Quoted By:
Blood Passover by Dr. Ariel Toaff
>This translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice - the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff's "Blood Passover" on jewish ritual murder.
>The author is the son of the Chief rabbi of Rome, and a professor of jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at bar-ilan University in israel, just outside tel aviv.
"The author is the son of the Chief rabbi of Rome"
>Dr. Toaff is uniquely qualified to write this book, being thoroughly familiar with the derivative literature in English, French, German and Italian, as well as the original documentary sources in Latin, Medieval Italian, hebrew and yiddish.
>This is not something he worked on in secret.
"If it had been published in israel, in hebrew, no one would have cared."
"There are large bodies of literature in hebrew that jews do not wish Gentiles to know about."
>But Dr. Toaff's announcement of its publication in Italy, in Italian, raised a worldwide firestorm of fury.
>Under unbearable pressure, the book was withdrawn.
>As soon as the book was released, it drew immediate condemnation from scholars, various jewish groups, and Israeli officials.
>The mere hint that jews were involved in murder of Christians, even ones that occurred hundreds of years ago, was seen as very problematic and dangerous for the jewish community.
>A spokesman for the anti-defamation league stated that “Extremist, anti-semitic, and Islamic extremist groups will undoubtedly use this charge to further their hostile aims to the jewish people.”
>The outrage among some people led to Ariel Toaff receiving death threats and calls for him to be fired by his university.
^English pdf available online.
