Spain’s Catholic church has said it will investigate antisemitic rituals after an Israeli newspaper revealed that towns and villages continue to commemorate the “blood libel” that Jews use the blood of Christian children in religious rituals.
The libel, that dates back at least to the early middle ages, was used to justify the expulsion of Spain’s Jewish population in 1492.
Ha’aretz newspaper reported last weekend that the myth is perpetuated each year in parishes in Toledo, Zaragoza and elsewhere, with rituals supported by both the church and the local authority.
One of the most notorious is that of the Santo Niño de La Guardia in Toledo in central Spain. The myth dates back to 1480 when a child from the village was allegedly abducted and murdered by Jews, although at the time no child was reported missing. Each September villagers carry an effigy of the child to the church where it is blessed by the clergy over the course of a five-day festival. The child is venerated as a saint.
In the basilica of Zaragoza there’s a chapel dedicated to a child allegedly abducted and tortured by local Jews. On 13 October a special service is held in memory of the child.
“The case of the Niño de La Guardia is especially serious because year after year the civil authorities continue to support this celebration,” said Jacob Daniel Benzaquén, the president of Spain’s network of Jewish communities. “It’s very sad that these events continue to this day and are celebrated with such enthusiasm and a shame that the ecclesiastical authorities haven’t put an end to them, despite our requests.”
Sources close to the archbishop of Madrid told El Confidencial news site that the church was revising “cults and rituals involving saints such as the Niño de La Guardia that refer to the legend that Jews killed Christian children in order to celebrate Passover”.
Spain’s long and once glorious Jewish history is largely neglected but prejudice lives on in rituals such as the Niño de La Guardia or in place names such as Castrillo Matajudíos (Castrillo Kill the Jews), which only voted to change its name to Castrillo Mota de Judíos (Castrillo Hill of the Jews) in 2014.
The Ha’aretz revelations come at a time when cities such as Barcelona are trying to attract Israeli tourists with the campaign Shalom Barcelona.
