Eisenwald Blood Of November Passover Location

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Ariel Toaff (born 1942) is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Bar Ilan University in Israel, whose work has focused on Jews and their history in Italy.

He came to international prominence with the 2007 publication of the first edition of his controversial book Pasque Di Sangue (Passovers of Blood), in which he claimed historical basis^[1] for ritual use of human blood, obtained by murder. The claim was criticized as lending support to blood libel, an allegation that modern historians have described as unsupported by facts and which the Catholic Church has similarly repudiated since the 13th century.^[2][3] Toaff wrote that these critics had misunderstood his book, which argued that the ritual use of small quantities of dried blood in magical curses had been a real practice among medieval 'Ashkenazi extremists', but that this was unrelated to the accusation of ritual murder which was the central claim of blood libel.^[4]

Biography[edit]

Ariel Toaff is the son of Elio Toaff, late former Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Among his works are The Jews in Medieval Assisi 1305-1487: A social and economic history of a small Jewish community (1979); Il vino e la carne. Una comunità ebraica nel Medioevo (Wine and Meat. A Jewish Community in the Middle Ages, 1989); Mostri giudei. L'immaginario ebraico dal Medioevo alla prima età moderna ('Jewish Monsters. The Jewish Imaginary from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era', 1996); and Mangiare alla giudia. La cucina ebraica in Italia dal Rinascimento all'età moderna (Eating Jewish style. Jewish Cooking in Italy from the Renaissance to the Modern Age, 2000).

Passovers of Blood[edit]

Toaff's book, Pasque di sangue. Ebrei d'Europa e omicidi rituali ('Passovers of Blood: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders'), was published in February 2007. The book analyzes the cultural and historical background to a notorious 1475 murder trial in Italy. A group of Jews were accused of murdering a young boy, later known as Simon of Trent, and using his blood for Passover rites. The accused were tortured and confessed to killing the boy, who was informally venerated as a saint by Catholics until the 1960s. The consensus of scholarship has dismissed cases such as Simon of Trent's as a blood libel against Jews.^[5]

The book's publication, among other responses, led to calls for Toaff to resign from or be fired from his professorship, and questioning of his research, historical method, and motives^[6] as they relate to his writing of the book. Threats were made against his life,^[7] and some sought his prosecution.^[8]

The book was much criticized for providing material that anti-Semites might capitalize on, though Sergio Luzzatto praised his intellectual courage in reopening a dossier that had lain under a taboo.^[1] While Toaff framed his analysis in hypothetical language, and phrased his speculations in conditional language, the reception of the book often tended to translate this caution, according to Hanna Johnson, into the indicative language of accepted fact.^[1]

Toaff promised not to give in to pressure and defend his work 'even if crucified'.^[9] In response to a statement from Italian Jewish leaders that consumption or use of blood is prohibited by Jewish law and tradition, Toaff stressed that he was not implicating all Jews, but only 'a group of fundamentalist Jews [who] did not respect the biblical prohibition [against use of blood].'^[10] However, Toaff did eventually pull his book from circulation. He clarified that in regard to the specific trial, dealing with Jews accused of killing Simon of Trent for ritual purposes at Passover, there was no relationship whatsoever between the so-called 'ritual of blood' and ritual infanticide. He denied that the Jews implicated were in any way involved in the murder of Simon.^[11] On February 14, 2007, Toaff said in a statement that he ordered the Italian publisher of his book to freeze distribution of his book so that he can 're-edit the passages which comprised the basis of the distortions and falsehoods that have been published in the media.'^[12][13]

A second edition of the book appeared in February, 2008. In an afterword to this edition in defense of his book, Toaff responded to his critics. To forestall possible misinterpretations, he said that the idea that Jews practiced ritual murder is a slanderous stereotype, and that ritual homicide or infanticide was a myth. That said, the possibility existed that:

certain criminal acts, disguised as crude rituals, were indeed committed by extremist groups or by individuals demented by religious mania and blinded by desire for revenge against those considered responsible for their people’s sorrows and tragedies.^[4]

