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

3: The Trial

44 For thirty-four days in autumn 1913 the public’s attention was riveted on the trial, which began on September 25th and ended on October 28th. Court sessions could run long, generally starting in mid-morning and sometimes lasting well into the evening, even midnight on one occasion. Despite the length of the trial, interest in the fate of Beilis did not flag, appearingtobetheonlytopicofconversationforthedurationofthetrial. Reporters from over 100 Russian newspapers and correspondents from Europe, England, and the United States covered the proceedings. The daily press in Kiev and elsewhere in the country gave summaries of the trial, with a few even printing a verbatim copy of the transcript. Detractors of the government suggested that the prosecution tried to stack the jury with peasants in the belief that it could influence the thinking of peasants more easily than it could manipulate the opinions of educated Kievans. Given the fact that six jurors came from the peasant estate(thoughonlyonefarmed)and,accordingtooneaccount,tenofthe twelve jurors had only elementary school educations, there may be some truthtotheaccusation.1 ThepercentageofpeasantjurorsintheBeilistrial was much higher than the average for major cities. For example, peasants comprised less than 10 percent of jurors in Moscow and St. Petersburg, even though they were a dominant presence in the population.2 t h r e e The Trial 45 The Trial On the second day of the trial, the indictment, which ran twenty pages with two columns on each page, was read aloud, thereby establishing the structure of the trial proceedings. The indictment summarized the investigation since the discovery of Andrei’s body to the start of the trial and skewed the evidence to favor the government’s contention that a ritual murder had occurred. In some instances the depositions of witnessesweremisrepresentedinordertostrengthenthegovernment ’scase. In others the prosecution simply failed to account for discrepancies in the accounts of witnesses. According to the prosecution, Beilis did not act alone; rather he worked in tandem with unknown co-conspirators who planned the murder for religious reasons. Yet there was no specific mention of Judaism or the fact that Beilis was Jewish. The government preferred to use the term “religious fanaticism” and then relied on the testimonyofwitnessestodemonstratethatJudaismpurportedlyrequired Jews to engage in ritual murder (see Document 32). The relative transparency of the trial merits special attention because the prosecution allowed all the inconsistencies and contradictions of the Sketch of jury. Al’bom “Delo Beilisa” v risunkakh i fotografiiakh (Kiev, 1913). 46 Blood Libel In Late Imper ia l Russia evidence gathered during the long investigation to become part of the publicrecord.Pre-trialdepositionswerepresentedatthetrialandbecame part of the official record. This meant that the contradictory testimony offered by witnesses, the evidence pointing to the dereliction of duty by the police, the information indicating that Vera Cheberiak and the troika were the murderers, the evidence pointing to the innocence of Beilis, and the instances of government coercion of witnesses and suborning of perjury were made public. TheonlyopaqueaspectofthetrialwastheconspiracytoframeBeilis and deflect attention away from Cheberiak. The prosecution was clearly more interested in demonstrating her innocence than it was in building a solid case against Beilis. Hence, significant space in the indictment was devoted to the exoneration of Cheberiak than to the guilt of the defendant . One reason for this strategy was simple: the government had acknowledged to itself that the case against Beilis was probably unwinnable , but it was confident that it could convince the jury that a ritual murder had occurred. In other words, the prosecution hoped to show the world that Jews in the twentieth century engaged in the ritual killing of Entry ticket to courtoom. “Beilis Case Papers,” copyright East View Information Services, 2005. 47 The Trial Christianyouths.Andinordertomakeapersuasivecase,thegovernment needed to demonstrate Cheberiak’s innocence. Several journalists quickly noted this fact. The correspondent for Kievskaia mysl’ pointed out that the charges against Beilis indicated that the killer was a “fanatic or savage.” If that were the case, the correspondent reasoned, then how could the government suspect Beilis, a Jew who did not observe the Sabbath or wear peyess (sidelocks or sidecurls worn by Orthodox male Jews)? “What kind of fanatic is Beilis?” mused the correspondent, who had the impression that the prosecution had little interest in Beilis. For the correspondent, Beilis was on trial as a surrogate for “all the Jewish people” and an acquittal would not “let the Jews off the hook” because the Jewish people would be “shown to use Christian blood.”3...