Judaism discovered

The Case of Ariel Toaff

Thus, as can be seen, we documented a handful of deaths by ritual murder and upheld the veracity of the accounts of the martyrdom of a few Christian children. This hardly constitutes a "blood libel" as the rabbis and their allies in academia melodramatically declare. Like Eisenmenger, we have been suspicious of sweeping claims in this vein, attributing much of it to jealousy from business competitors toward affluent Judaics who could be eliminated through the device of false witness, or hysteria. What is more, much of the right wing literature purporting to "prove" that the hundreds of accusations of Judaic ritual murder of Christian children were mostly or entirely true are lurid purple prose productions by the likes of the odious Julius Streicher and others of that persuasion, for whom facts are secondary to convicting Judaics of any accusation, however far-fetched or poorly documented. We were edified when we found that Prof. Eisenmenger shared

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our skepticism and we believed that this confirmed our estimation of him as an objective scholar of Judaism.
Prof. Ariel Toaff holding his book, Pasque di sangue ("Blood Passover")

Then in 2007 came a book by Israeli historian Ariel Toaff, which has altered our assessment of the ritual murder charges against Judiacs. We can't speak for the late Dr. Eisenmenger of course, but Toaff, a Judaic insider, has, as far as we are concerned, pending compelling arguments to the contrary, produced impressive evidence upholding the traditional Christian case for the reality of Judaic ritual murder of children on a large scale. Toaff s history, entitled Pasque di sangue ("Blood Passover" ⁶⁶⁸) was published in Italy in 2007 by // Mulino. Here is one of the initial reactions, in this case from an Israeli newspaper:⁶⁶⁹

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"Author of blood libel book: I will not give up my devotion to truth. The author of a book on the use of blood by Jews in Ashkenazi communities in the Middle Ages said Sunday, in the face of the furor its publication aroused, 'I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me.' ⁶⁷⁰
The cover of the banned book, Pasque di Sangue

"In an interview with Haaretz from Rome, Professor Ariel Toaff said he stood behind the contention of his book, Pasque di Sangue, just published in Italy, that there is a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews. However, he said he was sorry his arguments had been twisted. 'I tried to show that the Jewish world at that time was also violent, among other things because it had been hurt by Christian violence/ the Bar-Ilan history professor said. Of course I do not claim that Judaism condones

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murder. But within Ashkenazi Judaism there were extremist groups that could have committed such an act and justified it' he said.

"Toaff said he reached his conclusions after coming across testimony from the trial for the murder of a Christian child, Simon of Trento, in 1475, which in the past was believed to have been falsified. 7 found there were statements and parts of the testimony that were not part of the Christian culture of the judges, and they could not have been invented or added by them. They were components appearing in prayers known from the (Jewish)prayer book. Over many dozens of pages I proved the centrality of blood on Passover,' Toaff said. 'Based on many sermons, I concluded that blood was used, especially by Ashkenazi Jews, and that there was a belief in the special curative powers of children's blood. It turns out that among the remedies of Ashkenazi Jews were powders made of blood.'

"Although the use of blood is prohibited by Jewish law, Toaff says he found proof of rabbinic permission to use blood, even human blood. 'The rabbis permitted it both because the blood was already dried/ and because in Ashkenazi communities it was an accepted custom that took on the force of law, Toaff said....there were curses and hatred of Christians, and prayers inciting to cruel vengeance against Christians....Toaff said the use of blood was common in medieval medicine. Tn Germany, it became a real craze. Peddlers of medicines would sell human blood, the way you have a transfusion today. The Jews were influenced by this and did the same things. In one of the testimonies in the Trento trial, a peddler of sugar and blood is mentioned, who came to Venice,' Toaff says. T went to the archives in Venice and found that there had been a man peddling sugar and blood, which were basic products in pharmacies of the period. A man named Asher of Trento was also mentioned in the trial, who had ostensibly come with a bag and sold dried blood. One of the witnesses said he was tried for alchemy in Venice and arrested there. I took a team to the archives and found documentation of the man's trial. Thus, I found that it is not easy to discount all the testimony' he added.

"Toaff... said he was very hurt by accusations that his research plays into the hands of anti-Semitic incitement, '...one shouldn't be afraid to tell the truth.' Toaff also said, 'unfortunately my research has become marginal, and only the real or false implications it might have are being related to. I directed the research at intelligent people, who know that in the Jewish

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world there are different streams. I believe that academia cannot avoid dealing with issues that have an emotional impact. This is the truth, and if I don't publish it, someone else will find it and publish it.'

"...Meanwhile, Bar-Ilan University announced Sunday that its president, Professor Moshe Kaveh, will summon Toaff to explain his research. The university's statement said it strongly objected to what was implied in media publications regarding Toaffs research, and condemned 'any attempt to justify the terrible blood libels against the Jews" (end quote; emphasis supplied).

What happened to Prof. Toaff next, is familiar to anyone who has ever sought to question a rabbinic dogma. As Evelyn Kaye, who was born into Orthodox Judaism has observed, "I understand that it is absolutely impossible to hope for tolerance or compassion or sympathy from the truly devoutly Orthodox when faced with someone who disagrees...! always think of the comment of an old man we knew on Cape Cod who said, whenever he saw an Orthodox Jew, 'Here come the Thought Police." ⁶⁷¹

In 2007 the "Thought Police" were out in force, seeking to silence Toaff, either by destroying his academic career and livelihood or imprisoning him. It's the only answer the rabbis have to the truth, one form of crucifixion or another. Despite his self-confident initial defiance and the measured tone of his media-sawy early critics, such as his employer, religious-Orthodox Israeli Bar-Ilan University, the sky was about to fall on Ariel Toaff.

