A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel (35 page)

Jewish leaders were just as wary, or perhaps even more so, of being perceived as interfering in domestic affairs as in foreign ones. By remarkable coincidence, in fact, in the summer and fall of 1913, the American Jewish community was coming to grips with a homegrown case of a Jew wrongly accused of a child’s murder. The case of
Leo Frank was a study in the committee’s hesitancy to intervene.

Leo Frank was sometimes called the “American
Dreyfus,” but a Russian observer perhaps more aptly called him the “
American Beilis.” The superintendent of an Atlanta pencil factory, Frank was accused of murdering a thirteen-year-old employee, Mary Phagan. Unlike Beilis, Frank was from a well-to-do family and, as a prominent member of the Jewish community, served as the president of the Atlanta chapter of the B’nai B’rith. Beyond the difference in their socioeconomic status, the cases of the two men were quite similar, even eerily so: flimsy circumstantial evidence, unreliable witnesses, outrageously prejudicial state conduct, fear of mob violence, and a star witness for the prosecution who was a leading suspect in the murder. (The case even had its own Krasovsky in the world-famous private detective William Burns.) In August 1913, after a monthlong trial, Frank was convicted and sentenced to death.
Anti-Semitism was only one factor in the conviction. Class and regional resentment also played a role. The prosecution portrayed Frank, a New Yorker with an Ivy League education, as a rich northerner who preyed on poor southern womanhood. Anti-Semitism came to the fore after the verdict was handed down when a rabble-rousing Georgia politician, Tom Watson, organized a bigoted campaign against Frank’s appeal, demanding that “the
filthy, perverted Jew of New York” be put to death. The Frank case shocked America’s Jews and led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

The American Jewish Committee turned its attention to the Frank case only after the verdict was delivered. Jacob Schiff was in favor of involving the group in the case and starting a defense fund for the appeal. Louis Marshall was opposed to public action on the not unreasonable grounds that perceived Jewish interference could only harm Frank’s chances in court. In the fall of 1913, the committee decided for
the time being to work behind the scenes, soliciting contributions for the defense and attempting to persuade southern newspaper editors to run articles questioning Frank’s guilt. The next year, Marshall changed his mind and took charge of the defense, arguing Frank’s case, unsuccessfully, before the Supreme Court. In August 1915, after Georgia governor John Slaton commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, Frank was kidnapped from prison and lynched by a group of vigilantes among whom were many prominent Georgia citizens, including a former governor.

In the fall of 1913, that horrific final act lay two years in the future.
As committee members pondered the Beilis and Frank cases, they were similarly hesitant about how to handle them. The record of the one committee leadership meeting devoted to the Beilis case, held only when the
trial was nearly over, captures the scattered state of their thinking. Judge
Mayer Sulzberger, the committee’s first president, argued against casting any campaign as rallying to the support of an individual. “The entire issue,” he held, “was one between the Russian government and the Jewish nation.” The only correct strategy, in his view, was to “leave Beilis out of the picture altogether.” Beilis the man must be completely absent from any campaign to save him. (Exactly what he meant by this in practice is not clear.) He cautioned that the tsarist regime’s enemies were not necessarily allies in this matter. “The Russian Revolutionists,” in his view, “would undoubtedly prefer that Beilis should be convicted,” as it would allow them to accuse the regime of “a new crime.” All present thought it advisable to lay the groundwork for public action in the event Beilis was convicted. But only Rabbi
Judah Magnes, one of the era’s great Jewish organizers, expressed the opinion that the broad mass of American Jews should be more outspoken about the Beilis case. The Jews ought to be given a chance to express themselves,” he argued. “In this country, the Jews have been very quiet in this matter.” By which he appeared to mean, too quiet.

