A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel

by Levin, Edmund

  55. “If a non-Jew”: STEN III, p. 4.

  56. “unseen hand”: STEN III, p. 5.

  57. “under their yoke”: STEN III, p. 18.

  58. “question of the cow”: STEN III, p. 38.

  59. “prisoner’s dock”: STEN III, p. 41.

  60. “pronounce the verdict”: STEN III, p. 57.

  61. “ultraviolet clues”: “Iz zaly suda,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 25, 1913.

  62. feared the speech: Nabokov, “Na protsesse,” Rech’, October 25, 1913.

  63. dismissing as a “legend”: STEN III, p. 95.

  64. “Why not Beilis and Vera?”: STEN III, p. 96.

  65. Hamentaschen: STEN III, p. 108; “Iz zaly suda,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 25, 1913.

  66. “unseen hand”: STEN III, p. 98.

  67. “overwhelming weapon”: STEN III, p. 98.

  68. “perhaps”: STEN III, p. 124. In his memoirs, written two decades later, Maklakov wrote that he himself was, in principle, willing to acknowledge the possibility that somewhere Jewish fanatics had committed ritual murders. “In such an admission,” he insisted, “there is nothing insulting,” arguing that a religion is not responsible for fanatical sects that commit awful acts in its name. In 1956, he carried on correspondence on this topic with his contemporary, the Jewish attorney Mark Vishniak, who reproached him for taking such a position. Indeed, the argument that unspecified Jewish ritual murders may have occurred at some time or some place is clearly fallacious. Of the scores of known cases in the record, not a single one proved to be well-founded. Therefore, it has been pointed out, the notion that there are unknown cases with unknown evidence in which unknown Jews were actually guilty is illogical. See Maklakov, Iz vospominanii, pp. 256–57; O. Budnitskii, “V.A. Maklakov i evreiskii vopros,” pp. 53–54.

  69. “The prosecution”: STEN III, p. 124.

  70. “I will rely only”: STEN III, p. 136.

  71. “She alone”: STEN III, p. 136.

  72. “most frightening”: STEN III, p. 137.

  73. “But together”: STEN III, p. 138.

  74. At those words: El’patevskii, “Vpechatleniia,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 26, 1913.

  75. “invention of Cheberyak”: Ubiistvo Iushchinskogo, “Rech’ V.A. Maklakova,” p. 64; STEN III, p. 145. The text in Maklakov’s published version differs slightly from that in the transcript. Maklakov’s text has been generally preferred here, given the attorneys’ own complaints about inaccuracies in the transcript. See Margolin, The Jews of Eastern Europe, p. 156.

  76. “all of Lukianovka”: Ubiistvo Iushchinskogo, “Rech’ V.A. Maklakova,” p. 64; STEN III, p. 145.

  77. “You have been told”: Ubiistvo Iushchinskogo, “Rech’ V.A. Maklakova,” p. 87; STEN III, p. 155.

  78. “suicide”: Ubiistvo Iushchinskogo, “Rech’ V.A. Maklakova,” p. 84; STEN III, p. 154. In the published version of the speech (p. 87), Maklakov warns more declaratively that, in the event of an unjust verdict, “it will be forever remembered that a court of Russian jurors, out of hatred for the Jewish people, turned away from the truth.” It is not clear if he actually said those words in court.

  79. “frightful accusation”: STEN III, p. 155.

  80. “I firmly hope”: STEN III, p. 193.

  81. “I was always on the side”: Budnitskii, “V.A. Maklakov i evreiskii vopros,” pp. 53–54.

  82. “the more eloquent”: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 225.

  83. “took the liberty”: Gruzenberg, Yesterday, pp. 107–8.

  84. candelabrum: STEN III, p. 203.

  85. “court is a kind of temple”: STEN III, p. 195.

  86. allusions: STEN III, p. 203.

  87. “negative system”: STEN III, p. 214.

  88. “axiom”: STEN III, pp. 214, 217.

  89. “the coat”: STEN III, p. 213.

  90. “Defendant Beilis”: STEN III, p. 272; Bonch-Bruevich, Znamenie, p. 184.

  91. Jewish leaders: Lifschutz, “Repercussions,” pp. 213–14.

  92. Jewish organized labor: Lifschutz, “Repercussions,” pp. 210–11.

  93. At eight a.m.: Beilis, My Sufferings, pp. 182–83.

  94. St. Sophia Square filled: Viktor Sosedov, “Otryvki,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 29, 1913; Rech’, October 29, 1913.

  95. The jury’s first charge: The text of both questions appears in STEN III, p. 299.

  96. prejudicial: On the prejudicial formulation of the two questions, see Nabokov, “Delo Beilisa,” Pravo, no. 44 (November 3, 1913): 2522–24.