"Bar-Ilan under pressure to fire controversial author: Bar-Ilan University is resisting pressure to fire history professor Ariel Toaff for writing a book arguing that there is a factual basis to some of the blood libels against the Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, university president Moshe Kaveh's media consultant said yesterday. The university administration says it will not restrict the Italian-Israeli professor's academic freedom or take any action against him, despite the condemnations of his book and the anger it has generated. ⁶⁷² All the same, university officials noted that Pasque di Sangue (translated variously as 'Easter of Blood' or 'Bloody Passovers'), which was recently released in Italy, was published privately, without any connection to Bar-Ilan. 'People who are not academics, as well as lecturers at

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other universities, came to us and demanded that we fire Prof. ToafT...Senior university officials said yesterday that fundraisers for Bar-Ilan who are based in the United States and other countries were among those who have pressured the university to act against ToafT. Bar-Dan lecturers who spoke with ToafT said the professor had offered to resign if it would stanch the damage that his book has apparently caused, but that Kaveh rejected the idea. In any case, ToafT is due to retire at the end of the year....

"University researchers warned against any attempt on the part of the administration to impose limitations on Toaff s academic freedom. 'Academic freedom must not be restricted under any circumstances/ said Prof. Rimon Kasher, who teaches in Bar-Ilan's Bible department. 'The job of the researcher is to ask questions and expose what he finds. 'If there is such a thing as academic freedom,' said Kasher, 'this is where it will be put to the test." ⁶⁷³

The preceding Israeli newspaper article does not do justice to the amount of pressure, academic, legal and physical that was placed against Prof. ToafT. Academic: Bar-Ilan University (BIU) would quickly do an about face and attack ToafT: "BIU President Prof. Moshe Kaveh summoned ToafT for a private talk...after which the university issued a press announcement in which it 'strongly condemns and repudiates what is seemingly implied by Toaffs book and by reports in the media concerning its contents' ⁶⁷⁴); Legal: the threat of Toaffs arrest for "hate speech" had been broached by Israeli officials: "MKs ⁶⁷⁵ demand the author of blood libel book be prosecuted. MKs on Monday demanded that the (Israeli) state examine ways in which it could prosecute Professor Ariel Toaff, who wrote book Pasque di Sangue (Passovers of Blood), which discusses the possible facts behind 15th century European blood libels against Jews. Speaking at a discussion of the book and its ramifications held at the Knesset Education Committee, MK Marina Solodkin (Kadima Party) said (she) thought 'there are valid reasons to prosecute the author of the book/ and called to 'put him to trial over historical truth and the Jewish people's reputation.'

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"MK Arieh Eldad (National Union Party), who initiated the discussion, said that Toaff 'has made himself an accomplice to modern blood libels.' Eldad added that the state must ensure that for such publications, 'the punishment will exceed the benefit;" ⁶⁷⁶ and Physical: death threats— "If Jewish blood has been shed through centuries, now it is going to be shed more: yours," is one of the many threats Toaff received, as he related to the Israeli newspaper Maariv. Toaff was subjected to all this abuse and coercion as a result of publishing a history book that threatened a centuries-old public relations edifice that rendered Christian accounts of the murder of children contemptuous. At this juncture we ask, if the confessions of the alleged Judaic ritual murderers were unacceptable because they were obtained by "physical torture," why would the retraction and recantation by Dr Toaff, a rabbi and the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, be accepted as valid, when obtained by means of "mental torture" and coercion?

So enormous and terrifying was the pressure, that within the space of just a few days, the initially defiant professor, in abject fear and humiliation, crumbled before the onslaught. "Scholar Pulls Book Revisiting Blood Libel: Says Press Distorted His Work, Pledges Proceeds to ADL: After unleashing a torrent of criticism both in his native Italy and around the globe, an Israeli professor has ordered his publisher to halt distribution of a new book that suggests a possible historical basis for the centuries-old charge that Jews murdered Christians and used their blood for ritual purposes. Ariel Toaff, a professor of medieval and Renaissance history at Israel's Bar Ilan University, said in a February 14 statement that, while he stands by his research, he is recalling the book, Pasque di Sangue ('Bloody Passovers'), in order to reframe those sections of it that he feels have been misunderstood by readers and mischaracterized in the press.⁶⁷⁷ To further allay criticism, Toaff promised to donate any money he may have earned from book's early sales to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which only days before had condemned the scholar.

"Though Toaffs move appears to have quieted the ADL and Bar Ilan — both of which said they were 'satisfied'... many scholars, in both the Jewish world and beyond, continue to question the historian's methods and

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conclusions. The controversy was set into motion February 6, two days before the book's official release, when the Italian newspaper Corriere delta Sera ran an enthusiastic review by Sergio Luzzatto, a professor of modern European history at the University of Turin. The review, which Toaff has since singled out as the leading factor in prompting the uproar, ran under the heading: 'Ariel ToafPs Disconcerting Revelation: The Myth of Human Sacrifice Is Not Just an Antisemitic Lie.' According to Luzzatto, ToafPs 'courageous' book argues that some Christian children, or 'perhaps even many,' were killed by fundamentalist Ashkenazic Jews between 1100 and 1500 (A.D.). Furthermore, Luzzatto has Toaff describing unleavened bread baked with dried blood possibly taken from murdered Christian children...the review...set the tone for the discussion that followed — including a swift and ferocious critical backlash. Italy's rabbis — who for a half-century were led by the professor's father, Elio Toaff — issued a statement saying that, 'No precept nor custom on the ritual use of human blood ever existed in the Jewish tradition. On the contrary, such use is simply deemed horrific... The only blood that was shed was that of the many innocents Jews that were massacred because of this unjust and heinous accusation.'

