Fratka realized that Ruman would deny everything. Jews are strictly
forbidden from shaming God’s name, and no one, especially such a
pious and respectable Jew as Ruman, would admit that he was a witness
to ritual murder. “If the kahal learns what I had just told you,” Fratka warned the commission, “it would immediately pronounce herem
against me, cut off all relations with the Jewish community, includ-
ing the purchase of kosher meat.” Fratka insisted that this information
needed to be kept strictly confidential. In a face- to- face confrontation, she not only reminded Ruman what he had whispered, but disclosed
yet another crucial detail: that a Jew by the name of Hirsh, who lived
on the outskirts of town, had in his possession the knife and razor blade
the Jews used to murder and circumcise the boy. Fratka pleaded with
the officials to take Ruman “somewhere far away,” because if they let
him go free, the Jewish community would immediately suspect that she
the cOnfrOntatiOns
99
had informed on them. And if that were to happen, Fratka was certain
that she would be treated worse than a meshumad, an apostate, someone who was rejected by the Jewish community because she had abandoned
the Jewish faith. Along with her children, Fratka would need to “hide
somewhere faraway or have no choice but to commit suicide.”69
Sensing the inquisitors’ skepticism, Fratka decided to throw out a
bombshell. Berka Zarkha, the shochet (kosher butcher), had hidden the knife in the courtyard of the kahal building, in a secret storage shed, with around twenty other knives, all of which were enclosed in beauti-ful cloth- covered cases. Fratka explained that the knife could be “easily
distinguished from the others because it was enclosed in a red Moroccan
leather case, engraved in silver with Hebrew letters, although there was
nothing unusual about it, save for one small detail: unlike an ordinary
shaving blade, it could not be folded in half.” To make matters even more
interesting, Fratka produced two more pieces of evidence: the izmel (circumcision knife), as well as the dried- up foreskin, which she insisted was Fedor’s. Fratka recounted that an old Christian woman whom she had
never seen before handed her both the circumcision knife and the foreskin
when she went outside one winter day to relieve herself. Afterward, she
hid both the knife and foreskin under her mattress for “safekeeping.”70
In the end, Strakhov did not find Fratka’s sensational account very
convincing. The problem of establishing the truth was well known in
These knives were collected by the inquisitorial commission as evidence of Jewish ritual murder. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, f. 1345, op. 235, d. 65
10
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the Velizh affair
criminal procedure. Confession may have been the queen of proofs in
the law, but the inquisitors recognized that suspects could easily invent
their tales to avoid interrogation and punishment. Not knowing what
else to do, and preparing herself for the possibility of sitting in isolation for years to come, Fratka decided to end her life. So she slit her throat
with a sharp piece of glass, but it turned out that the cut was a superficial wound, which produced little, if any bodily damage or blood.71
5
•
Grievances
On aPril 8, 1826, the day that their wives, Slava and Khanna, were
taken into custody, Shmerka Berlin and Evzik Tsetlin sent a desperate
complaint to the governor- general. They wanted nothing less than for
Nikolai Nikolaevich Khovanskii to dismiss Strakhov from his official
administrative duties. Two of the most respected residents of the town,
they pleaded, were imprisoned without “any tangible evidence,” on
the basis only of “vicious, weak- minded, and completely fraudulent
accusations.” The men noted that their children were forbidden from
having contact with their mothers, and that Slava and Khanna sat in
prison deprived of the most basic necessities of humanity. They argued,
“Like malicious criminals, they are harassed daily to the point that they
may soon die from illness and emotional exhaustion. The investigation
is proceeding slowly and without the supervision of a Jewish deputy
who would have made certain that their oral statements were accurately
recorded in official notebooks.”1
To make matters worse, Shmerka and Evzik went on, “one of the
women knows very little Russian, while the other one is completely illit-
erate.” Fearing that the case could spiral out of control at any moment,
they pleaded for the governor- general to exert his influence and end
the senseless criminal investigation. “Our wives are suffering from hav-
ing been confined to such a small space and have recently fallen ill.” At
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102
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the very least, they hoped that they would be “treated more charitably
and relocated [to a place] where they would be able to breathe fresh
air and where we, along with our children, would be permitted to visit
them.” In order not to arouse suspicion, they proposed to speak only in
Russian. “We ask that they be given an opportunity to prove themselves
in their innocence against such baseless accusations— the shedding of
Christian blood— so that their own Jewish blood would not be shed in
vain.”2
For hundreds of years, Jews in Poland- Lithuania achieved their polit-
ical ambitions by bribery, the gathering of intelligence, and the timely
intercession of royal or imperial courts. The strategy of maintaining
political influence with those in power was coherent and, at times,
highly successful. But by the 1820s, with the gradual disintegration of
Jewish self- government, Russian Jewish communities were left largely
to their own devices to defend common political interests and express
their claims to basic civil rights.3 In the second quarter of the nine-
teenth century, a new mode of political activity was being worked out in
Western Europe. Voluntary associations, the mass circulation press, and
pamphlets gradually displaced intercession as the key tools to mobilize
resources and political influence. In places with a developed Jewish pub-
lic sphere, it became increasingly easy to coordinate an organized inter-
national response to prevent widespread suffering and human rights
abuses. Newspapers, in particular, helped galvanize the support of the
global community in a Jewish cause. This was the case not only because
of their unparalleled power to disseminate disaster news, including to
well- positioned diplomats and activists, but also because of their ability to unite populations separated by vast geographic space.
