Tracking the End : On the Importance of Half-Measures in

Ending Ritual Murder Trials in Poland

Hillel J. Kieval

Antisemitism Studies, Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 2021, pp. 330-339 (Article)

Published by Indiana University Press

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Scholars Forum

Tracking the End: On the Importance of

Half-Measures in Ending Ritual Murder
Trials in Poland

Hillel J. Kieval

Toward the end of her magisterial book, Blood Libel: On the Trail
of an Antisemitic Myth, Magda Teter surveys a ritual murder trial
that took place in 1774–1775 in the Polish village of Grabie,
which belonged to a Benedictine monastery north of Warsaw.
Preceded by a tumultuous two centuries of accusations, popular
agitation, and sensational publications by church officials, Grabie
was one of the last such trials to be prosecuted in the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth. Uncharacteristically for post-Counter
Reformation Poland, the case foundered under the weight of grow-
ing skepticism on the part of public officials, an unsympathetic
monarch, increasingly trenchant public debates about capital pun-
ishment and the use of torture in judicial proceedings, and a power-
fully uncompromising—if anonymous—defense of the accused that
was printed and disseminated in Warsaw.
After one year of inconclusive proceedings, the case was trans-
ferred to a commission under the direction of the bishop of Poznań
(the same official who had been charged a year earlier with the
task of executing the papal decree to suppress the Jesuit order).
In its comments on the accusation that Jews killed Christians to
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obtain their blood for religious rituals, the commission noted that
both royal and ecclesiastical authorities had long maintained that
the accusation had no substance; chastised local officials for having,
nevertheless, “arrested, prosecuted, abused, and tormented Jews;”
and questioned the whole trial and its procedures. The commission
completed its work in June 1775 ordering the release of the impris-
oned Jews (363–371, here 371).
Jewish leaders in the Commonwealth (which by now had
already suffered one of three eventual partitions) had engaged early
on with the events in question, seeking support for the Jewish defen-
dants both publicly and through private diplomatic channels. In
April 1774, they appealed to the papal nuncio in Warsaw, Giuseppe
Garampi, to intervene in the case, emphasizing the nearly univer-
sal rejection in European learned opinion of the use of torture in
criminal investigations and reminding him that such cases had to
be judged on the weight of evidence and probability rather than
prejudice. Teter points out that there are no documents to indicate
exactly how the nuncio responded to his Jewish petitioners. We
do know, however, that church authorities did decide to remove
the case from its original jurisdiction and assign it to the commis-
sion headed by the bishop of Poznań, where it ultimately collapsed.
Jews also appealed directly to King Stanisław August Poniatowski,
whose immediate response is also unknown. We do learn, how-
ever, that Stanisław August was in receipt of other Enlightenment-
inflected treatises against the ritual murder accusation around
this time. In 1787, the king publicly condemned one last, also
unsuccessful, ritual murder procedure in Olkusz with the words:
“[d]espite the fact that all nations mention such trials, and severe
punishments were meted out at those accused of this crime, enlight-
ened education of our times has convinced us about the innocence of
these victims of prejudice and superstition” (374, emphasis mine). By
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, then, elite opinion, royal
policy, and the efforts of the Catholic Church to rein in local Church
officials and discourage certain forms of popular piety combined to
suppress the last of the ritual murder trials in Poland-Lithuania just
as the Commonwealth itself was disappearing from the map.

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In Blood Libel, Magda Teter makes significant contributions

to a variety of interpretive issues: the long and tortured career of
the ritual murder accusation, to be sure, but also legal and inquis-
itorial procedures, epistemology, and the history of the book, to
name the most prominent. The book has already secured a place
as perhaps the definitive account of the pre-modern ritual murder
accusation, its effects on the European imagination, and its impact
on Jewish victims. The book’s main focus clearly lies with the
early modern period—spanning three centuries from the famous
case of Simon of Trent to the legal and procedural reforms in the
Polish Commonwealth, which effectively ended the use of torture
and severely limited capital punishment. It was during this period,
Teter argues, that the blood libel “captured the European Christian
imagination,” consolidated its central narrative and iconographic
features, and found a permanent place in authoritative accounts of
world history thanks to the technology of printing. These develop-
ments weakened the papacy’s earlier condemnation of the accusa-
tion and produced both precedent and argumentation for a string
of prosecutions that would darken the judicial record of the Italian
states and Poland-Lithuania.
Blood Libel, then, is primarily a study of early modern atti-
tudes, prejudices, Church politics, and epistemologies. Since my
own endeavors in recent years have been directed toward account-
ing for and explaining the next, discontinuous leap in ritual murder
prosecutions in Europe (the roughly three decades preceding the
First World War), it is the last part of Teter’s narrative that especially
interests me. I am keen to know when, where, and under what
conditions the hiatus separating the pre-modern and the modern
ritual murder trials occurred. What quelched formal state action on
the blood libel in most parts of Europe by the second half of the
eighteenth century, if not considerably earlier? For answers I am
drawn to the last chapters of the book, which rest on developments
in Rome and Poland-Lithuania during the third quarter of the eigh-
teenth century. These encompass five interconnected themes: 1) yet
another (brief) wave of accusations in Poland-Lithuania, punctuated
by trials in Żytomierz (1753) and Jampol (1756); 2) the shocking