"After briefly employing a wait-and-see attitude and defending its professor's academic freedom, Bar Ilan soon changed its position. Expressing 'serious reservations' about the book, a university spokesman said that 'senior officials and researchers condemned in the past and condemn today any attempt to justify the awful blood libels against the Jewish people.' Meanwhile, in New York, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement: It is incredible that anyone, much less an Israeli historian, would give legitimacy to the baseless blood libel accusation that has been the source of much suffering and attacks against Jews historically.' As the furor gained momentum — including calls from some quarters that Toaff be removed from his post at Bar Ilan — the professor struggled to defuse the situation. Though he said in early interviews that ritual murders 'might have taken place,' he later said that he does not believe that they did and that saying otherwise was, in the Jerusalem Post's words, an 'ironic academic provocation.'

"Determining the true thrust of Toaff s thesis has not been easy. The book was just released a few days ago, and only in Italy. It has not been

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translated; few experts in the field have had the chance to read it.⁶⁷⁸ Repeated attempts by the Forward to reach Toaff were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, in published interviews and newspaper accounts, the broad outlines of the author's thinking have begun to emerge. The book reportedly rests on the premise that from the time of the first Crusade in 1096 onward, certain Ashkenazic fundamentalists may have engaged, not in ritual slaughter, but in religiously inflected revenge killings prompted by persecution and forced conversion. Toaff writes in his book's introduction that such acts may have been 'instinctive, visceral, virulent actions and reactions, in which innocent and unknowing (Christian) children became victims of the love of God and of vengeance.'

"In supporting his claim, Toaff draws from the confessions extracted from the sixteen Jews accused of murdering the 2-year-old Simon of Trent in 1475. Though the confessions have long been regarded as historically suspect, Toaff has defended them as potentially viable sources...Anna Foa, a professor of history at Rome's La Sapienza University who wrote a stinging critique of the Toaff book in the newspaper La Repubblica on the day the title was released. This is not a history book,' she later told the Forward. It's a novel."⁶⁷⁹

Before we examine the actual text of Toaff s book ourselves, it would behoove us to reprint a sample of the reviews and analysis which the book received prior to publication, upon publication, and in the wake of it having been withdrawn. We begin with Dr. Roni Weinstein, a research fellow at the University of Pisa, Italy: "On the cover of Pasque di sangue by Ariel Toaff is an illustration showing an old, bearded patriarch clutching a knife, about to use it to slaughter a small boy. Beside him looms a pillar of fire with an angel hovering overhead, observing the events on earth with visible worry....And that indeed is the spirit of Toaff s new book, which has already kicked up a storm and been pulled off the shelves...In the opening chapter, Toaff sets out the major research goals of the book. Until today, he claims, historians have avoided serious and honest study of Inquisition and court documents pertaining to cases in which Jews were accused of ritual murder of Christian children. These murders were ostensibly carried out with the object of

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mocking Christianity. At a later stage, it was claimed that the Jews used blood obtained this way for Passover preparations and magical cures, to stop bleeding in general, and especially hemorrhaging in circumcised babies. Toaff claims that this material was not simply overlooked. He insists that (Judaic) apologists and intellectual lightweights deliberately turned a blind eye because the truth was too painful. He finds further confirmation for his theories in the testimony of Jewish apostates....His theories mainly revolve around the trial of the Jews of Trent, a town in northern Italy, who were accused of murdering a boy named Simonino (Simon) in 1475. Soon after the murder, the town declared the boy a local martyr, and he went on to become a pan-Italian saint...Toaff uses the testimony from this trial...In consequence, the first chapters are full of unequivocal statements about how the Jews caught young Christians, hid them and finally murdered them to drain their blood. A look at the footnotes reveals that Toaff consistently relies on literal translations of trial transcripts from Latin to Italian...

"Toaff finds further backing for his claim in the testimony of baptized Jews called to the witness stand in Trent and elsewhere. These statements were particularly colorful and full of detail, complete with dates and references to well-known figures in the Jewish communities of northern Italy and Germany. Although the relationship between the Jewish community and converts to Catholicism was extremely sensitive in medieval and early modern times, not all converts were in the same category. Not all of them acted out of hatred and hostility toward their former co-religionists....anti-Jewish invective (was found in) figures like Benedetto Bonelli (whose book Toaff calls 'a serious scholarly work'), Paul Sebastian Medici and Julio Morosini...These Christian converts, some of them educated in Catholic theological seminaries, played a central role in the campaign of hostility...Others, less well known, provided the Spanish theologian Alonso de Espina, with 'inside' information, which he used in Fortress of Faith, a book that contributed to the spread of blood libels all across Europe. The importance of these converts in the judicial process cannot be emphasized enough: they were the ones who supplied the most sensational details, but also the most concrete...

