Torah to Mark Blood Libel Trial

Torah parade to help mark triumphant 100th anniversary of Beilis aquittal

jewishworldnews.org

The Sunday, Oct. 27, Torah dedication here will be punctuated by a procession walking with the new Torah under a canopy along Phila and Caroline Streets from the Saratoga Public Library on Henry Street.

Dedicated in memory of Morris and Marlene Aronson, the new Torah will be installed in the ark of the Saratoga Chabad Synagogue at 130 Circular St. The Torah will be the first Torah owned by Saratoga Chabad.

Accompanied by musicians and celebrants, the communal Torah procession will also note the blood libel trial of Mendel Beilis, who was acquitted 100 years ago.

“Chances are that our Torah procession will proceed on the very sidewalks where Mendel Beilis walked when he visited Saratoga, certainly near where he died,” said Rabbi Abba and Raizel Rubin, Chabad House co-directors, who are coordinating the festive event.

“Marching openly with the new Torah scroll, we express our appreciation for the Freedom of Religion and tolerance that we enjoy in the United States as a free country, as compared to the hateful agitation, persecution and awful trials in Russia a century ago,” said Rabbi Abba Rubin.

A brick factory manager in Kiev, Menachem Mendel Beilis was falsely accused of murdering 13-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky. He was accused of wanting to use the boy’s blood to bake Passover matzah.

While awaiting trial, Beilis was imprisoned for over two years under horrible conditions, heroically resisting pressure to implicate himself or other Jews. After a dramatic trial that riveted the attention of much of the world, Beilis was acquitted by an all Christian jury in 1913. The Beilis blood libel trial was one of the first great media spectacles, covered in Kiev by more than 200 newspapers and a film crew.

Bernard Malamud’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Fixer was based on Beilis’ Yiddish memoir.

After his acquittal and his leaving Russia, Beilis made aliyah to Jaffa, Palestine, and then immigrated to the United States in 1921. He settled in Glens Falls, and died in Saratoga Springs on July 7, 1934. He is buried in the Mount Carmel cemetery, Queens, a few graves away from Leo Frank, the Jew who was lynched in Georgia in 1915 for supposedly killing a Christian girl.

The last Hebrew lines of the new Saratoga Torah scroll will be inscribed by Rabbi Moshe Klein of Brooklyn, in memory of Morris Aronson, who owned and operated Standard Furniture on Rt. 50. Morris Aronson was a Saratogian whose family originally came from Glens Falls. Funding for the Torah is from the Aronson family legacy. The Capital Chabad organized the Torah celebration and Beilis tribute.

A display of 20 photos, books and other materials about Beilis will be highlighted as part of the Saratoga Torah dedication program.