Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis

2: The Case against Beilis

33 From the early phases of the investigation, Chaplinskii ignored the findings of Mishchuk and Krasovskii that implicated Vera Cheberiak and the troika. Instead, he focused his efforts on developing a case against a Jew (or Jews) as a result of the pressure exerted by Vladimir Golubev. It was Golubev who suggested the scenario of ritual murder and encouraged ChaplinskiitolookforaJew.ButbeforehefoundaJewtoframe,Chaplinskiilookedforanexpertwhowouldsupporttheritualmurderaccusation . HefoundhisexpertwitnessinthepersonofIvanA.Sikorskii,aneminent psychiatrist who taught at St. Vladimir University in Kiev. In May 1911 the examining magistrate of Kiev deposed Sikorskii with regard to the ritualnatureofAndrei’smurder.Sikorskiiwasaskedtoascertainwhether a “mentally diseased person” killed Andrei; whether the autopsy could reveal how the murder was carried out and the aims of the murderer or murderers; and whether the “murderers belonged to a certain people . . .” Sikorskii stated that, in his opinion, several persons participated in the killing in a deliberate effort to maximize the draining of blood from the body. He also underscored what he believed to be similarities between the murder of Andrei and other ritual murders. A specific national group with a psychological need to engage in “racial revenge” committed the crime, according to Sikorskii. Even though the words “Jew” or “Judaism” t wo The Case against Beilis 34 Blood Libel In Late Imper ia l Russia do not appear in his report, Sikorskii’s use of the phrase “vendetta of the Sons of Jacob” leaves no doubt that he was suggesting that Jews were the murderers. Sikorskii clearly lacked the training and expertise to offer an opinionasaforensicspecialist,butasaconfirmedantisemiteandstaunch believer in the blood libel, Sikorskii devised a report that justified exploring the responsibility of Jews for Andrei’s murder1 (see Document 22). Also, in May Golubev suggested to Chaplinskii and Liadov that the police should turn their attention to a “Jew named Mendel” who worked at the Zaitsev brick factory that abutted the building where Vera Cheberiak lived and was near the cave where the body was found. According to Golubev, Mendel behaved suspiciously and liked to give treats to the neighborhood children. Golubev also alleged with no evidence that the murder had taken place in one of the basements of the factory complex. An inspection of the factory’s premises, however, found nothing to support Golubev’s claim, an unsurprising finding for the simple reason that the brickworks had no basements. Shortly thereafter Golubev claimed that the “Jew named Mendel” had a black beard, and by mid-July the “Jew named Mendel” who had a “black beard” turned out to be Menachem Mendel Beilis. Beilis, who had a family of six, had managed the Zaitsev brick factory for fifteen years and was on good terms with those living in the neighborhood. Beilis was instrumental in convincing his employer to sell bricks at less than cost for the building of a church school, something that the gentile owner of another brick factory refused to do. He also obtained permission for the local Orthodox church to cut through the factory’s premises during funeral processions. We do not know why Golubev decided to target Beilis, anupstandingmemberofthecommunity,asthemurdererofAndrei.Perhaps it was Beilis’s visibility in the neighborhood that brought him to the attention of Golubev. But he could not have found a more unlikely candidateforareligiouslymotivatedmurderer :BeiliswasnotanobservantJew. The case against Beilis came together in July when Kazimir Shakhovskii endorsed the scenario of the murder that Golubev had worked up, namely the fiction that Beilis had committed the murder at the brick factory. Shakhovskii was a lamplighter in the neighborhood where the Cheberiaks lived, but his wife Iuliana frequently did his job because of his penchant for drink. Shakhovskii offered the information in pieces, adding additionally damaging evidence against Beilis each time he talked 35 The Case against Beilis with the police. As it turned out, someone—presumably a detective at Chaplinskii’s behest—was telling him what to say in order to strengthen the case against Beilis. On July 9th Shakhovskii told Fenenko that he had seen Zhenia and Andrei walking together on the morning of March 12th, this despite the fact that Vera Cheberiak and her son had already claimed to the police that they had not seen Andrei on that day. Slightly more than a week later Shakhovskii elaborated on his earlier deposition, adding that the Cheberiak apartment abutted the Zaitsev brick factory where a man known as Mendel worked. According to his new and quite dubious testimony, this Mendel and Vera Cheberiak were on intimate terms...