The Blood Libels Come and Go, But We Will — and Must — Survive

In late March 1144, in the English town of Norwich, the body of a young boy named William was discovered in a wooded area just outside the city. He had been missing for several days when a group of nuns stumbled upon his corpse, hanging from a tree. 

There was no sign of who had killed him. It might have been a group of bandits, or perhaps a passing vagrant, or – as some have suggested – possibly suicide. At the time, there was no investigation and no drama. Just a tragic, unexplained death. And life moved on.

William’s unexplained death might have faded into obscurity were it not for a man named Thomas of Monmouth – a zealous Benedictine monk with a cause, and, unfortunately, a flair for storytelling.

In his book, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, Thomas claimed that William hadn’t been the victim of some random act of violence. Instead, he insisted the boy had been ritually murdered by the Jews of Norwich, in a gruesome reenactment of the crucifixion, as part of a sinister Jewish plot. 

Thomas offered no evidence and no witness testimony, nor even a remotely plausible theory as to how or why the Jews of Norwich – who were by all accounts well integrated into local society – would have committed such a crime. But Thomas was persuasive, and his tale found eager listeners. And so, William became the first ever “victim” of a Jewish ritual murder –the prototype for every blood libel that followed.

Six years later, in 1150, the blood libel turned lethal. A local knight, Sir Simon of Novers, murdered a Jew, Eleazar of Norwich, to whom he owed a considerable sum of money. In a calculated attempt to cover up both the killing and the debt, Sir Simon accused Eleazar – again, with no evidence whatsoever – of being part of a Jewish conspiracy to murder Christian children. 

The accusation ignited a fuse. Soon after, a rabbi traveling from England back to Cologne was set upon and killed by a mob. One baseless claim led to another, and what began as a fabricated tale became a campaign of incitement and violence.

And so it went on, with one fabricated blood libel after another. Eventually, in 1255, there was the infamous case of “Little Saint Hugh” of Lincoln — an eight-year-old boy who went missing, and whose death was swiftly blamed on the local Jews. 

But this time, the accusation wasn’t just gossip – it was endorsed by the Crown. King Henry III personally intervened, ordering the arrest of ninety Jews and the execution of eighteen. There was no trial and no evidence, just frenzy and fury – all dressed up in religious zealotry and moral posturing.

But here’s an interesting fact that rarely gets mentioned – going all the way back to that very first blood libel, the case of William of Norwich. The local Christians — the ones who actually knew the Jews, lived alongside them, worked with them, and traded with them — never believed a word of it. 

They didn’t revere William as a saint or martyr, and they certainly didn’t riot or attack their Jewish neighbors. They simply rolled their eyes and got on with their lives. Because they knew the Jewish community. Critically, they also knew Thomas of Monmouth, and that he was spinning a self-serving tale — one part fantasy, two parts ambition.

They understood, as people close to the facts often do, that truth is almost always far less dramatic than myth and legend.

Fast forward nearly 900 years. Once again, Jews are being accused of ritual murder. Not literally, perhaps, but the accusations are eerily similar in form and function. Israel defends itself against an unprovoked massacre on October 7th – and tries to root out those who murdered them, and openly threaten to do it again. 

But instead of sympathy, Israel is subjected to a torrent of accusations. Israel, we are told, is committing “genocide.” The IDF is “targeting babies.” Food, water, and medical aid are being deliberately withheld from innocent civilians so that children will die – because, apparently, Jews are cruel by nature. 

The rhetoric is breathless and furious. It is also unmistakably familiar. We are told that Jews are killing with calculated malice, as part of some twisted Jewish plot.

Just like the blood libels of medieval England, these accusations have no basis in fact. They ignore every detail that doesn’t fit the script. Hamas’ culture of martyrdom — its glorification of death, its deliberate use of human shields, its strategy of weaponizing suffering – is waved away as irrelevant. The story is simple: The Jews are guilty. The Jews are evil. The Jews must be stopped.

And just like in Norwich, the loudest voices are not the locals. The blood libel wasn’t born in a Norwich tavern. It was concocted by a Welsh monk who wanted to make a name for himself, then picked up by powerful outsiders with axes to grind. Similarly, today’s most impassioned anti-Israel narratives are not coming from people in the region. 

The Saudis – who, if anyone has cause to stoke the flames, it’s them – are not buying into the hysteria. They’re watching and waiting – preparing to join the Abraham Accords when the dust settles. 

The voices calling for boycotts, sanctions, and diplomatic “punishment” of Israel are coming from thousands of miles away – college campuses in America, city councils in Europe, and self-appointed “truth-tellers” on social media. 

But they don’t know the facts. Because they don’t want to know the facts. Like Sir Simon of Novers inventing a conspiracy to erase a debt, or King Henry III scapegoating Jews to consolidate power, these voices have pre-written their script and are just looking for a way to act it out.

And, just like in 13th-century England, once officials get involved, the damage multiplies. French President Emmanuel Macron recently declared that France would unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. There’s no plan, no borders for this “state,” no Palestinian leadership, and no peace partner. But none of that matters, because this isn’t about building a future. It’s about punishing the Jews – sorry, Israel – for its “crimes.”

But here’s the hopeful part. The people closest to the situation – those who actually live in the region — know the truth. They may not be cheering for Israel, but they see what’s really happening. They know that Hamas is a terrorist organization, hellbent on death and destruction, with no interest in peace or progress. They know that Israel isn’t waging war for conquest or cruelty. They want Hamas gone, and they want the hatefest to end. And, most of all, they want to move on.

Which brings us to the prophet Jeremiah, whose words open the Haftorah for the first Shabbat of the period we call the Three Weeks, when Jews around the world mourn the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Temple that once stood at the center of Jewish life. 

Jeremiah lived in a time of chaos and collapse – foreign empires were rising, Jerusalem was under siege, and truth had become an endangered species. And yet, in Jeremiah’s very first prophecy, God reassures him: “They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you – for I am with you to save you” (Jer. 1:19). 

Not just you, Jeremiah. But you, Israel. Yes, you will suffer. Yes, you will be vilified. But the nations that rise against you won’t last. Time and again, Jeremiah returns to the same message: the nations that rise against Israel will eventually disappear, but Israel itself will endure.

Israel’s enemies – loud, arrogant, fiery outsiders – are passing actors in a much longer story. They make a lot of noise, and they may cause harm – but they are not the authors of history. As Jeremiah says, power doesn’t mean permanence, and popularity doesn’t mean truth. When the dust settles, those who are grounded in reality are the ones who remain standing. The others fade away. 

Today’s blood libelists may sound powerful. But in the end, they are just the Sir Simon of Novers of today. And just as the Jews of Norwich survived that storm, so too will the Jews of Israel survive this one. Because the people of Israel are home, and that’s not negotiable – no matter how loudly the libelists shriek. 

Both history and prophecy agree: The shriekers come and go, but Israel always remains.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

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