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.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I had to stop and think about it before I could remember what it referred to, but I did know it.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

I answered that I did not know, though it's likely I used to and had forgotten until this debacle. It felt more honest than saying I did.

[crowgirl13.livejournal.com]

While I was aware of the horror stories whipped up about the Jews during the middle ages, I wasn't aware there was a term attached to that crap.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

To be fair, my dad is a self-taught WWII scholar, and I learned a lot about Jewish culture and the history of anti-Semitism by virtue of what my dad would talk about.

[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.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Studied history at BA level; also, am from a family of historians. I was, possibly naively, shocked that the specific definition of this term was something people weren't taught and didn't otherwise pick up.

[easter.livejournal.com]

Not Jewish, but a medievalist, so...

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

From a Jewish bg (my dad & his family), but I actually know the phrase not through them but through my medieval history class in college--our teacher specialized in the interreligious relationships at that point in history, so it was a whole class on Christians in the Muslim world and Muslims in the Christian world and Jews all over. I've had more direct use for that class than any other not-related-to-my-major course.

[maryling.livejournal.com]

FWIW my mom didn't know it either. Non-Jewish.

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

I knew about the assertion that blood libel describes, but I didn't know there was a name for it.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

My partner is Jewish, however, and my father apparently seriously considered converting for a while.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I knew what it meant, but I'm Jewish. I'm surprised it's that well known to your flist, but I consider it totally implausible that Palin had the foggiest idea of what it meant.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I also have a BA in history. And I went to Tulane, which has a large Jewish population. My grandmother's family was Jewish. I'm fairly culturally aware for a shiksa. I didn't know.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to feel like I should have pulled the medievalists out of the poll somehow too. Because if I take you all out of it (there are a few) the level of awareness of the term amongst non-Jews answering this is really not particularly high. This makes me feel much more patient with the coworkers I had to explain this stuff to today.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I'm not positive, but I think I first encountered the term while reading about the Golem of Prague during one of my periodic folklore sprees.

ETA: Not Jewish, but grew up in Miami and NYC.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't decide if she had no clue or if it was a dog-whistle to extremists. It could really go either way.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I can't recall when or how I learned what "blood libel" meant, but it's definitely something I could have been taught any number of times or contexts.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Are these numbers astounding you?

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

None of the four answers quite works for my context.

I knew the second meaning of the term on the BoingBoing page but not the usage of the first.

I'm halachically Jewish, but came from a non-Jewish family (Episcopalian, actually); my mother's mother was born to a Jewish woman and adopted into an anti-Semitic Christian family (we got better). I went through a brief period of studying Judaism as a teenager, but I can't say I absorbed enough to consider that I'm from a Jewish background. Or not. Sort of in the middle. :)

Most of my study of Judaism in history has been in Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries, where Venice told the Vatican off and the papal interdict of 1606 over Venice's refusal, among other things, to treat their Jewish population badly (also civil trials of Catholic priests didn't go over too well). Anyhow, Venice was imperfect but more enlightened than most.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

I voted did not know/am not Jewish, but I did have a vague notion that it was anti-semitic even though I didn't know exactly WHY.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This comment is 100% a reminder of why I still love LJ.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I knew the term, then again, I was the only white gentile in my school and neighborhood and lived quite close to a Hassid community.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

There should also be a "I knew it had something vaguely to do with anti-Semitism but not the exact reference" option, which is me - Jewish background, lots of reading and some forgetting. (Clicked "knew the meaning of the term" because that was closest, but...)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Not especially?

Some coworkers had the OMGWTF I did, but I also had to explain it to JAGBoss, so I'm willing to believe this may be a 50/50 chance of getting it situation.

It's one of those YOUR'E NOT IN NEW YORK ANYMORE things...but I also don't know what conversations were being had in New York, either. (Based on your comments.)