A Child of Christian Blood

A Child of Christian Blood by Edmund Levin

Anyone who is interested in history and church history as it pertains to world events would be interested in this story.

The book is accompanied by source notes, a bibliography, illustrations and extensive pictures of the victim (not to be viewed by the faint- hearted) and characters in the story.

At the start of the book the notes on dates and terminology include this quote "But the blood accusation has been, always and everywhere, a libel."

The preface sets the scene in the spring of 1911.  A child murdered in the city of Kiev and the international attention given to the case. Along with the investigation of this story is information about Ukrainian Jewish history and blood accusations as they circulated in Europe in centuries before the 1900's.

My favorite quote is from Mendel Beilis an uneducated and nonreligious person caught in strings of conspiracy and madness. Belis's struggle was with mental trauma brought on by false accusation and imprisonment. He states,
"I still remembered some verses and words which remained in my memory.  I remembered the verse, exzehu qibor ha'kovesh et yits, Who is a hero? He that conquers his evil inclination.  One must be a hero, I thought to myself by restraining the evil inclination and indeed live." Belis fought against the evil inclination to end his own life. " He resolved to live to see the day when the truth would be resolved."

You will see in this story a look at history and how false accusations affect more than the victim but the accusers as well.