Esperanto and Blood Libel

The synagogue where Beilis's
funeral was held

“Blood libel” is the anti-Semitic claim that Jews use Christian blood in the manufacture of Passover matzah, which despite its utter absurdity persisted for many years.[1] The 1913 trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis in Kiev (then within the Russian empire) was last such trial, and it has been noted that it was the only one backed by a central goverment. The Beilis affair was international news, since in most places the blood libel was a superstition that had been cast off in the Middle Ages.[2]

Even at the time, suspicion fell on one of the witnesses for the prosecution, Vera Cheberyak. In an article on the Beilis trial on October 24, 1913, the Salt Lake Tribune has a section headed “Evidence Against Vera.” Cheberyak was described in the paper as being part of a “gang,” later she was found to have had the victim, Andrey Yushchinsky, murdered because he found out about her criminal activities through being friends with her son (whom she also possibly killed). At the time of the report, the Czar’s case against Beilis was crumbling, and suspicion was turning to Cheberyak.

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