332 Antisemitism Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (October 2021)

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and unprecedented claim made in 1759 by representatives of the

Frankist movement (so-called “Counter-Talmudists”) in a public
disputation in which they supported the veracity of the accusation
based on rabbinic sources; 3) the drawn-out lobbying efforts of the
Polish Jewish emissary Eliyakim ben Asher Zelig to get the papacy
to formally denounce (once more?) the blood libel; 4) the resulting
investigation and report of Cardinal Ganganelli; and, 5) finally, the
petering out of formal ritual murder trials in the Commonwealth a
century or more after such judicial procedures had ended in most
of Central and Western Europe.
My hope in revisiting these eighteenth century develop-
ments—including the somewhat maligned Ganganelli report of
1759—is to challenge respectfully some of Magda Teter’s critical,
and at times dismissive, accounts of their significance. Sentences
such as the following, sprinkled throughout the last few chapters,
are doubtless designed to temper any inclination on the part of the
reader to come away with a triumphalist reading of the century:
“[t]he letter from Corsini is probably the most explicit articula-
tion of Rome’s unwillingness to intervene openly in anti-Jewish
accusations” (355); “[t]he balance was unsatisfying and ineffec-
tive but very much in the spirit of Ganganelli’s report, condemn-
ing the accusations but simultaneously affirming Church hierarchy
and structure” (356); “[a]lthough trials of the Jews largely ended
in premodern Poland, they did not end because of the Ganganelli
report or papal intervention, as some scholars continue to argue”
(375); “[t]he trials did eventually wane at the time of civil war and
the first partitions of Poland, but their end was more a result of
political circumstances and legal reform in the collapsing coun-
try than of the efficacy of Church interventions” (345). Finally,
regarding the Wojsławice Affair of 1760–1761, “Wojsławice was
the example par excellence of the inefficacy of the nuncio’s earnest
behind-the-scenes efforts” (352).
Teter clearly sees the Grabie case, with which I began this
essay, as a breakthrough, an about-face in the 200 year career of
ritual murder prosecutions in Counter Reformation Poland. Grabie
was indeed transformative, but it strains credulity to regard earlier

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developments in legal theory, diplomacy, and even internal Church

politics as having been merely half-hearted, ineffectual, or worse.
What follows, then, might be viewed as a hopeful exercise in reha-
bilitation in which I make a plea for the importance of half-steps,
informal diplomacy, and moderation. I think one should “give
credit” to the modest epistemic shifts manifested therein to rehabil-
itate the efforts and accomplishments of cautious reformers.
Let us begin with the diplomatic mission of Eliyakim ben
Asher Zelig and Cardinal Ganganelli’s report. Zelig engaged in
communications with high papal officials in 1758 in the aftermath
of ritual murder accusations in Żytomierz and Jampol and man-
aged to convince the Holy Office of the Inquisition to open the
larger matter to renewed examination. The Holy Office, in turn,
instructed Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli to direct the investiga-
tion. We learn from Teter that the Jewish delegation had hoped to
receive a “general statement of principle” from the pope denounc-
ing the blood libel that could be widely and publicly disseminated.
(Note that a papal bull issued by Innocent IV had already done so
in 1247.) In this, however, the delegation was to be sadly disap-
pointed, as the extensive report drawn up by Ganganelli in 1759
was never translated from its original Italian into Latin nor was it
officially published; instead, it was circulated as a manuscript in a
limited fashion. Moreover, while the Ganganelli report did strongly
declare the popular belief that Jews engaged in the kidnapping and
murdering of Christians in order to obtain their blood for ritual
purposes to be false, it also considered the possibility that Jewish
murders might be motivated by “hatred of the Christian faith” and,
as such, might be worthy of investigation on a case-by-case basis.
Was the Polish Jewish mission, then, a failure, as Teter suggests?
Was the Ganganelli report a half-hearted disappointment?
The report was disappointing, perhaps, in its moderation and
in the limited uses to which it was put, at least immediately. But
my suggestion to Magda Teter on this and related points would be
that we pay as close attention to political and epistemological shifts
at this point in time—subtle though they might have been—as she
does to the production of “knowledge” of Jewish ritual murder in