The Jews of Russia, however, stood outside the orbits of the new
Jewish international.4 They did not have access to newspapers published
abroad or well- positioned diplomats who could disseminate disaster
news and intervene on their behalf. Frustrated and isolated, Shmerka
and Evzik did not have very many options at their disposal to protest
what they perceived to be a grave social injustice. They did the only
thing that subjects of the Russian Empire could do: t
hey filed a formal
grievance.
The moment Strakhov learned of the complaint he denied everything.
What was the fuss all about? “[Slava and Khanna] talk in Russian like
grieVances
103
all other Russians,” he reported to Khovanskii. The inspector- councilor
felt that he had good reason to assume total control of the investi-
gation. Russian law did not permit outside observers such as Jewish
deputies to oversee criminal investigations. By proceeding “cautiously
and in secret,” he hoped to uncover the “truth of the crime” and, most
significant, the work of what he perceived to be “an elaborate Jewish
conspiracy.” The last thing he wanted to happen was for vicious rumors
to circulate beyond the confines of the provincial town. “Those Jews
who are familiar with the secrets [of blood sacrifice],” Strakhov confided
to Khovanskii, “use all available means to disrupt the investigation in
hopes of saving the suspects from their deserved punishment in order
to undermine the reality [of a highly malicious criminal act].” Instead
of responding to the complaint, Strakhov felt that the best course of
action was to arrest both complainants before they interfered with the
detective work.5
And so on June 20, 1826, less than one month after they filed the
grievance, Shmerka and Evzik were taken into custody. At that point,
the investigation was just beginning to unfold. The governor- general did
not see any reason to take Jews’ grievances seriously. In fact, there was no doubt in Khovanskii’s mind that Strakhov would complete the work in a
timely manner and that the guilty would be brought to justice. Together
with their wives, both men were imprisoned for their alleged role in the
blood sacrifice.6 The arrests put the entire Jewish community on high
alert. How many more Jews was Strakhov planning to arrest? Who was
going to be the next victim? What could the Jewish community do to
defend itself from the allegations?
It did not take long for Evzik’s brother, Sheftel Tsetlin, and Itsko
Nakhimovskii’s father, Berka, to formulate an official response. On
August 27, they sent a second complaint to Vitebsk. Hoping to rescue
the Jews, they decided to reason with Khovanskii by describing the
absurdity of the accusations. They explained that a local schoolteacher
named Petrishcha was the main culprit behind the affair. Everyone
saw him “walking around town with some kind of book in his hands,”
spreading vicious rumors about Jews. Based on translations and explana-
tions of relevant Talmudic passages, Petrishcha “managed to convince
all the town residents that Jews consume Christian blood.” To make
the accusations sound even less plausible, they added that the physician
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Levin played no small role in validating the charge by providing “false
expert testimony.” After all, if the body was actually pierced with a dull
nail, why did Levin not detect any swelling on the body? They empha-
sized that, after the most powerful court in Vitebsk province had made
the initial review of the testimony and material evidence in November
1824, it decided to acquit the Jews of the crime.