"The second axis of the book is the Jewish 'contribution' to the accusations of ritual murder....His argument is that such accusations fit in with the culture of 'the fundamentalist circles of Ashkenazi Orthodoxy' in the

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late Middle Ages. The use of terms like 'fundamentalism' and 'Orthodoxy' in connection with medieval Jewry is surprising, but obviously connected to modern day fears of religiosity and the threat that fundamentalism poses to the liberal lifestyle. ...Toaff passes moral judgment on Ashkenazi Jewish society, with its urge for revenge on its Christian tormentors. Earlier studies have shown that the experience of pogroms did leave Ashkenazi Jewish society in the Middle Ages more attuned to rituals of blood, death, suffering and revenge, which reached a peak with Passover and the seder. The blood of circumcision (symbolizing the pact between God and Israel), the blood of the lamb sacrificed on Passover, the blood of Ashkenazi martyrs — all these were linked in the minds of medieval Jews and served as a mental outlet for their anger at the outside world. Some of the major components of the Ashkenazi Passover ceremony mimicked or mocked Christian rituals and Christian theology, especially the crucifixion of Jesus as crucial for salvation. Curses against the Christians were added, as well as 'inverted' rituals that poked fun at Christian rites.

"Toaff claims that all of this points to active hostility toward the Christian world., .blood, it is worth noting, was not just a symbol of protest against the Christians in Ashkenazi Jewish counter-culture. It was also a major component in magic and the occult, in both Jewish and non-Jewish society. Evidence for this can be found in a wide variety of sources from different periods and geographical regions. Toaff does not explain how books of folk remedies and Jewish customs became sorcery manuals, but he quotes from them as if they contain truths about practices that were widespread among the Jews...Interesting discussions on this topic can be found in The Book of Life by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), one of the leading humanist philosophers in Florence...If Toaff s book contains any contribution, it may be in the second half...The book offers several intriguing and valuable testimonies that simply cannot be ignored about human fascination with the power of blood (wisely including a reference to Piero Camporesi's disturbing but gripping book Juice of Life: The Symbolic and Magic Significance of Blood). Sefer Hahasidim, a compilation of writing by several 11th and 12 century authors and a showcase of Ashkenazi Jewish culture in the Middle Ages, is packed with magical beliefs... Researchers of Ashkenazi culture have been strangely hesitant to enter this minefield and claim that magic and demons played a part in the world of Ashkenazi Jewry. Toaff s book does it.

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"A final comment on the response of Italian scholars to Toaff s book: All the leading historians specializing in the Inquisition, Jews, conversion and Judeo-Christian relations in Italy have fiercely attacked the book. The author's decision to halt book sales (after the first edition sold out) has sparked criticism of another kind. So now, instead of a scholarly debate on the issues raised in the book itself, historians must ponder the question of whether the academic community is guilty of lynching Toaff, and whether academic discourse and freedom of research have their limits." ⁶⁸⁰

From Neuwirth and Landau: "The Blood Libel Returns: ...In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Toaff asserted, 'My research has shown that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition (against the consumption of blood)...It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecutions during the crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children.'...Italy's most influential newspaper, left-leaning Corriere delta Serra, has published extracts from ToafTs book, together with an article praising it by Italian Jewish historian Sergio Luzzato. Luzzato describes Toaff's book as a 'magnificent work 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 Jewish men, women and children. Neither in Trent in 1475 nor in other areas of Europe in the late Middle Ages were the Jews always innocent. A minority of fundamentalist Ashkenazis...carried out human sacrifices.'

"Twelve⁶⁸¹ senior rabbis representing Italy's Jewish community, including Toaff s father, Elio Toaff, who once welcomed Pope John Paul II to the chief synagogue in Rome, did issue a strong denial of Toaffs allegations...The 'blood libel,' as it has come to be called...underwent a big revival in the eighteenth century, when numerous trials of Jews on ritual murder charges took place in Poland. Such trials continued to occur sporadically throughout Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, and there

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was also one in Damascus, Syria, in 1840⁶⁸²...the poison resurfaced once more with deadly results in the Polish town of Kielce in July 1946, after the Holocaust had supposedly ended. A mob that included Polish policemen and soldiers, incited by false rumors of Jewish ritual murders of Polish children, massacred over forty of the pathetic remnant of 200 Kielce Jews who had

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somehow survived the German extermination campaign. ⁶⁸³ This was the last time, as far as I have been able to learn, that the blood libel led to Jewish deaths in Europe. But a documentary film about the Kielce massacre made in the 1990's by American researchers contains interviews with several contemporary Poles, including a priest, who admitted that they still believed in the ritual murder myth. The publication by the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church of a policy statement called Notre Aetate in 1965, which repudiated many of the anti-Jewish attitudes that had flourished in the church for centuries, has gone a long way towards putting the blood libel to rest in the Western world. And Catholic scholars have followed up this new policy of reconciliation with Jews by reexamining some of the medieval blood

