Swarthmore's Weinberg to discuss notorious trial in Russian, Jewish history

9:41 a.m., Oct. 14, 2014--Robert Weinberg, professor of history at Swarthmore College, will speak on "Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: Popular Antisemitism and the Trial of Mendel Beilis" at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 11, in Room 307 of the University of Delaware’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory (ISE Lab).

The talk originally was to be held Thursday, Oct 16, but had to be rescheduled.

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Weinberg will discuss one of the most notorious trials in Russian and Jewish history.

On Sunday, March 20, 1911, children playing in a cave near Kiev made a gruesome discovery: the blood-soaked body of a partially clad boy. 

After right-wing groups asserted that the killing was a ritual murder, the police, with no direct evidence, arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish manager at a factory near the site of the crime. 

Beilis' trial in 1913 quickly became an international cause célèbre. The jury ultimately acquitted Beilis but held that the crime had the hallmarks of a ritual murder.

Weinberg's account of the Beilis Affair explores the reasons why the tsarist government framed Beilis, shedding light on the excesses of antisemitism in late Imperial Russia.

The lecture, which is open to the public, is part of a Jewish Studies course on anti-Semitism taught by Polly Zavadivker, assistant professor of history and Jewish Studies.