This Hebrew invective is not an invention. It may in fact be found among the blessings and curses pronounced during the so-called "Haggadah of the Jewish New Year" (Rosh Ha-Shanah) just before the feast dinner. On this occasion, the reading of the various formulae was accompanied by the consumption of vegetables and fruit, in addition to fish and a lamb’s head, recalling, by means of a pun on their Hebrew names, the type of blessing or curse which the reader intended
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to pronounce. Leeks are called cartì, and the invective associated with its name was known as she-iccaretu (iccaresu in the Ashkenazi pronunciation) col hoyevenu, that is, "may all our enemies be exterminated" ("consumed" according to Angelo)" [546]. The original inspiration was, as usual, Biblical and prophetical (Mich. 5:9) "And all thine enemies shall be cut off" (we-chos hoyevecha iccaretu). At this point, it becomes much more difficult to dismiss the insertion of these Hebrew-language execrations into the ritual of the Christian blood added to the solemn unleavened bread as merely the extemporaneous and extravagant invention of Angelo da Verona, “softened up” with torture.
From Samuele da Nuremberg and Angelo da Verona, from Maestro Tobias and Anna da Montagnana, all the accused at Trent were agreed in affirming that the head of the family, who was required to perform the task of directing the reading of the Haggadah, did not shake the blood into the wine before starting the Seder or during the initial phases of the celebration, but only when they were about to recite the ten curses of Egypt. Recalling the years of his stay in the Jewish quarter of Nuremberg with various employers such as Lazzaro, Giosia and Moshè Loff, Mosè da Ansbach, the teacher of Tobias's children, stated that the head of the family placed the blood in the wine at the precise moment of the commemoration of the so-called “ten curses”, i.e., the plagues of Egypt [547].
The learned Mosè da Würzburg, "the Old Man", explained that:
"The head of the family takes a bit of the blood of the Christian child and drops it in his glass full of wine [...] then, putting his finger in the wine, with that wine where the blood of the Christian child has been shaken, he sprinkles the table and food on the table with it, pronouncing the Hebraic formula in commemoration of the ten curses, which God sent to the refractory Egyptian people who refused to liberate the Jewish people. At the end of the reading, the same head of the family, referring to the Christians, utters the following words (in Hebrew): ‘thus we beseech God that he may similarly direct these ten curses against the gentiles, who are enemies of the Jewish faith’" [548]. Giovanni da Feltre, the converted Jew, recalled the years of his youth, spent in lower Germany, when his father performed on the ritual of the Seder of Passover, "Both evenings, my father took blood and shook it into his chalice of wine before beginning the Passover dinner, then sprinkled it on the table cursing the Christian religion" [549].
After the reading of the last part of the Haggadah, the head of the family performed the act of adding the blood to the wine to transform the wine into a potion symbolically intended to represent
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the cruel death of Israel’s enemies, immediately before the ten curses. This part of the text of the Haggadah opens with the words: "(The Lord) made us leave Egypt with a strong hand, with the arm extended, with immense terror, with signs) and with prodigies: this is the blood (zeh ha-dam)" [550]. The reason why the haematic fluid of the Christian boy was dissolved in the “wine of the ten curses” at this point was revealed by Angelo da Verona:
"The Jews performed this act in remembrance of one of the ten curses which God inflicted upon the Egyptians when they held the Jewish people in bondage: one of the plagues was God’s transformation into blood of all the waters in the land of Egypt" [551]. As usual, Israel Wolfgang provided some sense of order for these various rituals. The young painter recalled participating in a Seder held in the house of a certain Jew named Chopel, at Günzenhausen, near Nuremberg, in 1460. Chopel used coagulated, pulverized blood, shaken into the wine prior to the recitation of the ten plagues. This was accompanied by the following declaration in Hebrew: "This is the blood of a Christian child", (zeh-ha dam shel goi katan). According to what may be gathered from Israel Wolfgang’s account, after the reading of this fragment of the Haggadah, which began with the words zeh ha-dam, "This is the blood", the head of the house brought the ampoule containing the powdered blood to the table, added a bit of the contents to the wine in his chalice, and recited the analogous formula beginning with the same words, zeh ha-dam, but in reference to the blood of the Christian child, not in reference to the first plague of Egypt.
He then went on to the reading of the ten curses, the sprinkling of the wine onto the table, and the recitation of the invectives against the goyim -- the Christians. Obviously, the formula, "This is the blood (zeh ha-dam) of a Christian child" was transmitted [from generation to generation] orally; the text of the Haggadah was alleged not to contain this text.
Israel Wolfgang’s revelations continued. In 1474, he [said he] had participated in the celebration of the Jewish Passover at Feltre, at Abramo's house (Abramo being a money lender in that city). On that occasion, Wolfgang had seen the head of the family add the blood to the dough of the solemn unleavened bread (migzo = mazzot), that is, the shimmurim. During the evening ritual of the Seder, Abramo da Feltre, in preparation for the reading of the ten curses, came to table with a glass phial containing a small quantity of dried blood,
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the size of a nut, and shook a pinch of it into the wine, pronouncing the usual formula of the zeh ha-dam: "This is the blood of a Christian child". He then began the recitation of the plagues, pouring the wine onto the table and cursing the gentiles hostile to Israel" [552].