Ordinary Jews, in fact, were deeply interested in the case, as evidenced by the rush of numerous Yiddish theater troupes, including
Kramer’s Comedy Theater, to stage plays about it in time for the trial. “It seems that we can expect a
theatrical
Mendel Beilis epidemic,” the New York–based Yiddish newspaper,
Di Varhayt
(The Truth) reported disapprovingly two weeks before the trial began. The eruption of dramas started with the smaller theaters, vaudeville houses, and music
halls, where spectators might be treated to a Beilis
performing a duet with Gruzenberg in jail, and by a
Vera Cheberyak who broke out into a song and dance routine. At least two dramatizations of the Beilis story included a
romantic subplot involving Beilis’s daughter and one of his attorneys (though in real life the eldest daughter was only five years old).

The “epidemic” quickly infected the most prominent Yiddish actors and producers, with six major productions announced in New York alone, and with others scheduled in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and other cities. The shows competed in their presumption, each one contending that it had the “true” or “real” Beilis rendition. The People’s Theater in Chicago boasted that its
Mendl Beylis, der idisher martirer
(Mendel Beilis, the Jewish Martyr) was “the greatest sensation, the greatest drama of the twentieth century.”
Jacob Adler, known as “the Great Eagle” and the most celebrated Yiddish actor of his generation (and father of the famous method-acting coach, Stella Adler) also betrayed no modesty. “The
voice of the people is the voice of God,” the advertisement for his theater declared. “The people want me, Jacob Adler, to play Mendel Beilis.”

Di Varhayt,
dismayed at all the tastelessness, tut-tutted at the “sin of trying to make a
few dollars” off serious events that should not be staged. In the coming weeks, that sentiment would be expressed dozens of times over in the Yiddish press, which was virtually unanimous in expressing horror and shame at what it saw as the exploitation of a tragedy for the Jewish people. But however crude and crass the Beilis shows were, they amounted to the first mass expressions of outrage in America against the barbarous spectacle in Kiev. It would take some time for any Jewish leaders to match the interest and sense of urgency of the common folk.

In July, Beilis received word that after more than a year of delays, the court had finally set a new trial date: the twenty-fifth of September. He had a wait of more than two months ahead of him, but having a definite day to look forward to settled his mind. “
It is this not knowing why, when and what that is the worst and most fearful thing, the thinking and waiting every day, every minute for liberation, and the same thing for entire years, day after day, one night after another—this is terrible,
this is unbearable, one can simply become insane,” he recalled. In the weeks before the trial, he felt better physically. He ate better, somehow swallowing more of the prison food. Even on the nights leading up to the trial, when he might have been nervous, he slept soundly.

Beilis might have slept less well had he known of the ordeals that his quartet of would-be saviors—all of them key witnesses for the defense—were enduring in those same weeks. Nikolai Krasovsky was unemployed, with no means of supporting his family. Though the persistent detective had been exonerated of all of the criminal charges against him, he was still reprimanded for “
failure to observe formalities” in the matter of detaining the peasant
Kovbasa. His arrest of that fellow, for belonging to an illegal political organization, had been justified, at least according to the standards of Russian law at that time. That the police later saw fit to rearrest Kovbasa did nothing to help Krasovsky, who remained banned from serving on the force.

Still hanging over the head of the journalist Stepan Brazul-Brushkovsky was an accusation of criminal libel by Vera Cheberyak, which threatened to land him in prison. However, the state had wisely moved to postpone the libel proceedings until after Beilis’s trial. After all, what if Brazul won? A victory would strengthen his credibility and tarnish a star prosecution witness. It apparently took some time to find a suitably absurd charge to lay Brazul low in time for the trial. In July, an army officer lodged a complaint with the authorities, swearing that he had witnessed Brazul in a Kiev public park rising to his feet the first two times the national anthem was played and remaining seated for the third.
Brazul was charged with lèse-majesté—affronting the dignity of the emperor—and sentenced to a year in a
fortress, standard punishment venue for political prisoners, where strict solitary confinement was the rule.

