Epic Trials in Jewish History: The Evolution of Modern Jewish History

© 2012 by Gerald Ziedenberg, MA. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/30/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7060-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7061-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7062-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917472

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Dreyfus Affair: A Seminal Event in Both French and Jewish History, 1894–1906

Chapter 2 Blood Libel and the Tiszaeszlár Trial

Chapter 3 The Hilsner Case of Ritual Murder, 1899

Chapter 4 The Trial of Mendel Beilis: A Failed Blood Libel Charge in Russia, 1911

Chapter 5 The Trial of Leo Frank, 1913

Chapter 6 The Assassination of Simon Petlurya and the Trial of Sholom Schwartzbard, 1926

Chapter 7 The Soviet Doctors’ Show Trial

Chapter 8 The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Trial, 1951

Chapter 9 The Trial of Reszo Kastner, 1954

Chapter 10 The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Chapter 11 The Jonathan Jay Pollard Case, 1985

Chapter 12 The Trial of the Holocaust in London on January 11, 2000

Conclusion

Bibliography

Epic Trials in Jewish History is well researched, well referenced and a fascinating read.

The trials of the last 125 years are shown to be barometers of the climate in which Jews found themselves. From blood libel to Holocaust denial and the Eichmann trial, the author gives us in a concise manner a capsule of crucial events. The book shows how hatred, anti-Semitism and false accusations are used to further the interests of unscrupulous individuals and rogue states.

The hope is that in these troubled days truth will continue to prevail and triumph over anti-Semitism and existential threats.

Nate Leipciger, M.S.M., P. Eng., Past Co-president of Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants.

—

Gerald Ziedenberg’s new book, Epic Trials in Jewish History is a fascinating look at twelve trials that changed Jewish history from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. The book looks at landmark trials, some of which the reader will have heard of before and some that will be a complete surprise. In the latter category, the book deals with such cases as The Blood Libel at Tiszaeszlár in1883 and The Hilsner Case of Ritual Murder of 1899, as well as the Dreyfus case, the Mendel Beilis Trial, the Rosenberg case, and others. What I found must interesting and rewarding was the Ziedenberg lays out the background of each case and then gives us a plethora of details that I had never known before. This is truly a worthwhile read that will entertain and educate the reader

Larry Anklewiz, B.A., LL.B., former Program Director of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

The Epic Trials in Jewish History is a fascinating book and it will keep the reader spellbound. Once one starts reading the book, one cannot put it down.

It has been well written, in lucid and easy flowing language. The reader through the eyes of the writer becomes a witness to the many disturbing events and trials, which reek with pathologically inspired anti-Semitism and hate against the Jews over the centuries.

Gerry Ziedenberg, a pharmacist turned historian, proved it again that he is not only a historian of par excellence but he also carefully and thoroughly researches all the intricate details of the many trials and presents them in a vivid and easy to understand fashion. He is also a very good story teller.

He correctly summarizes, that the economic successes of many Jews and the unfortunate crucifixion of Jesus by the contemporaries 2000 years ago became the basis of the virulent anti-Semitism among the many illiterates and bigoted individuals over the centuries. This malaise can be overcome only with education, which should be pursued with constant efforts.

Leslie Dan

Dedicated to my grandchildren, Madison, Aaron, Gabriel, and Sari, so they will always know and appreciate Jewish history.

Thanks to the typist, Ann Marie Uleryk, and my wife, Sheila, without whom nothing is possible.

A special thank you to Paula and Jeff Freedman for their invaluable assistance.

A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.

I know very well the value of the truth.

—Sources unknown

Introduction

The period from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century marks one of the most tumultuous in all of Jewish life.

It was once said that if you don’t know where you are from, you don’t know where you are going. The study of Jewish history is so important to preserve Jewish identity. In addition, it is both interesting and informative. The long and difficult path for the Jewish people through this period from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century is illustrated by significant markers. These remarkable trials and legal cases involving Jews serve as reminders of the historical context of their respective times.

