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Podcast: New Books in Genocide Studies
Episode: Elissa Bemporad, "Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Description: The history of antisemitism in Europe stretches back as far as Ancient Rome, but persecutions of Jews became widespread during the Crusades, beginning in the early 11th century when the wholesale massacre of entire communities became commonplace. From the 12th century, the justification for this state-sanctioned violence became the blood libel accusation: the idea that Jews ritually murdered Christian children and used their blood in the celebration of Passover.Nowhere in Europe was the blood libel more tenacious, credible, and long lived than in the Russian Empire, particularly during the late Imperial period, which saw large scale...