […] his blood was collected and the rabbis took it. The Jews could honor their God because when they drink human blood they can get closer to God. Where are you diplomats and politicians? Whey don’t you use these historic claims which are given to us on a silver platter? […] there are 20 or 30 books of this genre […] I bought 2000 copies […] when somebody gets married, instead of chocolate, I give him a copy […]”. This is history, the texts speak for themselves. Jews are vampires. Chamoun is not the only person who thinks that texts which historically prove the blood myth must be learned very well: the above text, the penmanship of Syrian defense minister Tlas, “proving” the Damascus blood libel of 1840, has been reprinted at least ten times. Tlas is a lawyer who attended the Sorbonne. He maintains that his book casts light on the secrets of Judaism: “Since 1840, every mother tells her son ‘Don’t to far from home. The Jew can put you in his sack and suck your blood out for Jewish matzos’. In the 1970s, in the weekly newspaper Al Mussawar, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia claimed that when visiting Paris, the police found five cases of children whose blood had been taken by the Jews […] this is history. Can anyone doubt this noble testimony?” Professor Toaff is Playing the Innocent Ariel Toaff is sorry that his work has caused such dismay. Strange. He knew perfectly well that the blood libel myth is one of the most aggressive and most exploited forms of antisemitism in our times. It didn’t only cause pogroms, torture, and murder in the past. It is not a closed episode from history locked away in the safe deposit of the past; the blood libel is alive and with us today and a whole lot of people will just love it that a Jewish professor with that name seems so at ease. Jewish demons and vampires don’t only appear in thousands of caricatures in the Arab world. The picture of Ariel Sharon biting off the head of a child and pouring his blood over his exposed belly while saying “What’s all the fuss. I’m just kissing the boy” is a British caricature that won the most important competition in British humor in 2002. The host of pictures showing Israeli soldiers drinking the blood of Arabs and of “atrocities” committed by the Israeli army…revive the story of “martyred” San Simonino and the blood drinking Jews, though this time it is the Israeli Jew who is on trial, despite the fact that the church has repudiated the blood libel myth. As an aside, the Christians should also beware of “new” manifestations of blood libels. In 1842, the radical poet and philosopher Georg Freidrich Daumer wrote to the philosopher Feuerbach about the “cannibalism of the Talmud”, and referred to blood libations on Purim and “mysterious tales of rabbis and cannibals”. He promised Feuerbach “astonishing information” and claimed that his research showed that the Christian Jesus belonged to a Jewish group which used to drink blood. Weapons for Antisemites in the Next Decades Sometimes it is amazing to see the tendency for self-destruction of some Jews. If it wasn’t enough for us that 150 Jewish signatories in England lately called for the freedom to “criticize” Israel; that the Neturei Karta went kissing Ahmadinejad in Teheran, and that Noam Chomsky and his cronies try to show that Zionism and the State of Israel is a mistake, we have just added a new name to the list. Toaff’s “revelation” and the glowing description (“a glorious history book”) by Professor Sergio Luzzatto in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has given millions of antisemites around the world a good reason to toast. His words offer an outstanding weapon for the coming decades. The fact that a Jew, the son of a rabbi, and a professor of such pedigree has “proven” the truth behind the blood libels will fill the many Ahmadinejads of this world with joy.