The evidence supporting this hypothesis draws on confessions extracted under torture. His book examines the strong documentary evidence in medieval medical handbooks that dried human blood, traded by both Jewish and Christian merchants, was thought to be medicinally efficacious. Under the stress of forced conversions, expulsions and massacres, Toaff thinks it possible that in certain Ashkenazi groups dried human blood came to play a magical role in calling down God's vengeance on Christians, the historic persecutors of the Jews, and that this reaction may have affected certain forms of ritual practice among a restricted number of Ashkenazi Jews during Passover.^[14]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc Hannah Johnson, Blood Libel: The Ritual Murder Accusation at the Limit of Jewish History,University of Michigan Press, 2012 pp.132ff. p.132.
2. ^The Apostolic See and the Jews, Documents: 492-1404; Simonsohn, Shlomo, p. 188-189,193-195,208
3. ^[https://'Gregory X: Letter on Jews, (1271-76) - Against the Blood Libel,'
4. ^ ^abAriel Toaff, 'Trials and Historical Methodology: In Defence of Pasque di sangue,' p. 2
5. ^S.Buttaroni, S. Musial (eds.) Ritual Murder Legend in European History, Krakow, Nuremberg, Frankfort, 2003 p.12 reads:'It is important to state from the very beginning that Jewish ritual murder never took place. Today proving such theories wrong is not the goal of scientific research'. Cited Toaff, Pasque di sangue 2007 p.225 n.2
6. ^Adi Schwartz, Toaff fights for his good name, in Haaretz, 1 March 2007.
7. ^Biale, David (2007). Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians. Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. xi. ISBN978-0-520-25304-9.
8. ^Ofri Ilani, MKs seek to try Prof. Toaff over claims in blood libel book.' in Haaretz, February 2007.
9. ^Ofri Ilani, 'Bar-Ilan professor who claimed Jews used Christian blood in Passover ceremonies defends his book: 'I will fight for my truth, even if I am crucified'.' in Haaretz, 12 February 2007
10. ^ The Associated Press and Ofri Ilani Haaretz Service, 'Bar-Ilan to order professor to explain research behind blood libel book: Ariel Toaff's book alleges accusations of Jews using Christian blood may be based on real ceremonies', 11 February 2007; accessed 04 July 2013
11. ^Adi Schwartz 'Historian recants theory that Jews killed Christian child in ritual murder,' in Haaretz, 24 February 2008.
12. ^Matthew Wagner and AP, 'Blood libel' author halts press in The Jerusalem Post Feb. 14, 2007
13. ^Gabriel Sanders,Scholar Pulls Book Revisiting Blood Libel - Says Press Distorted His Work, Pledges Proceeds to ADL in The Forward, February 16, 2007
14. ^Ariel Toaff, Ebraismo Virtuale,Rizzoli, 2008 pp.101-105.

Studies[edit]

• Sabina Loriga, 'The Controversies over the Publication of Ariel Toaff's 'Bloody Passovers','Journal of The Historical Society, 8,4 (2008), 469-502.

External links[edit]

• Commentary (German) byJohannes Heil of the University of Heidelberg
• Commentary on Toaff's Book on Blood Libel (Haaretz)
• Article on Toaff and the Jewish-Italian Community (Haaretz)
• A blood-stained version of history (Haaretz)
• Toaff fights for his good name (Haaretz)
• MKs demand the author of blood libel book be prosecuted (Haaretz)
• Professor's Claim Of Truth To 'Blood Libel' Plays Into Hands Of Anti-Semites—from the ADL

My love for Legends of Eisenwald is a little personal, and I've already shared in great detail just what the game means for me. In design terms, Eisenwald does what few other games dare - it puts atmosphere first. It conjures an idealized medieval storybook world we want to return to again and again, an adventure in the sunshine, and a place we can call our own. I have a small collection of games that work magic in creating a colorful medieval atmosphere, with just a little bit of innocence. Legends of Eisenwald is one of those few.