⁶⁸³ In post-war Poland that nation was dominated by Judaic communists: the torturer Jacek Rozanski, head of the Secret Police; the Politboro commander Jacob Berman and commissars Mine, Specht (Olszewski) and Spychalski. These men murdered or deported to Kolyma and the other Arctic death camps, tens of thousands of Catholic Poles. According to Judaic researcher John Sack, "In 1945 many Poles felt (and not without reason) that Jews ran the Office of State Security...the chief of the Office was Jacob Berman, a Jew, and all or almost all the department heads were Jews." Sack reports that 75% of the officers of the Communist Secret Police in Silesia were Judaics. He noted that many Judaics in the Communist terror apparatus in Poland changed their names to Polish ones, like General Romkowski, Colonel Rozanski, Capt. Studencki and Lt. Jurkowski. (cf. John Sack, The New Republic, Feb. 14, 1994, p. 6). Sack also refutes shoddy research performed by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners, who, in the double standard exhibited by the Talmudic mentality, refuses to accept the fact that Judaics ran the Polish Communist secret police even as Goldhagen asserts the racist myth that the entire German nation was guilty of genocide. Sack does a good job of proving Goldhagen wrong about Poland. In Poland, "...a disproportionate number of Communists were Jews. In 1930, at its peak, 35% of the members of the party were Jewish. In Communist youth organizations, Jewish membership was even higher, while Communists of Jewish origin occupied most of the seats on the central committee. Communism appealed to some Jews because it opposed anti-Semitism more vigorously than any other Polish party...Jewish Communists reached their apogee in the years immediately after World War Two, when the party leadership was totally in the hands of the prewar Communist leadership that abhorred anti-Semitism." (Sheldon Kirshner, The Canadian Jewish News, Nov. 5, 1992, p. 16). Of course when one encounters the issue of Judaics, Communists and Catholics in Poland in the Establishment media or universities today, the mass murder of the Polish Catholics at the hands of the Judeo-Communists is never an issue. The murder of gentiles is a form of pest control unworthy of commemoration or investigation. Instead, an attack on Judaics by Polish peasants enraged at the role of Judaics in Communist terror, which occurred in July, 1946 at Kielce and which has come to be called the "Kielce pogrom" will be the centerpiece of the outrage. The motivation for the attack is not usually mentioned. Rather, the Catholic peasantry are painted in terms of "fiendish bigots" whose "blind, irrational hate" for the "pathetic" survivors of Nazi extermination resulted in "yet another martyrdom of God's Chosen." But the Catholic Primate of Poland at the time, Cardinal August Hlond, stated that the attack in Kielce occurred because of resentment "due to the Jews who today occupy leading positions in Poland's (Communist) government and endeavor to introduce a governmental structure that the majority of Poles do not wish to have." (Ibid., Kirshner). As Piotr S. Wandycz of Yale University observes, "The average Pole could not but notice in the Stalinist era that the two most powerful men in the country —Berman and Mine —were both Jewish, as was the dreaded security official Rozanski." (N.Y. Review of Books, Aug. 18, 1983, p. 51).The invocation of one magical word, "Kielce," is sufficient to obscure the entire history of Judeo-Communist persecution and terror against Poland's Christians.

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libel trials and concluding that the charges had been false. As we have already noted, these reexaminations by Catholic scholars have included the same Trent blood libel case that Toaff has now made the centerpiece of his attempt to once again blacken the names of Jews martyred more than five hundred years ago. Following the publication of these scholarly vindications of Trent's medieval Jewish community, the Bishop of Trent signed a decree 'proclaiming that the blood libel against the city's Jews was unfounded.' (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 11, 2007). ⁶⁸⁴ And the city of Trent erected a memorial plaque commemorating the Jewish victims, expressing remorse for the terrible injustice that was done to them and hopes for Christian-Jewish reconciliation in the future.

"While the blood accusation has lost legitimacy in the Christian West— at least it had, before Toaff and Luzzato have now given it new life—in the Arab and Muslim worlds it has been revived...Toaff and Luzzato's revival of this medieval lie could not have come at a worse time for besieged Jewry...The damage to Jewish security and acceptance, and the threat to Jewish lives, is incalculable. What could possibly have prompted such learned and prestigious Jews to such cruel, reckless and irresponsible behavior towards their own people? Was it the strong likelihood that Toaff s book will become a best seller in Italy, where anti-Semitism is undergoing a revival, and conspiracy theories are perennially popular? In fact, the first edition of the libelous book has already sold out. Has its author done so as well?...Whatever their motives, may eternal and unending shame fall on the heads of Ariel Toaff and Sergio Luzatto." ⁶⁸⁵

From Israel Shamir, said to be of Judaic ethnicity and a convert to Christianity, comes the following analysis: "Blood, betrayal, torture, and surrender are intervowen in the story of an Italian Jew, Dr. Ariel Toaff, as if

⁶⁸⁴ Rabbis and Zionist love to procure judicial and ecclesiastical "decrees" as part of a process
of history by the diktat of "authorities." His critic suggests that Toaff s research is in error not
on the basis of a paucity of fact, but because the Bishop of Trent has decreed that the medieval
Talmudists are innocent. The bishop has told us to believe something and therefore we must!
Since the Enlightenment many of us have not been content to believe a thing just because a
bishop —or a rabbi—decreed it to be so. We demand evidence and impartial investigation.

⁶⁸⁵ Rachel Neuwirth and John Landau, February 25, 2007, www.americanthinker.com/
2007/02/the_blood_libel_returns.html (emphasis supplied). Neuwirth and Landau appeal to
tribalism: how dare Toaff endanger the national prospects of The Tribe with bis research?
Notice the search for venal ulterior motives: mercenary interest in a bestseller; exploitation of
an allegedly "revived antisemitism." Then there is the eternal spectre of "beseiged Jewry" and
finally a curse of unending shame, equivalent to the familiar yemach shemo, always on the lips
of those dwelling in a mental ghetto of their own making.

