CLEVELAND — In the year 1475, as Easter approached, Simon, a 2-year-old boy from Trent, Italy, disappeared. His father alleged he’d been kidnapped and murdered by the local Jewish community so that they could use his blood to make unleavened bread, known as “matzah,” for Passover. The Trent townspeople, enraged, violently attacked the Jewish community in a murderous pogrom.
This was not the first and, sadly, not the last use of what has become known as “blood libel” against Jews to instigate terror and violence. Blood libels fueled numerous pogroms against Jews throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times. The Nazis used blood libels as a central theme of their antisemitic propaganda.
Stunningly, blood libel is alive and well in American politics today. In the midst of the 2024 presidential campaign, the blood libel has morphed into the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, steal pets from their neighbors and kill and eat them. True, no one has alleged that Haitians are kidnapping and killing American children. But for many Americans, dogs and cats are not merely house pets; they are members of the family. So falsely claiming Haitian immigrants eat dogs and cats may be slightly less horrifying than claiming they kill children to harvest their blood, but the trope is consistent with the age-old blood libel against Jews. And the consequences are potentially just as deadly…