Menahem Mendel Beilis
Menahem Mendel Beilis | |
|---|---|
מנחם מענדל בייליס | |
Portrait of Beilis after his arrest in 1911 | |
| Born | 1874 Kiev, Russian Empire |
| Died | July 7, 1934 (aged 59–60) |
| Resting place | Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, New York |
| Criminal charge | Ritual murder |
Menahem Mendel Beilis (1874 – July 7, 1934; sometimes spelled Beiliss) was a Russian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or the "Beilis affair". Although Beilis was eventually acquitted after a lengthy process, the legal process sparked international criticism of antisemitism in the Russian Empire.
Beilis's story was fictionalized in Bernard Malamud's 1966 novel The Fixer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Maurice Samuel's book Blood Accusation: the Strange Case of the Beilis Trial, a non-fiction account, was published by Alfred A. Knopf the same year.: 6–7