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penned by his compatriot Umberto Eco. Dr. Toaff stumbled onto a frightful discovery, was horrified but bravely went on, until he was subjected to the full pressure of his community; he repented, a broken man.. ..He made a name for himself by his deep study of medieval Jewry. His three-volumed Love, Work, and Death (subtitled Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria) is an encyclopedia of this admittedly narrow area. While studying his subject he discovered that the medieval Ashkenazi Jewish communities of North Italy practiced a particularly horrible form of human sacrifice. Their wizards and adepts stole and crucified Christian babies, obtained their blood and used it for magical rituals evoking the spirit of vengeance against the hated Goyim.

"In particular, he dwelt on the case of St. Simon of Trent. This two-year old child from the Italian town of Trent was kidnapped by a few Ashkenazi Jews from his home on the eve of Passover 1475 AD. At night, the kidnappers murdered the child; drew his blood, pierced his flesh with needles, crucified him head down calling 'So may all Christians by land and sea perish/ and thus they celebrated their Passover, an archaic ritual of outpouring blood and killed babies, in the most literal form, without usual metaphoric 'blood-wine' shift. The killers were apprehended, confessed and were found guilty by the Bishop of Trent. Immediately, the Jews took their protest to the Pope and he had sent the bishop of Ventimiglia to investigate. He allegedly accepted a hefty bribe from the Jews... 'Simon had been killed by Christians with the intention of ruining the Jews,' said the pre-war Jewish Encyclopedia, in a clear case of premonition: the same argument was used by Jews in 2006 while explaining away the mass murder of (Arab) children in Kafr Qana (Lebanon).⁶⁸⁶

"However, in the fifteenth century the Jews were influential, yes, but all-powerful, no. They could not deal with the world like they did in 2002 after the (Israeli) massacre in Jenin by ordering everybody to buzz off. They had no American veto in the Security Council. They could not bomb Rome, and the word 'anti-semitism' was not invented until 400 years later. They were given a fair deal, which is much worse than preferred treatment. Pope Sixtus IV assembled a commission of six cardinals chaired by the best legal mind of that time, for retrial; and this Supreme Court found the murderers guilty... .The records of the trial have survived centuries and are still

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available in the Vatican. In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church entered a perestroika. These were the halcyon days of the Vatican II when the modernizers uprooted the foundations of tradition hoping to update the faith and to fit it into the new Jewish-friendly narrative of modernity; in plain prose, the bishops wanted to be loved by the liberal press. The ever-watchful Jews used the opportunity and pushed the bishops to decommission St Simon of Trent. They were happy to oblige: already in a bizarre ritual, the Church leaders had found the Jews free from guilt for Crucifixion of Christ while admitting the Church's guilt for persecution of Jews; the crucifixion of an Italian baby was a small matter compared with this reversal. In a hasty decision, the (modern) bishops ruled that the confessions of the killers were unacceptable because they had been obtained under torture, and thus the accused were innocent, while the young martyr was anything but. His cult was discontinued and forbidden, and the remains of the martyred child were removed and dumped in a secret place to avoid resumption of pilgrimage.

"And now we come back to Dr Ariel Toaff. While going through the papers of the trial, he made a staggering discovery: instead of being dictated by the zealous investigators under torture, the confessions of the killers contained material totally unknown to the Italian churchmen or police. The killers belonged to the small and withdrawn Ashkenazi community, they practiced their own rites, quite different from those used by the native Italian Jews; these rites were faithfully reproduced in their confessions, though they were not known to the Crime Squad of the day. 'These liturgical formulas in Hebrew with a strong anti-Christian tone cannot be projections of the judges who could not know these prayers, which didn't even belong to Italian rites but to the Ashkenazi tradition? Toaff wrote. A confession is of value only if it contains some true and verifiable details of the crime the police did not know of. This iron rule of criminal investigation was observed in Trent trials.

"This discovery has the potential to shake, shock and reshape the Church. The noble, learned rabbi Dr. Toaff, brought back St Simon, the double victim of fifteenth century vengeance and of twentieth century perestroika. This called for repentance of the Vatican doctors who forgot the murdered child while looking for friendship with important American Jews, but they still do not admit their grave error. Monsignor Iginio Rogger, a (Catholic) church historian who in the 1960s (mis)led the investigation into St Simon's case, said that the confessions were completely unreliable for 'the

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judges used horrible tortures.' This was an anti-Zionist and hence anti-Semitic remark, for rejection of confessions obtained under torture would let the Palestinian prisoners out of Jewish jails; this was an anti-American remark, for the U.S. recognizes the value of torture and practices it in Guantanamo and elsewhere. This was a holocaust-denier remark for it thus invalidates the Nurnberg trials...

"I wouldn't want to be in Toaffs shoes, answering for this to historians who have seriously documented this case,' said Msgr. Rogger to USA Today. Toaffs shoes are vastly preferable to those of Rogger who will have to answer for slighting the saint in Heaven. Moreover, this Trento crime was not an exception: Toaff discovered many cases of such bloody sacrifices connected with the mutilation of (Christian) children, outpouring of blood and its baking in Matzo (unleavened bread) spanning five hundred years of European history. Blood, this magic drink, was a popular medicine of the time, and of any time: Herod tried to keep young by bathing in the blood of babies, alchemists used blood to turn lead into gold. Jewish wizards meddled in magic and used it as much as anybody. There was a thriving market in such delicacies as blood, powder made of blood and bloody matzo. Jewish vendors sold it accompanied with rabbinic letters of authorization; the highest value was blood of a goy katan, a gentile child, much more usual was blood of circumcision. Such blood sacrifices were 'instinctive, visceral, virulent actions and reactions, in which innocent and unknowing children became victims of the love of God and of vengeance/ Toaff wrote in the book's preface. Their blood bathed the altars of a God who, it was believed, needed to be guided, sometimes impatiently pushed to protect and to punish.'