  97. Nabokov wrote: Nabokov, “Na Protsesse,” Rech’, October 29, 1913. Nabokov analyzes Boldyrev’s prejudiced charged to the jury in “Delo Beilisa,” Pravo, no. 45 (November 10, 1913): 2577–80.

  98. “You know that the body”: STEN III, p. 289.

  99. Most of those: Tager, Tsarskaia, p. 229; Bonch-Bruevich, Znamenie, p. 186.

  100. Gruzenberg could only think: “Beseda s pris. pov. O.O. Gruzenbergom,” Rech’, October 30, 1913. Gruzenberg’s candid admission of pessimism, made to a reporter soon after the verdict, is at odds with his account of his state of mind in his memoirs. “I had not the slightest doubt about the outcome of the trial,” he wrote. “I believed, indeed I knew, that the conscience of a Russian would never condone the destruction of an innocent person.” Gruzenberg, Yesterday, p. 105.

  101. After an hour passed: Bonch-Bruevich, Znamenie, p. 186; Bonch-Bruevich, “Reziume predesedatelia,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 29, 1913.

  102. quavering voice: Bonch-Bruevich, “Prigovor,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 29, 1913; Bonch-Bruevich, Znamenie, pp. 188–89.

  103. could not believe: “Osvobozhdenie Beilisa,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 29, 1913.

  104. “Beilis is not yours”: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 249; Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 188.

  105. “free man”: STEN III, p. 299.

  106. “Old people and children”: “U Beilisa,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 30, 1913.

  107. “Beilis Station”: Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 203.

  108. Telegrams: “U Beilisa,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 30, 1913.

  109. “won’t say that I ran away”: “U Beilisa,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 30, 1913.

  110. “peculiarities of that act”: “G.G. Zamyslovskii o prigovore,” Kievskaia Mysl’, October 30, 1913; on prosecution claiming victory, see also Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 253.

  111. “comic effort”: “Beseda s pris. pov. O.O. Gruzenbergom,” Rech’, October 30, 1913.

  112. New Times: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 250.

  113. “engineered”: Szajkowski, “The Impact of the Beilis Case,” pp. 215, 216.

  114. “The muzhichki”: “Beseda s pris. pov. O.O. Gruzenbergom,” Rech’, October 30, 1913.

  115. “but when the foreman”: Gruzenberg, Yesterday, p. 186.

  116. “political Tsushima”: Tager, “Protsess,” p. 123.

  117. “dangerous internal illness”: V. A. Maklakov, “Spasitel’noe predosterezhenoe,” p. 137.

  118. victory banquet: Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 281–82.

  119. promotions, and material rewards: Padenie, vol. 3, p. 378; Padenie, vol. 4, pp. 207, 426–27; Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 281-82.

  120. “It is certain”: Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies, p. 48, citing, A. I. Spiridovich, Les dernières années de la cour de Tzarskoïé-Sélo (Paris: Payot, 1928), vol. 2, p. 447.

  121. He often invoked: The verse is Job 3:25. The straightforward translation used here is similar in tone to the standard Russian Orthodox translation that Nicholas would have quoted. The memoirs of the French ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paleologue, are an oft-cited source for Nicholas’s penchant for citing Job. Paleologue used an ornate French translation of the passage that was awkwardly retranslated into English and sometimes quoted as Nicholas’s words. Paleologue’s account is reproduced in Fuhrmann, Rasputin, p. 16.

  12. “The Smell of Burning, Blood, and Iron”

  1. neatly stacked: Stepanov, Chernaia (2005), p. 394.


  2. Fastov case: The story of the case is told in Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 287–95.

  3. Chebyshev: According to Chebyshev, the decision to appoint him to succeed Chaplinsky was made by the entire council of ministers, not just by Shcheglovitov, because the government wanted to change course. “Protsess Beilisa: Razoblachenie Bol’shevikov,” Vozrozhdenie, August 24, 1933, p. 3.

  4. Goncharuk was convicted: Stepanov, Chernaia (2005), p. 394.

  5. Bekhterev: Bekhterev, “The Iushchinskii Murder,” p. 68n2.

  6. “no one had any use”: Stepanov, Chernaia, p. 395.

  7. most of her role: Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 35, hints at a similar point, writing, “All in all, we seem to have in Vera Cheberyak a woman born out of her time and setting. In the Italy of Cesare Borgia and Caterina Sforza she might have found an adequate field for her talents…[but] she was fated to operate in mean circumstances with mean accomplices.”

  8. “Café Boheme”: “Will Exonerate Beilis: Ex-Russian Police Official Says He Will Clear Up Ritual Murder Myth,” New York Times, April 23, 1914.

  9. Margolin disagreed: Margolin, The Jews of Eastern Europe, p. 236.

  10. Gruzenberg answered: Gruzenberg, Yesterday, p. 121.

  11. “fully in tune”: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 270.

  12. “ministerial leapfrog”: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 277.

