CHAPTER IX

WELL AUTHENTICATED CASES IN SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

NATURALLY, here we get a number of juridically decided cases, as might be expected.

1603. Verona. A Jew was tried on a charge of killing a child to get its blood for an infamous purpose. He was acquitted. The sentence of acquittal, dated 28th February, 1603, given in full in the Jew Roth's The Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew (p. 78), released the accused "because the Hebraic witch abhors the shedding of blood" and "various Princes held this rumour of the use of blood to be vain and false?" We hold that such absurd reasoning as all excuse for acquittal is clear proof that the Court was bought.

1670. Met. As this was a very strongly established case, one does not find any mention of it in Strack's book in defence of the Jews! A three-year-old boy was lost by his mother on the way to a well. The boy was wearing a red cap, and witnesses had seen him carried away by a Jew mounted on a horse. This Jew was Raphael Levi. At first, the boy's body could not be traced. The Jews, becoming frightened, spread the report that wolves must have killed him in the forest. The forest was searched and eventually the head, neck and ribs of a boy were found, together with clothes which were identified as the missing boy's, red cap and all, by the boy's father. But as these clothes were neither torn nor bloody, it was concluded that the wolf story was a "blind," and then witnesses came forward who had seen Raphael Levi with the boy in such places and at such times as to remove all doubt of his guilt. Levi was sentenced to death by the order of the Parliament of Metz, and was burned alive. Authority: La France Juive, by Drumont.

1698. Sandomir, Poland. Authority: The Jew Cecil Roth, in Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew, p. 24. The highest tribunal in the land, that of Lublin, condemned a Jew for Ritual Murder. the local court having exculpated him.

1748. Duniagrod, Poland. Jews condemned for Ritual Murder by Episcopal Court. Mentioned by Roth.

1753. Pavalochi, Poland. Jews condemned for Ritual Murder by Episcopal Court. Mentioned by Roth.

1753. Zhytomir, Poland. In this case, a three-year-old boy was murdered; Jews were tried by the Episcopal Court of Kiev and condemned to death. A painting supposed to commemorate this murder is even now visited by pilgrims to the Carthusian Monastery at Kalwarya near Cracow. Authority: The Jew Cecil Roth, in Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew, p. 25.

Of course, the Jew Roth denies that the cases quoted were Ritual Murders.