PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
The Evils Of Damascus: Perpetuating The Ritual Blood Libel
A New York Times article dealing
with "violence against Arab Americans,"
headlined "Attacks on U.S. Arabs," by
Colin Campbell, with a similar pattern in
headlines in many American newspapers,
could add miserably to the manner such
occurrences are linked with the entire
Middle East.
Israel being a major factor in that
political arena, immediately the charge
emerges that Israel is the violence perpet-
rator.
It is such a danger that arouses jus-
tified resentment and tells the media that
they are continuing to be uncautious in the
treatment of the Middle East vis-a-vis Is-
rael. Israel has the distinction of always
being selected as the scapegoat.
There are confusions and misconcep-
tions which must not be permitted to
dominate. Every negative occurrence has
been sensationalized as if it were Israel
and Jewish policy. A Kahanist assertion,
an extremism, is at once judged as a basic
idea in the Israeli struggle for survival.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is that the chief aim in Jewish
ranks is the quest for peace, and the hope
for amity with the Arabs must not be ig-
nored. Admittedly, there are the destruct-
ive elements in Israel and Jewry. They do
not represent the basic ethical codes aimed
at making good will a factor for all in-
volved, regardless of religion or race.
One, therefore, should not look for sins
and faults among Israel's neighbors.
Nevertheless, there are two abominable
acts which find roots in some Arab coun-
tries. They can not be ignored.
One is the manner in which the dis-
credited and faked Protocols of the Elders
of Zion found distributors among Arabs.
They were republished and circulated in
Saudi Arabia. They even found salespeople
in Egypt.
More outrageous is the guilt of spread-
ing the ritual murder libel. It has been
used to spread venom against Jews in sev-
eral countries neighboring on Israel.
Damascus appears to have become the
center for disseminating this stupidity. It
has a history of making the blood libel the
means of inciting others to hatred of the
Jewish people, and that serves as an added
means of spreading anti-Israelism.
Last month another blood libel canard
originated in Damascus. A book authored
by Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas
revives the Middle Age stupidities. The
book with the blood lie as means of spread-
ing hatred of Jews and Israel reportedly
already has wide circulation. U.S. Secre-
tary of State George Schultz has been
alerted to this book's harmful effects by the
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and has
given assurance that he shares a sense of
outrage "that individuals continue to write
such works, which clearly serve only to
further hatred and anti-Semitism against
the Jewish people. "He is pursuing a possi-
ble protest by the U.S. embassy in Damas-
cus.
While the book by the Syrian Defense
Minister Tlas is filled with nonsense, con-
`The Jewish Wedding'
And Accumulated Facts
Scores of books have been written
and published devoted to the ceremonials
revolving around the marriage cere-
mony. For every book there were surely a
hundred articles on the subject.
The increasing rate of mixed mar-
riages is adding to the interest in such
books, and when the topic is provided ful-
lest coverage, the concerns as well as de-
votions in the Jewish communities and a
knowledge of the facts as they affect the
general communal reactions emerge re-
vealingly and properly informative. As-
suming a top role in the most serious ap-
proaches to the subject is The New Jewish
Wedding (Summit Books) in which Anita
Diamant provides unmatched
authoritativeness.
Genuine research and extensive
studies mark the Diamant approaches to
a subject that is becoming more serious
with the challenges confronting it from
within and without. Anita Diamant has
written extensively for many magazines
and her articles appear regularly in the
Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
The term "new" in the title of the
Diamant book could well be an exaggera-
tion. More appropriate is its being a
"multifaceted" treatment of an important
social aspect in Jewish life. The elemen-
tary approaches to the wedding ceremony
are fully covered: preparations for the
ceremony itself and selection of a rabbi,
the invitations and the cordialities, the
food to be served, the details that could
apply to the Jewish wedding generally.
Ceremonialism is vital and is major
in the study of Jewish observances.
Therefore the value, in the Diamant
book, of studying differences, of becoming
acquainted with a Chabad approach as it
varies from the Reform and Conservative
and even some Orthodox planning.
2
Friday, August 22, 1986
Definitive approaches to these con-
trasts lead impressiveness to the Diam-
ant book. There is much more to it. It does
not ignore the pressing issue of mixed
marriages. In the current weeks when
the marriage of a Kennedy to a Jew gains
prominent space in the press, the manner
in which Diamant treats intermarriage
adds to the value of her research.
Anita Diamant gives impressive
treatment to the subject. Because it re-
presents perhaps the most serious threat
to Jewish existence it earns total consid-
eration. Here is the Diamant text on the
subject:
Family conflict rarely reaches
a greater emotional pitch than
when a Jewish child announces a
decision to marry a non-Jew. In-
termarriage is seen as a complete
break with tradition and a threat
to the continuation of the Jewish
people. Many couples are be-
wildered and angered by this vie-
wpoint, which is more or less the •
"party line" of the entire Jewish
community.