"Toaff...stress(ed) the ordinary magic use of blood by Jews in the Middle Ages, and...allow(ed) for the anti-Christian element: crucifixion of victims and the cursing of Christ and Virgin. Here his book is supported by (the admittedly, more timid) Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence by Elliott Horowitz. Horowitz tells his reader of strange rituals: flagellation of the Virgin, destruction of crucifixes and the beating up and killing of Christians.

"Now it is behind us. We can look at the past and say: yes, some Jewish wizards and mystics practiced human sacrifices. They murdered children, mutilated their bodies and used their blood in order to outpour Divine Wrath on their non-Jewish neighbors. They mocked Christian rites by using

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Christian blood instead of blood of Christ. The Church and the people all over Europe were right. The Europeans (and the Arabs, and the Russians) weren't crazy bigots, they understood what they saw. They punished the culprits but they left the innocent in peace. We, humans, can look at this dreadful page of history with pride, and shed a tear or two for the poor children destroyed by these wrath-seeking monsters. Jews may be more modest and cease carrying their historical wounds on the sleeve: their forefathers thrived despite these terrible doings by some of their co-religionists...We can also dismiss with a shudder the whining of Israel's friends when they want us not to see the Jenin Massacre or Qana Massacre for — yes, exactly, this is like the 'blood libel,' i.e. not a libel at all. Let us hope that the great daring act of Professor Toaff will become a turning point in the life of the Church. The swing caused by perestroika of Vatican II went too far...

"...Who needs Christian virtues? Man's faults and vices are 'his business, as long as he saved Jews,' and the best a goy may hope for is a 'place among the Righteous Gentiles.' ...Thus...the Jews won a round or two in their competition with the Church. By stubbornly hanging on and never regretting, never apologizing, always working against Christianity, they succeeded in replacing in many simple minds the image of the Via Dolorosa, Golgotha and the Resurrection with their gross misrepresentation of human history as of a long line of innocent Jewish suffering, blood libels, holocausts ...The publication of Dr Toaff s book could become a not-a-minute-too-early turning point in the Western history, from apology of Judas to adoration of Christ. Yes, his narrative of murdered children makes just a small crack in the huge edifice of Jewish exceptionalism built in Europeans' mind. But great edifices can fall in a moment...Apparently, the Jews felt it and they attacked Toaff like a maddened swarm. A renowned Jewish historian, rabbi and a son of a rabbi, wrote about 500-year old events - why should they bestir themselves? In the Middle Ages, use of blood, necromancy, black magic were not an exclusively Jewish realm. Witches and wizards of gentile background did it too. So just join the human race, warts and all!

"But this is too demeaning to the arrogant Chosenites. 'It is incredible that anyone, much less an Israeli historian, would give legitimacy to the baseless blood libel accusation that has been the source of much suffering and attacks against Jews historically,' said ADL National Director Abe Foxman.

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The Anti-Defamation League called the book ^baseless and playing into the hands of anti-Semites everywhere.'

"Not much of an historian, not much of a rabbi, Foxman has a priori knowledge, based on faith and conviction, that Toaffs thesis is 'baseless.' But then, he said the same about the Jenin Massacre. In a press release, Bar-Ilan University 'is expressing great anger and extreme displeasure at Toaff, for his lack of sensitivity in publishing his book about blood libels in Italy. His choice of a private publishing firm in Italy, the book's provocative title and the interpretations given by the media to its contents have offended the sensitivities of Jews around the world and harmed the delicate fabric of relations between Jews and Christians. Bar-Ilan University strongly condemns and repudiates what is seemingly implied by Toaffs book and by reports in the media concerning its contents, as if there is a basis for the blood libels that led to the murder of millions of innocent Jews.'

"These are firing words. Toaff came under strong community pressure: he was about to find himself at 65, on the street, probably without pension, without old friends and students, ostracized and excommunicated...Jews employ professional secret killers to deal with such nuisances. In the old days, they were called rodef...In the beginning of the attack, he tried to brave it: 'I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me.' Toaff told Haaretz...that he stood by the contention of his book, that there is a factual basis for some of the medieval blood accusations against the Jews. But Toaff was not made of stern stuff. Like Winston Smith, the main character of Orwell's 1984, he broke down in a mental cellar of Jewish inquisition. He published a full apology, stopped distribution of his book, promised to submit it to Jewish censorship, and 'also promised to donate all the funds forthcoming from the sale of his book to the Anti-Defamation League' of good Abe Foxman.

"His last words were as touching as those of Galileo recanting his heresy: T will never allow any Jew-hater to use me or my research as an instrument for fanning the flames, once again, of the hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews. 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.' Thus Ariel Toaff surrendered to the community pressure. Not that it matters what he says now....What he gave us is enough. But what has he given us? In a way, his contribution is similar to that of Benny Morris

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and other Israeli New Historians: they repeated the data we knew from Palestinian sources, from Abu Lughud and Edward Said. But Palestinian sources were not trusted — only Jewish sources are considered trustworthy in our Jewish-centered universe....This would not be necessary if we were able to believe a goy vs. a Jew: an Arab about the Expulsion of 1948, an Italian about St Simon, maybe even a German about (post-)war deportations of (ethnic) Germans.⁶⁸⁷

