A Book And A Blood Libel

Ariel Toaff is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Israel's Bar Ilan University, and son of the former chief rabbi of Rome. Now, he has had his fifteen minutes of fame...or perhaps more appropriately, his fifteen minutes of infamy. His new book, "Pasque di Sangue" ("Bloody Passovers") uses confessions, obtained by torture, to falsely assert that during the Middle Ages, a Jewish sect may have ritually murdered Christian children in order to use their blood in unleavened bread (matzoah). Over the centuries, numerous innocent Jews were butchered because of such canards. And now the moronic and sardonic Toaff has given those intent on persecuting and murdering Jews a gift. Neo-nazis (I never capitalize the "n" in nazi), jihadists, and some anti-Israel leftists have already expressed delight in Toaff's "research," shoddy as it is.

There is a movement afoot in Israel to bring criminal charges against Toaff. Generally, I would oppose prosecuting someone for writing a book, but what this self-hating jerk has done is the equivalent of falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. He should, indeed, be criminally charged. There also are many precedents in which universities have fired faculty members for buffoon-like research. Bar-Ilan should give Toaff the heave-ho! I hope he gets the book thrown at him (figuratively speaking, that is).