Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis

Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies

by Robert Weinberg

On Sunday, March 20, 1911, children playing in a cave near Kiev made a gruesome the blood-soaked body of a partially clad boy. After right-wing groups asserted that the killing was a ritual murder, the police, with no direct evidence, arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish manager at a factory near the site of the crime. Beilis's trial in 1913 quickly became an international cause célèbre. The jury ultimately acquitted Beilis but held that the crime had the hallmarks of a ritual murder. Robert Weinberg's account of the Beilis Affair explores the reasons why the tsarist government framed Beilis, shedding light on the excesses of antisemitism in late Imperial Russia. Primary documents culled from the trial transcript, newspaper articles, Beilis's memoirs, and archival sources, many appearing in English for the first time, bring readers face to face with this notorious trial.

Genres: History, True Crime

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

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Reviews

[Juliana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too Much Information

Exhaustively researched and rigorously documented account of the false arrest and prosecution of M. Beilis for the murder of a child during the waning years of Czarist rule in Russia. Only somewhat interesting and occasionally confusing because of the number individuals involved with their Russian names. I'm certain the work would be more engrossing for someone with a more than just casual interest in the case. For me, I would have been happier with a short article on Wikipedia.

[Paulius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Beilis Affair provides an opportunity to examine popular views of Jews by various segments of society and explore the nature of ethnic relations in a multinational and multiethnic empire, where ethnic Slavs (primarily Russians and Ukrainians) comprised some three-fifths of the Empire's population and the "Jewish Question" weighed heavily on the minds of many intellectuals, political activist, and government officials.

[Aivaras Žukauskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could probably be 3 times as long if the author decided to really go into the nitty gritty details of all the side characters, investigations, even the aftermath. But this works as it is, a very short and succinct, but informative retelling of the Beilis story.