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the aftermath of the Simon of Trent case. Subtlety is not the same
as lack of seriousness, and Ganganelli—both in his investigation and
his final report—demonstrated determination, ingenuity, and intel-
lectual independence. He aligned himself with medieval historical
precedents, produced by both popes and secular authorities, which
condemned the classical ritual murder accusation; ignored the
recent claims from Poland that rabbinic sources sanctioned the kill-
ing of Christian children; chastised the Polish bishops (Sołtyk and
Wołłowicz) for their uncritical acceptance of anti-Jewish accusa-
tions; and, argued that each case against Jews had to be adjudicated
on the basis of “the probability and credibility of the information.”
Against the claim made by the Polish bishops that Jewish guilt had
been demonstrated by the many trials against them that had taken
place over the years, Ganganelli countered by pointing to those
occasions of late in which they were, in fact, acquitted, particularly
in Italian courts. It was in places such as Verona (1603), he con-
cluded, that the courts were guided by the “pure love of truth”
(337–338).
Teter points out that some of the text in Ganganelli’s report
was not his own. In particular, he seems to have lifted whole parts
of his discussion of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish refutations of
the blood libel from the writings of Rabbi Tranquillo Vita Corcos
(of Rome), published during the Viterbo Affair of 1705–1706.
Such borrowing may be a mark against Ganganelli’s originality, but
several facts in the case are equally, if not more, significant. After
Viterbo, the arguments of a Jewish religious leader were accepted
as authoritative; Corcos’s treatise, moreover, had been published by
the official papal printing house; and the Congregation of the Holy
Office, when asked to hear the Viterbo case, decided that there was
“nothing there that pertained to [it],” implying that nothing had
been committed in scorn of the Christian faith (286). Ganganelli’s
attack on the ritual murder accusation was admittedly incomplete,
as he maintained the plausibility that Jews murdered Christians, not
for the performance of Jewish ritual but out of hatred for their vic-
tims. And he faced a particular challenge in coming to terms with
the cases of Simon of Trent and Andreas of Rinn, whose martyrdom

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and popular cults were eventually recognized by Rome as authen-

tic. In the end, Ganganelli was forced to admit “as true” that both
Simon and Andreas had been murdered by Jews “in hatred of the
faith of Jesus Christ” (339, in one case the wording is “in hatred of
the faith in Jesus Christ”). The particular formulation here is cru-
cial. Not only did it represent an important step in the weakening
of the ritual murder accusation, but it (and similar constructions)
would be entertained by liberal government officials—who tended
to prefer the term “fanaticism” over “hatred”—during the late
nineteenth century wave of prosecutions.
Ganganelli’s report was approved by the Holy Office on
December 24, 1759 and submitted to Pope Clement XIII on
January 10, 1760. Teter notes that the full report was never sub-
mitted to the Jewish delegation from Poland, but only a summary
of its contents, implying that such a step was both unusual and
significant. I do not know what normal protocol required, but I do
think that it is hasty to conclude that “Church officials clearly did
not want to make it known” (342–343). It seems, in fact, that both
Ganganelli and the Holy Office felt that the report carried pol-
icy implications that needed to be conveyed to Church officials in
Poland. The Holy Office prepared a letter to be shown to Eliyakim
ben Asher Zelig and then delivered to the papal nuncio in Warsaw,
who was instructed “according to his wisdom and zeal that in other
similar cases no harm shall be brought upon the Hebrew nation”
(343). Before the new papal nuncio to Poland, Bishop Antonio
Eugenio Visconti, left Rome to assume his post in February 1760,
Cardinal Ganganelli left for him “some documents concerning the
decided case of Jews in that Kingdom” (a manuscript of his report,
perhaps?) and later provided Zelig with a warm letter of introduc-
tion to be presented to the nuncio.
Such early behind-the-scenes maneuvering could not prevent
another damaging ritual murder trial from taking place a year later
in Woysławice, aided, it seems, by Gaudenty Pikulski’s publication,
Złość żydowska (Jewish Malice), which attempted to exploit the
Frankists’ anti-rabbinic accusations. Jewish leaders were quick to
respond to this new threat and appealed in writing to the papal

