The Beilis Trial and Popular Culture

On Monday, November 4, YIVO will host a panel discussion in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Beilis Trial, a cause célèbre of its time. In 1911, a Jewish factory clerk, Mendel Beilis in Kiev, was falsely accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy. His trial in 1913 was the last major blood libel trial in Europe.

The trial, covered widely by the international press drew the attention of Jews worldwide. As Yiddish writer Zalman Yitskhok Arosohn wrote to literary critic Shmuel Niger at the time, he was so preoccupied with the case that he couldn’t “sleep or work.” But obsession with the trial was not restricted to intellectuals. The Yiddish press was full of cartoons about it and more than one song in honor of Beilis was written.

A selection of these songs will be performed at the November 4th event by Lorin Sklamberg, lead vocalist of The Klezmatics and YIVO’s Sound Archivist. Here is a preview:

Joseph Gegna, violin with piano
“A Tfileh Fun Mendel Beilis” [Prayer of Mendel Beilis]
(Joseph Gegna)
Columbia E7174 mx. 87247-2 recorded NY March 1921
Listen to the song.

Sarah Benjamin
“Beylis's Protses”  [Beylis’s Trial]
From private issue cassette, MA 1984

“Lid fun Mendl Beylis” [Song Mendel Beilis]
From Songs of Generations by Eleanor and Joseph Mlotek
The Workmen's Circle, NY n/d
Read the lyrics.

Read about the Beilis Trial in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

Buy tickets for the event.