Jews have always been on trial or heavily involved in them. In fact, one could consider that the most famous trial of all involving a Jew was that of Jesus. Besides being defendants and scapegoats, Jews have also been, by virtue of their legal abilities, outstanding as both defence and prosecution, although no less than Alan Dershowitz said as a compliment that Jews tended to assume a more comfortable role as defence attorneys. One thing is clear. It is a maxim that Jews always seek justice.

Unfortunately, too many times Jews have been scapegoats, prosecuted because they are Jewish or chosen because they are Jewish and can deflect issues and concerns of the time. Particular examples of this deflection technique are the Dreyfus affair and the Mendel Beilis trial.

Sometimes Jews attract particular attention because they are Jewish and receive prejudicial treatment. Examples of this are the punishment of Jonathan Jay Pollard and the trial of Leo Frank. One could debate endlessly on the degree of anti-Semitism involved in the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Many times medieval Christian fantasies are played out in accusations of blood libel and ritual murders. Cases like the Hilsner murder trial bring back to life the nightmarish accusations of the blood of Christian children being used to make Passover matzah.

Sometimes justice will prevail. The Shoah, or Holocaust, went on trial in London, England in January 2000, where Holocaust denier David Irving lost his libel case against the American professor Deborah Lipstadt. This was a fitting beginning to the twenty-first century for the Jewish people.

The capture and subsequent trial of Adolf Eichmann is another example of justice for the Jewish people. It is one of the supreme ironies of history that Adolf Eichmann, the monster who could, with the wave of a hand, send thousands to death had to stand before three Israeli judges and the symbols of the Jewish state to ask permission to state a question of procedure: Your Honour, may I please ask a question? For thousands of Holocaust survivors that was indeed a moment of supreme irony.

The purpose in telling the details of these twelve epic trials in modern Jewish life that spanned the spectrum of events and almost 150 years of history is to put the focus on the perception of Jews in society. Whether it is anti-Semitism, the events of the Holocaust, medieval Christian fantasies about blood libel or internal Jewish struggles, these twelve cases show us the Jewish struggle for acceptance.

Chapter 1

The Dreyfus Affair: A Seminal Event in Both French and Jewish History, 1894–1906

The court is impervious to proof.

—Franz Kafka, The Trial

Have we enough courage to tell the truth?

There is no such thing as justice in or out of court.

—Clarence Darrow, 1936

The Dreyfus trial in France in 1894 was perhaps the most significant political event in modern French history. A Jewish officer, Dreyfus, was a member of the general staff accused of selling secrets to the Germans. The impact of the Dreyfus affair still reverberates through contemporary France.

The Dreyfus affair, which began in 1894 in Paris, can be considered as one of the most important historical events of the modern era for the Jewish people and it has resonated as a seminal event in contemporary French history. The affair proved that even in an enlightened and liberal country like France, bitter anti-Semitism existed. For Theodore Herzl, an eyewitness and foreign correspondent, the trial became the final spark in his thinking to formulate a Jewish state.

For the people of France it became an event which lasted for almost a century. The reverberations of the Dreyfus affair can be found in Vichy France of the Second World War and perhaps even the anti-Semitism in France in the twenty-first century.

The Dreyfus case showed the importance of the freedom of the press and the significance of the rule of law over both the French army and the state.

On January 1, 1893, Alfred Dreyfus began a probationary term with the General Staff of the army, and while he was an artillery officer, he was rotated through various bureaus of the Ministry of War.

In late September 1894, certain documents were intercepted by French intelligence at the German embassy in Paris. A housekeeper who was secretly employed by French intelligence was cleaning out a wastebasket. She found papers which later became known as the Bordeaux. This term refers to secret lists and documents. This official form was addressed to a German officer named Schwartzkoppen. The contents of the file made it clear that the writer was both an artillery specialist and a member of the General Staff and only a person with this detailed and dual knowledge could have written the memorandum.

Handwriting experts and other investigators were called in. The personnel lists of the General Staff were scoured for likely suspects and the name Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain and a Jew from Alsace, stood out. Dreyfus’s geographic origins implicated him as it was felt that due to the German association with Alsace he would have Germanic sympathies. Despite Dreyfus’s intense patriotism and devotion to France, he was not well liked. He was independently wealthy due to a family inheritance and seemed aloof from his fellow officers, but the dislike was primarily because he was Jewish. By October 6, 1894, Dreyfus was under intense suspicion, and on October 15, 1894, he was accused of high treason and arrested. The Dreyfus affair, which was to paralyze the French nation for twelve long years, had begun.

