This favorable issue was in no small measure due to the endeavors of the “Deputies of the Jewish People,” [1] in particular to Sonnenberg, the deputy from Grodno.  These deputies, who were present in St. Petersburg at that time, addressed themselves to Golitzin, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, protesting against the ritual murder libel.  The trial at Grodno and the ritual murder accusations which simultaneously cropped up in the Kingdom of Poland made the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs realize that there was in the Western region a dangerous tendency of making the Jews the scapegoats for every mysterious murder case and of fabricating lawsuits of the medieval variety by bringing popular superstition into play.  Golitzin, a Christian pietist, who was nevertheless profoundly averse to narrow ecclesiastic fanaticism, decided to strike at the root of this superstitious legend which was disgracing Poland in her period of decay and was about to fall as a dark stain upon Russia.  He succeeded in impressing this conviction upon his like-minded sovereign Alexander I. In the same month in which the ukase concerning “the Society of Israelitish Christians” was published [2] Golitzin sent out the following circular to the governors, dated March 6, 1817: 

[Footnote 1:  See Vol.  I, p. 394.]

[Footnote 2:  Compare Vol.  I, p. 396.]

In view of the fact that in several of the provinces acquired from Poland, cases still occur in which the Jews are falsely accused of murdering Christian children for the alleged purpose of obtaining blood, his Imperial Majesty, taking into consideration that similar accusations have on previous numerous occasions been refuted by impartial investigations and royal charters, has been graciously pleased to convey to those at the head of the governments his Sovereign will:  that henceforward the Jews shall not be charged with murdering Christian children, without any evidence and purely as a result of the superstitious belief that they are in need of Christian blood.

One might have thought that this emphatic rescript would suffice to put a stop to the efforts of ignorant adventurers to resuscitate the bloody myth.  And, for several years, indeed, the sinister agitation kept quiet.  But towards the end of Alexander’s reign it came to life again, and gave rise to the monstrous Velizh case.

In the year 1823, on the first day of the Christian Passover, a boy of three years, Theodore Yemelyanov, the son of a Russian soldier, disappeared in the city of Velizh, in the government of Vitebsk.  Ten days later the child’s body was found in a swamp beyond the town, stabbed all over and covered with wounds.  The medical examination and the preliminary investigation were influenced by the popular belief that the child had been tortured to death by the Jews.  This belief was fostered by two Christian fortune-tellers, a prostitute beggar-woman, called Mary Terentyeva, and a half-witted old maid, by the name of Yeremyeyeva, who by way of divination made the parents of the child believe that its death was due to the Jews.  At the judicial inquiry, Terentyeva implicated two of the most prominent Jews of Velizh, the merchant Shmerka [1] Berlin, and Yevzik [2] Zetlin, a member of the local town council.