"Ariel Toaff has freed many captive minds by repeating what we knew from a variety of Italian, English, German, Russian sources...Ariel Toaff gave us also a window to view processes inside Jewry, in order to learn how this incredible discipline of Swarm is maintained, how dissidents are punished, how uniformity of mind is achieved. Jewry is indeed exceptional from this point of view: a Christian (or Muslim) scientist who would find a blemish in the long history of the Church will not hide it, he is not likely to be terrorized into obedience; he will not be ostracized if he embraces the most vile view; even if excommunicated, the scientist or the writer will find enough support, as Salman Rushdie, Voltaire and Tolstoy discovered. Neither the Church nor (even the) Ummah command this sort of blind discipline, and neither the Pope nor the Imam wields the power of Mr. Abe Foxman over his coreligionists. And Foxman does not care for truth, but goes for what is (in his view) good for the Jews. No amount of witnesses, not even a live broadcast of Jewish blood sacrifice would force him to accept unpleasant truth: he will find a reason why. We saw it in the case of Qana bombardment (in Lebanon in 2006),⁶⁸⁸when Israeli planes destroyed a building and killed some fifty children...

"Toaff could have had it; what a pity his courage failed him! His fate reminds me that of Uriel (almost the same name!) Acosta. A noble forerunner of Spinoza, Acosta (born c. 1585, Oporto, Portugal — died April 1640,

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Amsterdam) attacked Rabbinic Judaism and was excommunicated. 'A sensitive soul, Acosta found it impossible to bear the isolation of excommunication, and he recanted,' writes Encyclopedia Britannica. Excommunicated again after he was accused of dissuading Christians from converting to Judaism, he made a public recantation after enduring years of ostracism. This humiliation shattered his self-esteem, and he shot himself..."⁶⁸⁹ (end quote from Shamir).

A statement from Prof. Toaffs father, Elio Toaff, the Grand Rabbi (emeritus) of Rome: "...the criticism that everyone has expressed about his book was justified. His arguments in the book were an insult to the intelligence, to the tradition, to history in general and to the meaning of the Jewish religion. It saddens me that such nonsense was put forward by my son of all people.'

"The speaker is Elio Toaff, the former chief rabbi of Rome and the father of Professor Ariel Toaff, who last week announced the withdrawal of his book Pasque di Sangue...and the halting of its printing. The elder Toaff made these remarks to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which contacted him for his response to the report of the suspension of the book's publication. Toaff said that his son had not informed him of this, and when the newspaper asked him if there was anything he'd like to say to his son...the 92-year-old rabbi said that he would like him to know of 'my pain and sorrow and disappointment. I never thought that he, who is such a serious scholar, would publish such a dangerous study.'

"...The fallout from Toaffs book is far from over, and people in the Jewish community are saying that never has a single person been the object of such fierce resentment. At least some of this anger derives from Toaffs family background; this, after all, is no marginal or eccentric character but someone who is the flesh and blood of the Italian Jewish elite, the son of the man who for the past fifty years was considered the symbol of the community. What's so disturbing to many is that it was Toaff of all people who chose to raise the matter of the blood libels, and within Italy itself no less — as if the objective were to spit in the community's face by impugning it with the worst accusation of all, one that in the past has led to lives being lost.

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"Elio Toaff is to Italian Jewry as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. In the years following World War II, and particularly after he was appointed chief rabbi of Rome in 1951, Toaff earned a reputation in Italy as a...moral voice in both the domestic and international arenas. The fact that in his Will, Pope John Paul II mentions only two people by name — Cardinal Dsiwisz, his personal secretary who was with him from the time he was in Krakow, and Rabbi Toaff, perhaps attests most poignantly to his stature....The elder Toaff gained recognition as a moral authority of the first rank, and effectively became the dean of Italian Jewry...

"The biggest moment of all came in 1986, with the historic first visit ever by a Pope to a synagogue...Rabbi Toaff said later... 'This gesture overturned all the persecution that the Jews of Rome had suffered over the years.' This visit is still considered a formative event in the warming of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. It also prepared the ground for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican, and the Pope's visit to Israel in 2000.

"An honorary citizen of Rome since October 2001, the recipient of a Knighthood of the Great Cross of the Italian Republic as well as the title of Senator-for-Life, Toaff also received congratulations on his 90th birthday from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI. 'Together with the Jewish community of Rome,' Ratzinger wrote on April 30, 2005, 'I thank God for the long and fruitful life that He has granted you.'

"...In the epilogue to his autobiography, (the elder) Toaff wrote, 'Each one of my four children has chosen his own path, established a family, found an occupation, but above all, maintained absolute fealty to the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people.' The closing chord of the episode, at least for now, has a much harsher ring: In the past two weeks, at the Italian Synagogue on Hillel Street in Jerusalem, there has been some discussion as to whether to ban Professor Ariel Toaff, the son of the man known in Italy as 'the Pope of the Jews,' from setting foot in the place." ^69t)

With the preceding remarks and opinions as an introduction, we now present - interspersed with our own commentary, and supplying emphasis by

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means of italics - salient passages from the text of Pasque di Sangue, privately translated into English, as noted earlier, by Lucchese and Gianetti. (The translators made Prof. Toaffs book available to researchers working in English, such as this writer, because of the high regard they have for Toaffs achievement, as they themselves note: "Prof. Toaff is that great rarity in the modern world: a sincere and disinterested lover of truth...It is to Prof. Toaff himself that the present humble effort is sincerely dedicated. Blood Passover is a masterpiece of literature and history, which deserves to be widely read, not flushed down the Memory Hole").