on the subject of "blood libel"

[rm]

Someone else on my friends list did a poll, and I realized that I was also curious and have enough people here to get a large sample even if it's not a scientific one.

Since my big discovery of today was that lots of people didn't realize that the "blood libel" thing was a totally anti-semitic thing to say and I was surprised by that, the question becomes is this one of those things _every_ Jewish person knows but non-Jews may not have encountered?

ETA: Comments filled with fascinating anecdata. Have fun.

For those of you who still haven't caught up with this, Boing Boing explains.

Poll below.

[Poll #1667388]

Comments

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I have a Medieval history MA and I've been a plague watcher since Primary school. This likely makes me more aware of the horrific brutal crap that got rained down on the heads of European Jews in the middle ages than the average gentile.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*points upwards* History BA with an emphasis on medieval; if you know that period of history, you know what the term means and how it was used as a club.

[booknerdguru.livejournal.com]

Current History major with focus on Crusades... *points upwards* What neadods said.

[moizissimo.livejournal.com]

I... disagree. I've even done papers on plagues, and I had no idea. One of the courses I'm currently taking is "Archaeology of People and Plagues" and I'm curious to see if the term comes up.