Eisenwald finally released last year, to success and acclaim, and Aterdux hasn't been resting on its laurels. They've taken to Kickstarter again to launch a new standalone Eisenwald adventure, Blood of November. I got to chat with Alexander Dergay, project lead for the Eisenwald series, and scratch up some details on Blood of November.

Aubrielle: In Blood of November, the Duchy of Eisenwald has been thrown into civil war. Who are playing as this time? What's our objective?

Alex: The civil war already started. Majority of local lords have joined one of the two powerful clans. We are playing as a simple knight, baroness or mystic who kept neutrality but sooner or later we will have to make a choice who to support or join. Our objective is not to let the throne of the duchy in the hands of someone we don't like. And like in many cases in our lives, we have to choose a lesser evil.

Aubrielle: I see that BoN has a lot of interesting new features..sandbox play, improved graphics and assets, a new behavior-based quest system? Can you tell us some more about what new elements we can expect?

Alex:Legends of Eisenwald was a heavily story driven game. It worked in the most part for the campaign but we often heard from players that they wanted to have more freedom in what they do. Blood of November will not be story driven, yet it won't be without objectives. We improved dynamic balance of respawn so there won't be a situation where you kill the same peasants over and over. We introduced also random events so that they affect somewhat each playthrough making the game more replayable. And there are other smaller things we will change, for example troops availability for hire will be much more varied. In times of the civil war even rogues and bandits sometimes fought alongside nobles.

Aubrielle: One new feature you listed in your latest update was improved castle functionality..our castles will be used for a lot more now. Can you give us some more details on that? Can we hope for even more from castles, or maybe similar features from other places, like towns, cities, etc?

Alex: We wanted to make castle upgrades all the way from the start, it was even a stretch goal in our 2012 Kickstarter campaign. While castle improvements is not exactly implementation of our vision, it should enhance the strategic layer in Blood of November. As we wrote in our update yesterday, the most useful feature probably will be hiring patrols in castles and improve these patrols using our gold. It will provide an extra layer of defense to our lands, garrisons in the castles are often not enough. Also, players will have an option to add a forge and a trade to their castles that will provide extra income and a place to shop for weapons and armor at discount prices :)

Aubrielle: Autumn is my favorite season. :) With a game called 'Blood of November', can I hope for some autumn scenery?

Alex: Yes, some autumn scenery is coming! We already reworked some of the things in the graphics related to autumn and more will be done.

Aubrielle: It seems like you and your team have learned so much from your time with Legends of Eisenwald, and that there so many fun new gameplay elements you're including in BoN. With a standalone adventure of around 10 hours, is it too early to hope that this might just be a prelude to a grand new adventure in Eisenwald? Something with the sandbox elements you're developing and many more hours of gameplay?

Alex: Well, as much as we wish to work on a grand new adventure in Eisenwald, currently it doesn't seem realistic. Unlike in 2012 when we had no idea how much of a budget our game required, now we know and despite having an engine and some of the assets, cost of such a production is very high and I don't know where to find funding for that. In addition to that, we are working on a few unannounced things at the moment. But in the future I really hope we would be able to return to Eisenwald with a new campaign featuring new troops types, new heroes and improved gameplay. We indeed learned a lot making Legends of Eisenwald and we are looking forward to apply this knowledge.

Aubrielle: Anything else you'd like to share with our readers?

Alex: I would like to thank RPGWatch for its constant interest in our work and support of our projects. We don't want to make games just for ourselves and it's heartwarming to be a part of such a wonderful community of players with shared interests.

Aubrielle: Thanks so much for taking time to talk to us. :)

Alex: Thank you!

Blood of November should be out this fall, and I've got plenty of caramel apple Halloween candy and apple cider both hot and cold for my journey. I'm ready.

The Kickstarter for Blood of November goes until September 20th, so if you've got a little extra change, consider dropping it in the cup. :) Parasite eve psp.