One of the key aspects of the case was the intransigence of the French army. The honour of the French army was sacrosanct; it absolutely had to be held above the state. It can also be said that the French were still suffering the after-effects of their humiliating defeats at the hands of the Germans in 1870, when they lost the province of Alsace.

French Anti-Semitism and Historical Context

Alfred Dreyfus was being charged with treason at a difficult time for Jews. There were several scandals involving Jewish financiers. Following the Suez Canal’s success, many investors bought stock in the French Panama canal project of the 1880s and lost all their money. This, of course, was blamed on the Jewish financial leadership of the project. It was revealed that Cornelius Herz and Baron Jacques de Reinach, both Jews, were involved in the instigation of the canal scandal. The economic depression of the 1890s further focused and fortified long standing anti-Semitic prejudices.

Edward Drumont wrote La France Juive, which was a best-selling polemic against Jews and captured public favour by attacking wealthy Jewish financiers like the Rothschilds, Ephrussis, and Bambergers. According to Drumont, these Jewish financiers had destroyed the traditional French virtues of loyalty, religion, responsibility, work, and thrift. The French Catholic Church reinforced these attacks by stating that the Jews espoused modernity and liberalism, two terrible defects in the eyes of the conservative church. Following the successes of his bestselling book, Drumont published a virulent anti-Semitic daily newspaper, Le Libre Parole.

This newspaper was instrumental in the affair as it persistently agitated the masses with its anti-Semitic diatribes. On November 1, 1894, a headline in Le Libre Parole read, High Treason Arrest of the Jewish Officer A. Dreyfus. Public excitement, already raised to a high level, reached the boiling point. Popular anti-Semitism now permeated the Dreyfus affair, and the French Catholic Church continued to play a major role in the case. The Jews were depicted as a great challenge to both the Church and the faithful. La Croix, a popular journal of the Assumptionists (a right wing Catholic order), used the Jews as scapegoats for the alleged crimes of socialism, anti-clericalism, and materialism. A popular writer of the time, Maurice Barrès, concluded that Dreyfus was capable of treason because of his race.

Still another factor exacerbating this prevalent anti-Semitism was the large influx of Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews from the Russian empire, fleeing pogroms and other forms of violent anti-Semitism. These Eastern European Jews were alien to the French. For the most part they spoke only Yiddish and were not easily assimilated into the French milieu. Dreyfus’s Jewish ancestry and the accusations that he was a traitor all seemed to solidify French anti-Semitic opinion.

Despite Dreyfus’s protestations of innocence, he was quickly found guilty of treason in a secret military tribunal. This clandestine court-martial ignored both legal justice and fairness and Dreyfus was not even given the right to examine the evidence against him. While the judges seemed to pause over the evidence, Major Hubert Henry, a party to the conspiracy to pillory Dreyfus, gave the judges a further incriminating file that apparently contained a letter, dated May 1894 from the German military attaché, mentioning, this scoundrel Dreyfus. To further compound the illegality of the court proceedings, Dreyfus’s defence attorney, Edgar Demange, was not made aware of this secret dossier. General Mercier, Major Henry’s superior, made every effort to ensure that Dreyfus would be found guilty. The military court was persuaded by the evidence and unanimously pronounced Dreyfus guilty of high treason. A weeping Dreyfus was led from the court still professing his innocence and subsequently condemned to incarceration, deportation, and military degradation.

Degradation and Exile

The scene on January 5, 1895, in the courtyard of the military academy l’Ecole Militaire was a major event. The public was present and constantly shouted, Death to the Jew. A warrant officer stripped Dreyfus of his badges and buttons and then broke Dreyfus’s ceremonial sword over his knee. A nearby officer, Major Picquart, an anti-Semite who later became an important defender of Dreyfus, remarked that the Alsatian Jew was probably weighing the cost of his buttons and badges.