A myth that never dies

Editorial

Whenever a radio or TV call-in program intends to debunk a conspiracy theory, it seems, someone calls in to defend the crazy idea. Such was the case on Peter Warren’s program recently on CKNW.

The host interviewed a noted historian who shed some intelligence on the subject of blood libels – the Medieval myth that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children in the making of matzah. Soon, the predictable conspiracy theorist made it to air.

The caller didn’t say that Jews habitually use blood in matzah, but he purported to have seen proof that something of the sort had happened and the Jewish leadership in Britain had hidden a document for a century before putting it up for auction recently.

The grotesque myth of the blood libel is one of many lies that refuse to die. The libel was prevalent in Europe until the early 19th century and was particularly vibrant around this time of year. Matzah, of course, is associated with Passover. Not coincidentally, Passover falls near the Christian holiday of Easter, which marks the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It was at this time that priests in Poland, Russia and elsewhere would whip their flocks into a righteous hysteria against the alleged perpetrators of the crucifixion – whose ancestors were the hapless shtetl-dwelling Jews of Europe. How convenient, then, to attach a sinister myth to one of the most visible practices of Jews at Passover – the baking and consumption of matzah.

As the National Post revealed earlier this month, the blood libel is alive and well in parts of the Arab world. Al-Riyadh, an official Saudi newspaper, ran a variation on the theme associated with Purim, which suggested hamantashen were filled with the dried blood of non-Jewish children. In Al-Ahram, an Egyptian paper whose editor is appointed by the president of Egypt, a graphic story ran of the purported discovery of a Palestinian child’s body drained of blood, for use in making dough.

That such myths are purveyed in their extremes by anti-Semites is predictable. But we need to be just as wary of the soft version of conspiracy theories we heard on CKNW, the sort that suggests there is a grain of truth in the larger lie. It is like acknowledging the Holocaust, but debating the numbers of victims. The intention is the same: to perpetuate distrust and bigotry by stretching the bounds of credulity just short of the breaking point.

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