Case file · Witch trials
The Velizh blood libel
After a boy was found dead near Velizh (then Vitebsk province) in 1823, Jews of the town were accused of ritual murder on the word of local women; the investigation dragged on for twelve years until the State Council acquitted them in 1835.
1823 CE · 55.60, 31.18 · status: hoax
The account
The accused were imprisoned for years and the town's synagogues were closed. The case became an example of how the medieval blood libel was revived in the Russian Empire, followed by Saratov (1853) and the Beilis affair in Kyiv (1913). The acquittal declared the accusers' testimony false.
The sceptical view
A false accusation; the 'ritual murder' charge has no basis.