Circumcision by David Gollaher, 2000, Excerpts

Circumcision was a leitmotif in the stories of Christian boys martyred by Jewish fiends. The archetypal expression of the atrocity appeared in the late fifteenth-century woodcut illustrating the murder of Saint Simon of Trent [1475]. The prototypal image of Saint Simon’s martyrdom, published in Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle, portrays Jews circumcising the two-year-old while they bleed him to death, purportedly saving his blood for use in their Passover ritual.

Claudine Fabre-Vassas, a French ethnologist, describes the engraving that depicts the martyrdom: “The emphasis is placed on the treatment of St. Simon’s genitals, which are being cut with a large knife. A gaping wound is opened at his throat, from which the blood is flowing into a receptacle. Shearing scissors are ready to cut into this chest and needles pricking his skin contribute to bleeding him white.”

The Professor Toaff Controversy

Professor outrages Jews with book claim

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/08/wjews08.xml

Feb 9, 2007

A Jewish academic has shocked Italy by claiming Jews murdered Christians for their blood in the Middle Ages so it could be used in rituals. The details were revealed in the Italian newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, which published extracts of the book, Easter of Blood by Professor Ariel Toaff. The book describes the mutilation and crucifixion of a two-year-old boy to recreate Christ’s execution at Pesach, the Jewish Easter. The festival marks the fleeing of the Jews from Egypt and Prof Toaff says Christian blood was used for "magic and therapeutic practices". He says the acts took place in around the city of Trento in modern northern Italy, between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Professor who claimed Jews used Christian blood in Passover ceremonies defends his book: 'I will fight for my truth, even if I am crucified'

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=824537&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0

Feb 12, 2007

In an interview with Haaretz from Rome, Professor Ariel Toaff said he stood behind the contention of his book, "Pasque di Sangue," just published in Italy, that there is a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews. However, he said he was sorry his arguments had been twisted.

Toaff said he reached his conclusions after coming across testimony from the trial for the murder of a Christian child, Simon of Trento, in 1475, which in the past was believed to have been falsified. "I found there were statements and parts of the testimony that were not part of the Christian culture of the judges, and they could not have been invented or added by them. They were components appearing in prayers known from the [Jewish] prayer book.

MKs demand the author of blood libel book be prosecuted

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/830711.html

Feb 26, 2007

MKs on Monday demanded that the state examine ways in which it could prosecute Professor Ariel Toaff, who wrote book "Pasque di Sangue" [Passovers of Blood], which discusses the possible facts behind 15th century European blood libels against Jews.

In his book "Pasque di Sangue" [Passovers of Blood], Toaff discusses at length the possibility that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, and argues that confessions to such acts extracted under torture should not be dismissed. Toaff uses as an example the blood libel of Trent in 1475, and suggests that Jews did murder the young child, Simon, who is at the center of the affair.

He now wants to make it clear that the Jews of Trent did not murder Simon or any other Christian children for ritual purposes. Toaff will also make it clear that the blood of dead Christians could not possibly have been used, whether in food, beverages or for medicinal or magical purposes, because the blood traded by Jews and Christians at the time came from living donors, not corpses. His conclusion is that Jews could not possibly have murdered Christian children for their blood.