Download Tag: Scripture

EVERY year, especially about Easter-time, there is a revival of the accusation that the Jews, or, if not all the Jews, certain Jews, make use of the blood of Christians for purposes of ritual. The charge is bound to be often repeated, so long as the replies to it are limited to the contradiction and exposure of the falsity of the reasons brought forward That is why I discuss the accusation in connection with the significance of blood as regards religious belief, and par­ticularly as regards the superstitions of humanity at large.

I expressed my opinion on the question, whether the Jews use Christian blood for ritual purposes, as far back as 1882, the year of the Tisza-Eszlar trial, in the Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung (12th August, No. 32).

Further investigations (apropos of the Bernstein case, v.p. 144 sq.) convinced me more than two years ago, that, whilst I was correct in my nega­tive answer to the charge, it was possible, and even necessary, to base it upon a deeper foundation. I am now compelled to publish the results of my fresh researches by the renewal of the controversy about ritual murder in consequence of the assassination of an eight year old girl in Corfu during the night of the 12th to 13th April this year (v.p. 213 sq.) . . I have made it my special business to let the facts speak for themselves, and have almost confined myself to quoting, without alteration, the actual state­ments in the sources of information I have utilised: so anybody who wishes can arrive at an unbiased judgment for himself.

The facts I have had to bring forward are, for the greater part, of a very loathsome kind. But, in order to cure the terrible disease of superstition, we must first of all know the disease. . . . My exhortation to our Christian priesthood, to our whole Christian people is : Up and gird yourself for battle, not only against unbelief, but also against superstition ! When German Christendom, free from superstition, stands firm in true belief in the crucified Saviour, risen from the dead, the question, so far as concerns Germany, whether Christian blood is ritually employed by Jews, will be exploded and futile, for more reasons than one. 2 July, 1891. H. L. Strack.

I AM NOT AN ENEMY OF THE JEWS. For many years my written and spoken utterances have abounded with such phrases as, “There is a very real sense in which the Jews are God’s Chosen People. Taken as a whole they are the most’ remarkable race of people in the world. They have retained their existence as a separate and distinct people in spite of hundreds of years of persecution. The most ingenious methods have been used by other nations in seeking their destruction but they have weathered every storm. In the coming world crisis the Jew will play an important part in the drama of fulfilled Bible prophecy. And, let it be remembered that Jesus Christ came to earth dressed in the garb of a Jew.”

For nineteen hundred years these strange people have wandered over the earth, like the legend of the Wandering Jew, without a homeland; yet they have retained their race consciousness and are more firmly banded together today than any other nation in the world. This very thing makes them the great miracle of both history and prophecy. No other feature need be considered to confirm the fact that over them there exists a providential leadership.

WHEN, as a result of the favour of Oliver Cromwell and the exertions of Menasseh ben Israel, Jews settled again in London in the seventeenth century after an interval of some four hundred years, what is known as the Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese) rite was followed in the Synagogue they established. This was natural: for the overwhelming majority of its members were former Marranos who had escaped from the clutches of the Inquisition in the Peninsula, or else their immediate descendants. From the beginning, though, the settlement was leavened by a few representatives of the Germano-Polish group, generally known (after the term applied by the Jews of the Middle Ages to Germany) as Ashkenazim. In essentials, of course, there was little difference between them and their coreligionists, though their immediate antecedents were distinctive, their standard of general culture lower, their economic occupations humbler, and their synagogal tradition (almost identical, in fact, with that followed by the mediaeval Anglo-Jewish community, before the expulsion of 1290) slightly different. It may be noted that the most stalwart of those few Jews who penetrated into England in the ‘Middle Period”–the mining-engineer Joachim Gaunse who was expelled for his outspoken religious views, and the Jacob Barnett who fled from Oxford rather than submit to baptism –both happened to be Ashkenazim.

THE JEWS, like other childish people, enjoy pretending, and when pretending brings them the tribute due to the character assumed, they revel in it.
In this way they have obtained much credit, which should not have been given to them.
They were first tricked out in borrowed traditions and supplied with an entirely false idea of themselves about 430 B.C.
Then commenced the Great Jewish Masque, a pretence which has been maintained to the present day.
In recent times it has never lacked support. Indeed, Jewish propaganda has been so insidious and persistent that voluntary aid, in addition to other kinds, has always been available. At a mere hint, troupes of highly placed carpet-baggers don ass’s ears, or a long nose, and vie with each other, and with the kosher mummers, in endeavours to lead the rout.