When Blood Libel Hysteria Against the Jews Erupted in the U.S.
On Sept. 22, 1928, 4-year-old Barbara Griffiths went for a stroll in the woods in Massena, New York, an industrial town bordering Canada, and got lost. Within hours a massive search ensued, involving as many as 300 locals.
Someone, no one knows who, then floated the idea that Barbara had been kidnapped and killed by a member of Massena’s small Jewish community. The town’s mayor, along with a local state police officer, believed the charge and began hauling in some of the town’s Jewish residents, including the local rabbi, for questioning.
Twenty-four hours later, Barbara stumbled out of the woods, unharmed. But the damage had been done—the only documented case of “blood libel” in U.S. history, the belief that Jews kidnap, kill, and drain the blood from Christian children for matzo-making and other rituals, showed how, once again, Jews are vulnerable to the insanity that is anti-Semitism.