Strakhov, convinced of the Jews’ guilt, did not pay any attention to
this important detail. “He arrested the Jews in a most malicious man-
ner,” they wrote, “and locked them up in his home without any contact
[with the outside world] or access to fresh air. He relies on coercive
methods of interrogation, does not permit a Jewish deputy to supervise
his work, and is not concerned with conducting an honest criminal
investigation or uncovering the perpetrators of the crime.” They peti-
tioned the governor- general to replace Strakhov with a new investigator
who, they hoped, would abide by proper rules and procedures.7
Sheftel and Berka did not reveal anything that the governor- general
had not heard before. Khovanskii’s office was stacked with grievances,
petitions, and appeals on all sorts of topics, many of which were from
Jews. Ever since assuming administrative control of the northwest prov-
inces, Khovanskii had developed the habit of not taking Jews’ com-
plaints very seriously. The ritual murder case confirmed all his initial
suspicions— Jews, he believed, were a particularly cunning folk— and
he was not in any hurry to formulate an official response. How was he
supposed to dismiss such convincing medical and material evidence?
One thing he knew for sure was that he had no intention of replacing
the inspector- councilor with someone else. To his mind, Strakhov was
a capable investigator who dutifully abided by the rules of the inquisi-
torial process. As far as all the other claims, the best course of action, he reasoned, was to wait patiently for Strakhov’s report.
Previously, Russian officials never went so far as to accuse all Jews
of supporting, let alone engaging in, ritual murder, although they did
believe that individual “fanatics” practiced the malevolent rite.8 Based
on everything that he had read and heard, Strakhov had become increas-
ingly convinced that the Velizh case was different. The denunciations
served as powerful blows of Jews’ guilt. Strakhov wanted nothing less
than to utilize his investigative powers to preside over what he surely
thought would be a landmark conviction.9 On November 17, 1826,
grieVances
105
he sent a lengthy memorandum to Vitebsk, proclaiming that he had
compiled enough preliminary evidence to place Jews in detention:
“I do not have medical training, so I am not in a position to comment
on the accuracy of Levin’s forensic evaluation. I am certain, however,
that Terenteeva’s and Maksimova’s confessions justify all of my initial
suspicions: that the Jews tortured the boy under the express guidelines
of their superstitious beliefs and practices.”10
Whatever his own personal biases may have been, Strakhov insisted
that he treated the prisoners fairly and with respect: “They all sleep
in their own individual rooms on cots equipped with mattresses and
blankets. The warden delivers three warm meals per day, as well as
essential personal items, including medicine, directly to the rooms.
Some prisoners such as Evzik and Khanna Tsetlin and Shmerka and
Slava Berlin are permitted the luxury of drinking tea and coffee [in
their rooms].” For a short time, Strakhov explained, the prisoners
were even allowed to exchange notes with their family and friends,
although he decided to put an end to that practice fairly quickly. The
severity of the crime, the inspector- councilor emphasized, required
that “authorities take all possible precautions to minimize social con-
tact among prisoners.”11
Like all other subjects of the empire, Jews had the legal right to
obtain redress against corruption and tyranny. They could do this by
sending personal or collective complaints either to provincial governors
or directly to the Senate or one of the chancelleries in St. Petersburg.
&
nbsp; After the partitions of Poland- Lithuania at the end of the nineteenth
century, Jews turned in increasing numbers to the imperial government
to voice individual grievances and resolve neighborly conflicts. Strakhov
insisted that Jews had every right to petition the state and that he had no intention of taking this right away from them, even if the added paperwork slowed down the investigation. As far as the pivotal question of
the Jewish deputy, Strakhov replied unequivocally, “Jews have no right
to make this demand [on the commission].” The delicate nature of the
case meant that he needed to proceed with caution and circumspec-
tion, to guard against false statements and deception, and to execute
his duties in the privacy of the inquisitorial chamber. If the governor-
general approved Jews’ request and permitted a deputy to supervise the
criminal investigation, there was no doubt in Strakhov’s mind that Jews
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would obstruct justice by planning their answers well in advance of the
oral interrogations.12
Strakhov addressed the complaints the same way he handled the
case— methodically, point by point, leaving no question unanswered,
no detail overlooked. He spent countless hours producing a series of
inquiries, communications, and reports. Such was his training; such
were the expectations of all civil servants in the service of empire. “Jews have every right to petition the governor- general to remove me [the
chief investigator] from the case,” he explained to Khovanskii. “They
also have every right to be displeased with the inquisitorial techniques
and administrative procedures that I use, but this does not mean that
I did anything wrong,” he pointed out. “Unrestrained emotions should
not serve as grounds for dismissal.”13
With the edifice of self- government slowly crumbling, the Jewish
communities of Russia were structurally weakened, making it extraor-
dinary difficult for them to defend common political interests. “There
The Velizh Affair Page 16