After his arrest in July 1912, the anarchist Amzor Karaev had been sentenced to five years of exile in a remote village in south-central
Siberia thirty-five hundred miles from Kiev. He had sworn in an affidavit that Vera Cheberyak’s half brother, Peter Singaevsky, had confessed to him his role in the murder of Andrei Yushchinsky. As a witness duly subpoenaed by the defense, the state was duty bound to deliver him to the courtroom. But on August 30,
Karaev wrote a letter to Krasovsky informing him that he was convinced the prosecution would make every effort to keep him from testifying. He was determined to
come to Kiev on his own: in other words, to leave illegally. Escape from exile was relatively easy in tsarist
Russia. It would have been much easier had he not written a letter to a man who he should have realized was almost surely under
police surveillance. (Sometimes it seems as if Karaev was not completely sane.) The letter to Krasovsky was, of course, intercepted and the secret police had Karaev arrested for planning to escape.

Only Sergei Makhalin, Karaev’s partner in attempting to hoodwink a confession out of Singaevsky, had a relatively easy time of it, having made himself scarce by leaving Kiev. He had come into a modest legacy from his grandfather, enabling him to give up tutoring. He devoted himself now to his operatic training and indulging his taste for
dandyish getups, which would attract much attention at the trial.

Very early on the morning of September 25, the racket of the thirteen locks came as sweet sounds to Mendel Beilis’s ears. A guard opened the cell door and took him to the prison office. There laid out for him was his old blue suit, which he had not seen for two and a half years. He was taken aback by the powerful effect the sight of it had on him. In the worn pieces of cloth he saw his freedom. A guard told him to don the suit, which he did gladly. Everyone was suddenly friendly toward him. The guard helped him on with his clothes and the prison officials escorted him to his carriage, Beilis recalled, “as if they were
accompanying a groom.” It felt as if something magical had happened.

“Mr. Beilis,” the warden told him, “
go in good health, and do not forget us.” The prison officials were calling him “Mister,” treating him like a human being. This was unexpected. Perhaps, he thought, this was a good sign. He was led to a coach surrounded by a dozen policemen on horseback. Beilis joked that anyone else would have to pay two hundred rubles for such royal treatment, but they were giving it to him for nothing. Everyone laughed.

Once inside the coach he
looked out the window. Large numbers of people lined the streets the entire way to the courthouse. At first the crowds frightened him, but he was soon moved to tears. People cheered, doffed their hats, and waved handkerchiefs. Most were university students, but there were hundreds of others—men, women, children. He had heard that people
supported him, but this was the first
time he had seen it with his own eyes. They were everywhere straining to catch sight of him, looking out of their windows, even on rooftops. Some, it was true, were not well-wishers: he could recognize a good number of
Black Hundreds by their badges. The entire route was lined with mounted
Cossacks, to ensure that there was no disorder. When the crowds surged too close to the coach, the Cossacks drove them back, snapping their whips.

The carriage drew up to the courthouse on St. Sophia Square, across from the thirteen-domed cathedral where Andrei Yushchinsky had once studied, hoping to become a priest. Beilis jumped out, telling the driver, “
I will pay you on my way back.” Again, people laughed. He was led through long corridors to a room that he was disappointed to find was only a waiting area for prisoners.

After a short while, a tall man with a beautiful head of gray hair, theatrically swept back, entered the room. Nikolai
Karabchevsky was widely regarded as Russia’s foremost defense attorney. He had joined the defense team the year before, but Beilis was meeting him for the first time. Like everyone who met Karabchevsky, Beilis was struck by his imposing physical appearance. “It was as if a strong light had penetrated the room,” Beilis would say. Karabchevsky introduced himself but did not move to shake his hand, explaining that the authorities had ordered the defense team to stay at least three steps away from the defendant. It was outrageous, but they had to obey the rule for now. The attorney made sure Beilis was brought cigarettes and a meal from the court restaurant. Greatly fortified, Beilis remained in the waiting room for three hours until a small door opened and his guards
led him into the courtroom. The trial was at last about to begin.