Menahem Mendel Beilis
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Menahem Mendel Beilis (Russian: Менахем Мендель Бейлис; 1874-1934) was a Ukrainian Jew accused of blood libel and ritual murder in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or "Beilis affair". The process sparked international criticism of the anti-Semitic policies of the Russian Empire.
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[edit] Background
Menahem Mendel Beilis was born into a pious Jewish family, but he had little Torah learning and worked regularly on the Sabbath and the Holy Days, with the exception of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In 1911 he was an ex-soldier and the father of five children, employed as a superintendent at the Zaitsev brick factory in Kiev.
On March 12, 1911, a thirteen-year-old Ukrainian boy, Andrei Yushchinsky (Russian: Андрей Ющинский), disappeared on his way to school. Eight days later his mutilated body was discovered in a cave near a local brick factory.
[edit] Pre-trial period (1911-1913)
Beilis was arrested on July 21, 1911, after a lamplighter testified that the boy had been kidnapped by a Jew. A report submitted to the Tsar by the judiciary regarded Beilis as the murderer of Yushchinsky. Menahem Beilis spent more than two years in prison awaiting trial. Meanwhile, a vicious anti-Semitic campaign was launched in the Russian press against the Jewish community, with accusations of the blood libel and ritual murder.
Among those who wrote or spoke against false accusations of the Jews were Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Korolenko, Alexander Blok, Alexander Kuprin, Vladimir Vernadsky, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Pavel Milyukov, Alexander Koni, and others.
[edit] The trial
The trial took place in Kiev from September 25 through October 28, 1913. The chief prosecutor A.I. Vipper made anti-Semitic statements in his closing address.
The prosecution was composed of the government's best lawyers. One prosecution witness, a "religious expert" in Judaic rituals was a Catholic priest Justinas Pranaitis, brought from as far as Tashkent. Pranaitis testified that the murder of Yushchinsky was a religious ritual, associating the murder of Yushchinsky with the blood libel hoax believed by many Russians at the time. Another expert witness was Professor Sikorski of Kiev State University, a medical psychologist, who also regarded the case as one of ritual murder.
Beilis was represented by the most able counsels of the Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev bars: Vasily Maklakov, Oscar Grusenberg, N. Karabchevsky, A. Zarundy, and D. Grigorovitch-Barsky. Two prominent Russian professors, Troitsky and Kokovtzov, spoke on behalf of the defense in praise of Jewish values and exposed the falsehood of the accusations and professor of Kiev Theological Seminary Orthodox Christian philosopher Alexander Glagolev affirmed that "the Law of Moses forbids spilling human blood and using any blood in general in food."
The lamplighter, on whose testimony the indictment of Beilis rested, confessed that he had been confused by the secret police.
After deliberating for several hours, the all-Christian jury acquitted Beilis. There was no single representative of the intelligentsia in the jury.
A later investigation determined that on that tragic morning Andrei Yushchinsky decided to skip school and visit his friend, Zhenya Cheberyak.
[edit] After the trial
The Beilis trial was followed worldwide and the anti-Semitic policies of the Russian Empire were severely criticized. The Beilis case was compared with the Leo Frank case in which an American Jew, manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was convicted of raping and murdering twelve-year-old Mary Phagan and lynched after his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
After his release Beilis with his family left Russia for the Land of Israel, then a province of the Ottoman Empire. In 1920 he settled in the United States. He died in 1934.
[edit] Influence
A popular movie was made based on these events: The Fixer with Alan Bates and Dirk Bogarde in 1968, based on the book by Bernard Malamud.
[edit] Revival in 2006
In the March 2006 issue (No. 9/160) of the Personnel Plus magazine by Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (commonly abbreviated MAUP), an article "Murder Is Unveiled, the Murderer Is Unknown?"[1] by Yaroslav Oros revives false accusations from the Beilis Trial. A week earlier, MAUP leaders visited the grave of Andrei Yuschinsky.[2]
[edit] See also
- Leo Frank
- Dreyfus affair
- History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
- Anti-Semitism
- History of anti-Semitism
[edit] References
- ISBN 1-56062-166-4 Scapegoat on Trial: The Story of Mendel Beilis The autobiography.
- ISBN 0-87668-179-8 The Beilis Transcripts. The Anti-Semitic Trial that Shook the World. by Ezekiel Leikin
- ISBN 5-7349-0016-8 The Beilis Case. Modern Research and Documents.
[edit] External links
- (Russian) Speech of defense lawyer V.A. Maklakov later issued as a pamphlet
- (Russian) Articles and Call to the Russian People by Vladimir Korolenko
- (Russian) Stenographic report from the trial. Volumes 1-3
- (Russian) Бейлис, Менахем Мендель in The Shorter Jewish Encyclopaedia, Jerusalem. 1976-2005
- (Russian) Beilis affair: truth and myth by Feliks Levitas, Mikhail Frenkel (Jewish Observer, Jewish Confederation of Ukraine) April 12, 2006