Very few rabbis will officiate
at a marriage between a Jew and a
non-Jew. Orthodox and Conserva-
tive rabbis simply will not partici-
pate, nor will most Reform or Re-
constructionist rabbis. (A 1978
survey of Reform rabbis showed
that only 157 of 1268 said they had
officiated at an intermarriage.)
Couples who feel personally re-
jected by this position rarely
understand its basis in Jewish law.
A Jewish wedding has legal
standing when two witnesses see
the bride accept a ring from the
Continued on Page 32
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
taining such charges as Jews using blood
for food on Yom Kippur, the menacing ef-
fects of disseminating the libel are appar-
ent.
The current resort to this libelous
canard is a continuity from Damascus.
During frequent arrests of Jews in Syria,
which were marked by tortures, - the blood
libel and other odious references to Jews
have been used.
Revival of the outrageous hatemon-
gering charge against Jews everywhere
encourages interest in the first noteworthy
experience by Jews resulting from the
blood lie. It was 148 years ago that the
Damascus blood lie became cause for
worldwide concern. U.S. President Martin
Van Buren joined in the protest against the
spreading lies from Damascus with the
eminent British Jewish leader Sir Moses
Montefiore and the French Jewish
spokesman Isaac Adolph Cremieux.
It is interesting to note that the
Damascus blood libel inspired Cremieux to
lead in the formation of the Alliance Israel-
ite Universelle, just as the Leo Frank
tragedy in Georgia resulted in the found-
ing of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation
League.
On the 100th anniversary of the
Damascus scandal, in 1940, I compiled a
history of the entire case as it developed
into an international protest against a
shameful canard. The revival of it in
Damascus under the imprint of a leading
Syrian government official calls for an
encouragement to the present generation,
and those to follow, to be aware of the im-
portant historic occurrence. My compila-
tion of 1940 follows:
Very few events in all Jewish
history so shook the conscience of
civilized humanity as did the hor-
rible ritual murder libel which was
concocted in Damascus 100 years
ago. Few, also, are the events in all
our history which have contrib-
uted as much to unity in Israel as
has the unfortunate Damascus af-
fair. Out of the miseries suffered by
Jews everywhere, as a result of the
libel devised 100 years ago in the
chief city of Syria, there developed
movements which linked Eastern
and Western Jewries, and led to
the creation of the Alliance Israel-
ite Universelle in France and simi-
lar bodies in other lands.
The international scandal
which developed from the Damas-
cus affair began on February 5,
1840, when a Capuchin monk,
Father Tomaso (Thomas) of Sar-
dinia, disappeared, together with
his servant. Tomaso practiced
medicine among Christians,
Mohammedans and Jews. Rumor
at the time of his disappearance
had it that he had quarreled with a
Turkish mule-driver and that the
latter had sworn: "This Christian
dog shall die by no other hand than
mine." But innocent testimony
given by some Jews that Tomaso
and his servant had been seen on
the eve of his disappearance in the
Jewish quarter immediately di-
rected clerical attention on the
Jews. Under the leadership of a
Jew-baiting fanatic, Father Tusti,
the monks grabbed at the suspi-
cion aroused against the Jews,
aiming, according to the historian,
Professor Heinrich Graetz, to ac-
complish an inquiry as to whether
Father Tomaso had indeed quar-
reled with Musselmans and reviled
them, and finally a new martyr,
slain by the Jews, would be added
to their list of saints, which was al-
ways a source of profit."
Martin Van Buren: President joined
the international protests.
The clericals found a villain to
help them in their machinations.
France, then the most influential
European power, was looked upon
as the protector of the Roman
Catholics in the East, and Ratti
Menton, the French consul in
Damascus, who was besieged by
the monks to press the charge
against the Jews, hastened to pro-
secute them with the aim in view of
strengthening French power in the
East in his dealings with local
authorities. Other clues in the dis-
appearance of Tomaso, among
them the news that the Turkish
merchant who was present at the
Christian monk's quarrel with the
mule-driver had hanged himself,
were ignored, with the Church and
the French consul bent on further-
ing the ritual murder charges
against the Jews.
There then ensued a series of
intimidations. Broadcasting the
charge that Jews had murdered
Tomaso and his servant to use
their blood for the Passover, a
number of Jews were arrested and
brought before Ratti Menton, who
became the chief prosecutor. He
found willing confederates in
Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who
revolted against the Sultan of Tur-
key and ruled Syria, and Sheriff
Pasha, the governor of Damascus,
both of whom hoped to profit from
the proceedings.
Ratti Menton proceeded to
persecute the Jewish people. A
poor Jewish barber was turned
over to Sherif Pasha as .a suspici-
ous character and was subjected to
the bastinado, receiving 500 blows
with a stick upon the soles of his
feet. The barber remained stead-
fast in his denial of the crime, and
at the order of the French consul
he was subjected to additional tor-
tures. Fearing a more painful in-
quisition, he was finally induced to
name seven prominent Jews,
David Harari and his sons and
brothers, Moses Abulafia, Moses
Salonika and Joseph Laniado.
There then became a series of
inquisitions. The communal lead-
ers were subjected to unheard-of
turtures, and when they failed to
Continued on Page 32