Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

Beilis, Mendel

Russia, 1921
accused of blood libel

In 1911, Beilis was accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy in a small Russian town. With all of the anti-Semitism of the Russia of those times against him, his lawyers fought for two years to prove his innocence. A kind of Russian “Dreyfus Affair,” diplomatic pressures eventually forced the government to drop all charges. (unknown-1934)