ROME (AP) — An Italian-Israeli historian has angered fellow Jews by taking on a subject that has long haunted his people: alleged anti-Christian hatred he says fueled medieval accusations that Jews killed Christians in ritual murders.
Ariel Toaff's book, just released in Italy, shocked the country's small Jewish community — in part because he is the son of Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi who welcomed Pope John Paul II to Rome's synagogue two decades ago in a historic visit that helped ease Catholic-Jewish relations after centuries of tensions.
The author, who teaches medieval and Renaissance history at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, Israel, delves into the charge that Jews added the blood of Christian children to wine and unleavened bread for Passover — allegations that resulted in torture, show trials and executions, periodically devastating Europe's Jewish communities over the years.
Historians have long disputed the medieval allegations, dismissing them as racism. But "blood libel" stories remain popular in anti-Semitic literature today.
In his Pasque di Sangue— Bloody Passovers — Toaff cites confessions from Jews accused of ritual murder to expose what he claims was a body of anti-Christian literature, prayers and rites among the communities of central Europe.
Jewish and Catholic scholars have denounced Toaff's work, saying he simply reinterpreted known documents — and has given credence to confessions that were extracted under torture.
In interviews with the Italian media and in parts of his book, Toaff has suggested that some ritual murders might have really taken place, committed by Ashkenazi Jews seeking revenge for a slew of massacres, forced conversions and persecutions suffered by German Jewry from the First Crusade of 1096 onwards.
Such acts 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."
Fearing the book would fuel anti-Semitism, Italy's Jewish community has condemned the work. Italian rabbis issued a statement recalling that Jewish law has always banned ingesting blood or using it for rituals.
"It is absolutely improper to use statements extracted under torture centuries ago to construct eccentric and abhorrent historical theses," the statement said. Toaff's 91-year-old father has been silent about the book and didn't sign the statement, but news reports and Jewish community officials said he agreed with the criticism.
The first few thousand copies of the book were released on Thursday, and publishing house Il Mulino said it had already ordered a reprint. There were no immediate plans for editions in other languages.
In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Toaff claimed that his work had been partly misunderstood. He said he did not intend to imply that ritual murders had really occurred.
"I believe that ritual murders never happened," he said. "There is no proof that Jews committed such an act."
But Toaff said the confessions do hold some truth — as when the accused recount anti-Christian liturgies that were mainly used on Passover, when the celebration of the Israelites' liberation from ancient Egypt became a metaphor for Judaism's hope for redemption from its suffering at the hands of Christians. Continue >>
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