“Spoken in the context of the riots, the words did not kill but they enacted and performed, and what they performed was a murder: a ritual murder. Not the Jews but their Christian accusers performed the ritual murder.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“the ancient blood libel: that every year at Passover, Jews ritually slaughter Christian children and use their blood to bake matzo.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Print could be wielded by the purveyors of prejudice as well as by the combatants for civilization” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