  13. “The most striking”: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 351.

  14. “pallid, unshaven”: Utevskii, Vospominaniia, p. 33.

  15. Shcheglovitov stood: Zviagintsev, Rokovaia femida, pp. 211–12; N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution, 1917: Eyewitness Account, vol. 1, ed. and tr. Joel Carmichael (New York: Harper, 1962), p. 52.

  16. soldiers led him off: Zenzinov, “Fevral’skie Dni,” p. 238.

  17. “enraged crowd”: Andrei A. Ivanov and Anatolii D. Stepanov, eds., Chernaia sotnia: istoricheskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow: Institut Russkoi Tvivilizatsii, 2008), p. 308.

  18. “mental breakdown”: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 339.

  19. “born for misfortune”: Pipes, The Russian Revolution, p. 312.

  20. tsar’s signed abdication: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, pp. 339–44; Pipes, The Russian Revolution, pp. 310–17.

  21. school desk, surrounded by toys: Figes, A People’s Tragedy, p. 345; Nabokov, V. D. Nabokov and the Russian Provisional Government, p. 53; Vasily Shulgin, Dni, p. 277.

  22. “I seized the materials”: Gruzenberg, Yesterday, pp. 121–24.

  23. “My conscience”: Padenie, vol. 3, pp. 347, 358.

  24. Once pure red: Nabokov, V. D. Nabokov and the Russian Provisional Government, p. 34.

  25. “one continual process”: Nabokov, V. D. Nabokov and the Russian Provisional Government, p. 35.

  26. Pranaitis: Tager, Tsarskaia, pp. 272–73.

  27. Vipper: Krylenko, Sudebnye, p. 58; Tager, Decay of Czarism, p. 249.

  28. Makhalin: Reznik, Skvoz’ chad, p. 177.

  29. Cheberyak was convicted: GAKO, f. 864, op. 10, d. 11.

  30. According to an agent: Reznik, Skvoz’ chad, p. 177.

  31. Cheberyak was shot: Tager, Decay of Czarism, p. 249.

  32. Shoshkess: Chaim Shoshkess, “My Meeting with Mendel Beilis,” Der Tog–Morgn Zshurnal, December 1, 1963, p. 6.

  33. Nabokov was shot: Nabokov, Speak Memory, p. 193; Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, pp. 190–93.

  34. “Well, how can anyone”: Kucherov, Courts, p. 268; Gruzenberg, Ocherki, p. 56.

  35. Brazul-Brushkovsky: Reznik, Skvoz’ chad, p. 176; Samuel, Blood Accusation, p. 255. The Jewish Telegraph agency published an obituary for Brazul in January 1924, but apparently in error.

  36. Rovno: Melamed, “Krasovskii,” p. 164.

  37. “did not deserve”: Melamed, “Krasovskii,” p. 165.

  38. Margolin: On his life after the revolution, see Khiterer, “Arnold Davidovich Margolin,” pp. 145–67.

  39. Fulbright-Margolin Prize: Khiterer, “Arnold Davidovich Margolin,” p. 163.

  40. strangest fate: Shulgin, The Years, p. xiv.

  41. documentary: The documentary is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKPUoLAc2G4.

  42. “invigorating effect”: Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 221.

  43. “uncringing Jews”: Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 225.

  44. destroyed their home: Beilis, My Sufferings, p. 234.

  45. committed suicide: Beilis, Blood Libel, p. 218. Beilis tells of Pinchas’s suicide in the last chapter of his memoirs, which was not included in the original English edition but is translated for the first time in the valuable new edition coedited by Beilis’s grandson.

  46. Addams: Beilis, Blood Libel, p. 220.

  47. “exploiting myself”: Beilis, Blood Libel, p. 227.

  48. “not yet sixty”: Chaim Shoshkess, “My Meeting with Mendel Beilis,” Der Tog–Morgn Zshurnal, December 1, 1963, p. 6.

  49. derogatory epithet: S. Ansky, The Enemy at His Pleasure, pp. 28–29, 4.

  50. Vipper had complained: STEN III, p. 52.

  51. Between the early 1880s: Biale, Blood and Belief, p. 126.

  52. Konitz: The definitive work on the Konitz case is Michael Walser Smith’s The Butcher’s Tale.

  53. “folkloric belief”: Biale, Blood and Belief, p. 130.

  54. Volkischer Beobachter: Rogger, Jewish Policies, pp. 55 and 243n44.

  55. “Everywhere murder”: Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3rd ed., vol. 3 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 1095.

  56. “lurked in the background”: Biale, Blood and Belief, p. 137.

  57. Himmler explained: Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 3, pp. 1095–96.

  58. “Beilis Soap”: Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors, p. 200.

  59. Rzeszow: Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz, p. 74.

  60. Wyszinski declined: Gross, Fear, pp. 149–50.

  61. The excavation: Slater, The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas II, p. 26.

  62. created a commission: Slater, The Many Deaths, p. 28.

