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On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth

Or How Lies Are Turned into "Facts"

February 23, 2022

Magda Teter

Since the Middle Ages, the death of a Christian child often resulted in violence against Jews, who were frequently blamed for the child's death. While other anti-Jewish libels waned, this one endures. Magda Teter, professor of history and the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University, unpacks the enduring power of this lie, and explains how and why it came to be rooted in Christian imagination, reaching beyond medieval Europe to contemporary America and the Middle East.

Teter is author of Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth (Harvard University Press, 2020), winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award and the 2021 George L. Mosse Prize from the American Historical Association. Her talk is supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.