336 Antisemitism Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (October 2021)

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nuncio who also took quick action. Nuncio Visconti wrote to the
owner of the town, Feliks Wincenty Potocki, drafting his letter, as
Teter poignantly notes, “in Italian on the very letter the Jewish lead-
ers had sent to him.” Visconti’s message, I think, is worth quoting:

I find myself obligated by my position and by the charge

received from Rome on this matter to inform Your Excellency
that after a recent examination by the Holy See [of] all the
foundations on which is based the opinion that Jews need
human blood to make their unleavened bread, and that
because of that they are guilty of killing Christian children, it
has been established that there are no proofs sufficiently clear
and certain that would be enough to validate [such accusations
and declare them guilty of such crimes]. Therefore, I beg Your
Excellency [not to base his judgment on these opinions], but
rather on legal proofs that would establish for sure the crime
imputed to them (349).

Visconti also wrote to Bishop Walenty Wężyk of Chełm, in whose

diocese the village of Wojsławice was located, explaining that his
purpose was not to cast doubt on the judgment of the courts nor
to demand the release of the Jewish defendants if they were, in fact,
found guilty. Once again articulating what I believe must be seen as
a novel epistemological principle, he concluded: “[a]ll I desired was
that one proceed against them according to legal proofs, and solid
foundations, and not according to the opinion that may be false and
[based] on the accusations that may have been calumnies against
Jews from another region” (350). As it turned out, the nuncio’s
efforts to intervene in defense of the accused Jews in Wojsławice
failed and they were convicted and executed.
Was Wojsławice, as Teter writes, “the example par excellence
of the inefficacy of the nuncio’s earnest behind-the-scenes efforts
(352)? Perhaps, but here I would ask whether it is reasonable for
us to expect Ganganelli’s report and the Holy Office’s diplomatic
efforts to have effected a sea change in policy and belief immedi-
ately? Would it not be both fairer and more accurate to say: little
to no change in the very short term, but significant changes within
three decades? It is also worth noting in this context that the papal

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nuncio in Poland continued to put pressure on Catholic bishops

even as news of the guilty verdicts came out. Writing once again
to Bishop Wężyk, Visconti reiterated his earlier position that his
initial intervention had not been to “protect the Jews if they were
found guilty based on legal proofs.” And he reminded the bishop
that the Holy See had given him “precise instructions” to do what
he could to prevent harm done to Jews on the basis of the belief
that they “needed human blood to make their unleavened bread”
(351). As Teter herself reminds us, “not only did Visconti demand
details of what led to the execution, but he also wanted the bishop
to provide information that innocent people were not ‘confused
with the guilty.’” It was up to the bishop, Visconti wrote, “to use all
means in your diocese so that these poor Jews are not persecuted.”
It was also important to know, Visconti added, if there was enough
legal evidence to support a guilty verdict or if, under torture, they
admitted to a crime they had not committed (351).
The Grabie case would occur less than a decade and a half
after Wojsławice, ultimately collapsing under the weight of its
own antiquated epistemological foundations. Stanisław August
Poniatowski issued his condemnation of the Olkusz case 25 years
after Wojsławice but had started to institute important political and
institutional reforms as early as 1764. In the intervening decades
Poland was home to growing Enlightenment-inspired debates over
capital punishment and the use of torture in criminal proceedings.
At the very time that the Commonwealth was undergoing reform,
adopting many of the features of a modern state, it was also in
the process of disappearing—a victim of the rapaciousness of its
neighbors. Which development was most significant in bringing to
an end Poland’s pre-modern ritual murder trials? Was there a sin-
gle breakthrough? The answer seems clearly to be no. Thus, my
modest plea, once again, that we recognize the importance of half-
steps, behind-the-scenes diplomacy, subtle shifts in epistemology
and legal argumentation, and, indeed, tactical alliances between
Catholics and Jews. Two cheers, then, for the revolutionary effects
of half-measures.

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Hillel J. Kieval  is the Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish

History and Thought at Washington University in St. Louis. His
research interests range from the pathways of Jewish acculturation
and integration to the impact of nationalism and ethnic conflict
on modern Jewish identities, and from cross-cultural conflicts and
misunderstandings to the discursive practices of modern antisem-
itism. Among his publications are The Making of Czech Jewry:
National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870–1918 (1988);
Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands
(2000); and Blood Inscriptions: Science, Modernity, and Ritual
Murder at Europe’s Fin de Siècle (forthcoming, February 2022).

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