the ancient blood libel: that every year at Passover, Jews…

“How do we understand prejudice, hatred, and violence in the context of modern societies, like our own, among people much like ourselves, among men…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“For it was the rejection of the possibility of human solidarity with strangers—the critical as well as moral presupposition of civil society—that the National…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“He even pursued the story of a four-year-old girl who bragged that her father, a Jewish merchant of herculean physical stature, had thrown Winter…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Moritz Stern’s Source Contributions to the Position of the Popes on the Jews, which gathered together the medieval papacy’s impressive record denouncing the ritual-murder…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Ippolit Liutostanskii, a Polish-born, defrocked Catholic priest, who, after being tried for rape, turned to anti-Semitic polemics in order to earn money.”

— Helmut Walser Smith

“these instances bore none of the harrowing features of racially motivated torture, mutilation, and cruelty endemic to Euro-American lynching of African Americans. In Germany,…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“they called in the Prussian army to restore order and protect the Jews, who numbered just over three hundred men, women, and children in…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“The murder of Ernst Winter and the violence that followed provided the struggling anti-Semitic parties with an opportunity to revitalize their movement.”

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Efes Damim (No Blood), was originally published in Wilna in 1837 and included text in Hebrew, Latin, Russian, and Polish. The book was subsequently…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“As the army arrived in the region, the otherwise obedient West Prussian citizens stoned the troops, denouncing the men in spiked helmets as a…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Print could be wielded by the purveyors of prejudice as well as by the combatants for civilization”

— Helmut Walser Smith

“In 1900, imperial Germany safeguarded the rule of law and ensured the protection of its citizens, including Jews. Four decades later, the Third Reich…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Spoken in the context of the riots, the words did not kill but they enacted and performed, and what they performed was a murder:…

— Helmut Walser Smith

“When all is said and done, a single word, “understanding,” is the beacon light of our studies —MARC BLOCH”

— Helmut Walser Smith

“Rather than demand the assimilation of Jews, he rejected them; and instead of trying to convert Jews, he declared them an implacable enemy, not…

— Helmut Walser Smith