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World Jewish News
95th Anniversary of Beilis Case Among Important Dates in 2008
26.12.2008
Time and again, there is, unfortunately, an almost unrequited question: what social layers are more anti-Semitic - the so-called common people or the so-called educated class?
It would seem that in modern times one could lean towards the second variant. For example, the "Letter 5000" which caused a sensation three years ago - an appeal to the Attorney General to ban Jewish religious organizations, signed by people known in the world of culture and politics.
Even I, as a single individual, often came across the Jewish question raised by people far from workers and peasants. I have grazed cattle, helped at plants, done road building, well drilling, served on a par with soldiers and policemen, and nobody talked about these issues. Although it perhaps was a different time, or I was the wrong age, or I spent too little time among these people.
But 95 years ago nobody could even pose such a question. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the unwashed masses are totally infected with anti-Semitism.
Everybody knows the "Beilis case," but let me recap that average Kiev resident Menahem Mendel Beilis was falsely accused not only of the murder of the boy Andrei Yushchinsky, but of ritual murder "with ceremonial purposes and religious fanaticism motives."
The expert witness Professor Sikorski testified the crime to be "racial vengeance, or a vendetta of Jacob's sons towards subjects of another race."
The court expert, Catholic priest Pranaitis concluded: "The feeling of anger and hatred towards people of another ethnic group or religion inherent to the Jews because of their religious law is most acute towards Christians."
Despite the fact that the prosecution started with a verdict from the educated people, the thinking part of Russia believed anti-Semitic attitudes to be characteristic of the lower class people. So they were distressed because of the absence of intellectuals in the jury, which included seven peasants, three members of the bourgeoisie, and two minor officials.
"Here are the suburbs and the villages of Kiev, where branches of various "unions of Russians", toxic agitation and nationalist demagogy are not uncommon", - wrote Vladimir Korolenko. He suggested that the case was a frame-up, under the pretext that the majority of jurors used to be drawn from Kiev and the lesser part from the county, while in the year the Beilis trial took place the equality of cities and villages was restored. But at the same time the jury in the next room consisted of only two farmers and thirteen intellectuals, including three professors.
This jury, which consisted of the low-educated, "gray" people, was supposed to simply get lost in the cobwebs of the case. Moreover, they knew what the authorities, as exemplified by their bosses, wanted, and the common people always respect and fear the bosses. Nobody had any doubts about the result.
But in the upshot the "gray" jury completely acquitted Menachem Beilis. "Not guilty", - said the foreman. Thundering silence fell in the room. In the cold room frozen aghast, the foreman involuntarily repeated: "Not guilty". Then the press acknowledged they had been wrong ...
The jury had something to fear. An anti-Semitic hysteria had been artificially escalated in Kiev for the last two years: pamphlets and newspapers were distributed; muscled men were walking down streets and threatening pogroms. The jurors, adult men, knew, in contrast to the boy, that they would acquire quite a few enemies, and the kind of enemies who would not hesitate before anything. The mysterious death of Vera Cheberyak's children gave rise to disquieting thoughts.
Yet the jurors, genuine representatives of the lower classes of Russian society, were not terrified, but told the thugs: "We do not fear you."
Sergey Baimuhametov
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