  63. The Church asked: Slater, The Many Deaths, pp. 30–32.

  64. Jewish ritual: Slater, The Many Deaths, pp. 71–80.

  65. “The motives”: Reznik, Rastlenie nenavist’iu, p. 114, citing Moskovskie Novosti, March 1–8, 1998, p. 2; Solovev rendered his official opinion on the ritual question in January 1998. Slater, The Many Deaths, p. 31.

  66. Church officials refused: Slater, The Many Deaths, p. 155.

  67. In the post-Soviet era: Slater, The Many Deaths, p. 74.

  68. “How was it possible”: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Dvesti let vmeste, p. 446.

  69. “tries in every way”: Semyon Reznik, “Vmeste ili Vroz’: Zametki o knige A.I. Solzhenitsyna, ’Dvesti let vmeste,” Zhurnal Vestnik Online, May 15, 2002, http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2002/0515/win/reznik.htm.

  70. group of about fifteen men: “Antisemitizm na Kievskom Kladbishche,” Segodnia, February 21, 2004. http://www.segodnya.ua/oldarchive/c2256713004f33f5c2256e40004f79d9.html.

  71. “in his thirteenth year”: This is incorrect. Andrei was thirteen years old when he died. “In his thirteenth year” would mean he was twelve.

  72. someone had made off: Eduard Doks, “Kto Khochet Vozrodit’ Krovavyi Navet,” Evreiskii obozrevatel’, March 2004, http://www.jewukr.org/observer/eo2003/page_show_ru.php?id=531.

  73. grave was renovated: “Pam’iati nevinno ubiennogo,” Personal Plus, no. 8 (159) February 22–28, 2006, http://www.personal-plus.net/159/471.html

  74. State Department: Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided the United States Congress (2008), pp. 5, 32, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/102301.pdf.

  75. Anti-Defamation League: “Ukraine University of Hate: A Backgrounder on MAUP (Interregional Academy of Personnel Management),” ADL, November 3, 2006, http://www.adl.org/main_anti_semitism_international/maup_ukraine.htm.

  76. no legal basis: Anshel Pfeffer, “A Grave with a P
articularly Sad Story,” Haaretz, February 8, 2008. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-grave-with-a-particularly-sad-story-1.238892.

  77. anti-Semitism in Ukraine: In the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in October 2012, the ultranationalist Svoboda (Freedom) Party, widely regarded as xenophobic and anti-Semitic, shocked observers by winning 12 percent of the vote and representation in parliament. In the 2007 elections, it had won less than 1 percent of the vote. The party’s leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, denies charges that he hates foreigners and Jews, though he had previously been expelled from parliament for using ethnic slurs, has referred to the “Jewish-Russian mafia” that supposedly runs the country, and has called for an end to “the criminal activities of organized Jewry” in his country. David M. Herszenhorn, “Ukraine’s Ultranationalists Show Surprising Strength at Polls,” New York Times, November 8, 2012.

  78. fresh flowers: Pfeffer, “A Grave,” Haaretz, February 8, 2008; Paul Berger, “Was Kiev Beating Anti-Semitic Act?: Some See Return of Old Hatreds, But Others Have Doubts,” Jewish Daily Forward, June 8, 2012; Weinberg, “The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe,” p. 283; author’s visit to grave, spring 2011.

  Bibliography

  Sources in Russian

  Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir. Znamenie vremeni: ubiistvo Andreia Iushchinskogo i delo Beilisa. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1921.

  Budnitskii, Oleg. “V.A. Maklakov i evreiskii vopros.” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta 19 (1999): 42–94.

  Dedkov, Nikita. Konservativnyi liberalizm Vasiliia Maklakova. Moscow: AIRO-XX, 2005.

  Delo Beilisa: Stenographicheskii Otchet. 3 Vols. Kiev: 1913.

  Delo Mendelia Belisa: Materialy chrezvychainoi sledstvennoi kommissii vremennogo pravitel’stvo o sudebnom protsesse 1913 g. po obvineniu v ritual’nom ubiistve. Edited by R. Sh. Ganelin, V. E. Kel’ner, and I. V. Lukoianov. St. Petersburg: Dimitrii Bulanin, 1999.

  Gerasimov, A.V. Na lezvii s terroristami. Paris: YMCA Press, 1985.

  Gruzenberg, O.O. Ocherki i rechi. New York: 1944.

  Ioffe, G. Z. “Delo Beilisa.” In Tsarskaia Rossiia i delo Beilisa: issledovaniia i materialy, pp. 327–50. Moscow and Jerusalem: Gesharim, 1995.

  Kal’nitskii, Mikhail. “Ekspertiza professora Glagoleva.” Egupets 19 (2010): 151–64.