Isaac Baer Levinsohn - Refutes Charges of Blood Accusation

Refutes Charges of Blood Accusation

About this time the Jewish community of Zaslavl in Volhynia was accused of ritual murder; many families were imprisoned, and the entire community was in despair. Levinsohn's opponents then laid aside their enmity and turned to him as the only man capable of proving the falsity of the accusation. In spite of his sickness Levinsohn began his "Efes Dammim," in defense of the accused Jews. But the necessary means not being forthcoming, he was obliged to spend his own money in collecting material and information. "The purpose of my book," says Levinsohn, "is to acquit the Jews before the eyes of Christians, and to save them from the false accusation of using Christian blood." "Efes Dammim" is written in the form of a dialogue between a patriarch of the Greek Church in Jerusalem, Simias, and the chief rabbi in the Jewish synagogue there. The book shows the remarkable dialectic talent of the author. It was completed in 1834, published in 1837, republished three times, and was translated into English at the time of the "Damascus Affair" in 1840, at the instance of Sir Moses Montefiore and Crémieux. It was translated also into Russian (1883) and German (1884; another German edition appeared in 1892). In another polemical work, "Yemin Ẓidki," Levinsohn proves the absurdity of the accusations against Judaism and the Talmud. This work was left by him in manuscript.

Other polemical works written by Levinsohn are "Aḥiyyah Shiloni ha-Ḥozeh" (Leipsic, 1841) and "Ta'ar ha-Sofer" (Odessa, 1863). "Aḥiyyah Shiloni ha-Ḥozeh" is directed against the work of the English missionary McCaul entitled "The Paths of the World" (London, 1839), and constitutes an introduction to Levinsohn's larger work "Zerubbabel," completed in 1853. This latter work was published, in part, by his nephew David Baer Nathansohn (Leipsic, 1863); the entire work was published later in Warsaw (1876). This work, which occupied twelve years, and was continued through sickness and suffering, was not only a defense of Judaism, but also an exposition of the value of traditional law in the Jewish religion, and of the great wisdom and moral force of its expounders and teachers. The "Ta'ar ha-Sofer" is directed against the Karaites.