Lazzaro, employed at Angelo da Verona, also told the judges that he had seen the rite performed by his uncle Israel, the influential Ashkenazi banker at Piacenza, who occupied the function of treasurer in the Jewish community of the Duchy of Milan [553]. According to him, Israel, during the recitation of the plagues, diluted the blood into the wine, pronouncing the Hebrew words which meant: "This is the blood of a Christian child" (zeh ha-dam shel goi katan) [554]. In this regard, Mosè of Bamburg confirmed the descriptions of the other defendants, referring to Leone of Mohar, a money lender active at Tortona, with whom he had stayed as a guest in the past, during the Seder of Passover [555]. As often happened, Leone, in the act of adding the dried blood to the wine before the recitation of the ten curses, turned to his guests with the required Hebrew phrase: zeh ha-dam, "This is the blood of a Christian child".
It should be obvious that only someone with a very good knowledge of the Seder ritual, an insider, could describe the [precise] order of gestures and operations as well as the Hebrew formulae used during the various phases of the celebration, and be capable of supplying such [a wealth of] detailed and precise descriptions and explanations. The judges at Trent could barely follow these descriptions, forming a vague idea of the ritual, which was so foreign to their experience and knowledge that they could only reconstitute it in [the form of] nebulous and imperfect images. The Italian notaries, then, had their work cut out for them in [attempting] to cut their way through this jungle of incomprehensible Hebrew terms, pronounced with a heavy German accent. But on the other hand, what interested them, beyond the particulars of difficult comprehensibility, was establishing where these Jews used Christian blood in their Passover rites, adding it to the unleavened bread and the wine of the libation. Imagining that the judges dictated these descriptions of the Seder ritual, with the related liturgical formulae in Hebrew, does not seem very believable.
546
547
The depositions from Mosè da Ansbach, "a young person nineteen years old", on this matter are reported in detail in Divina,
548
"In die Pasce ipsorum Iudeorum, ante cenam, unusquisque Iudeus paterfamilias accipit modicum de sanguine pueri Cristiani et illum ponit in uno ciato pieno vino, quem ciatum postea ponit super mensa, circa quem mensam omnes de dicta familia circumstant; et paterfamilias ponit digitum in ciato suo, in quo est commixtus sanguis pueri Cristiani, et deinde curo eodem digito balneato in vino aspergit totam mensam et ea omnia que super mensa sunt, dicendo certa verba Hebraica, per que in effectu commemorantur decem maledictiones quas Deus dedit Pharaoni et Egiptiis, quia nolebant dimittere populum Iudaicum; dicens quod posteaquam dictus paterfamilias dixit suprascripta verba, idem paterfamilias iungit hec alia verba: "lta imprecamur Deum quod similiter immittat predictas .X. maledictiones contra gentes, que sunt inimice fidei Iudeorum", intelligendo maxime contra Cristianos" [“On the Jewish Passover, before dinner, each Jewish head of a family takes a small quantity of the blood of a Christian child and places it in a glassful of wine, and they put the glassful of wine on the table, around which all members of the family are sitting; and the head of the family places his finger in his glass, containing the wine mixed with the blood of a Christian child, and then, after bathing his finger in it, he sprinkles the entire table around which the people are sitting, saying certain words in Hebre, by means of which they commemorate the ten curses which God inflicted on the Egyptians, who didn’t wish to release the Jewish people, after which each Jewish head of a family says the above words, after which he adds these words: 'Thus we pray God that he may inflict ten similar curses against the peoples who are enemies of the Jewish people’, meaning, most of all, the Christians”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,
549
"Pater ipsius [...] in die Pasce Iudeorum, ante cenam et etiam in die sequenti post Pascha ante cenam, accipiebat de dicto sanguine et de illo ponebat in ciato suo, in quo erat vinum, et deinde aspergebat mensam maledicendo fidem Cristianorum" [“Their father [...] on Passover, before dinner as well as before dinner the following day, takes some of the blood and puts it in his glass, containing wine, and sprinkles the table, cursing the Christian fait”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 125).
550
The brief text of the
551
"Hoc fecerunt in memoriam unius ex .x. maledictiones quas dedit Deus Egyptiatiis quando retinebant populum Hebraicum in servitute et quod inter ceteras maledictiones Deus convertit omnem aquam terre Egypti in sanguinem"[“This they do in memory of the ten curses inflicted by God on the Egyptians when they held the Hebrews captive and that, among these multiple curses, God changed all the water of Egypt into blood”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,
552
Israel Wolfgang's long and detailed report by is reproduced in Divina,
553
Israele di Lazzaro managed the principal lending bank at Piacenza from 1449 until at least 1472 and was the treasurer of the Jewish community of the Duchy of Milan in the years 1453-1454. In 1479, he was still alive and represented the heirs of Benedetto da Como in the negotiations for renewal of the money lending permit in the city of Como (cfr. Sh. Simonsohn,
554
On Lazzaro's deposition, cfr. Divina,
555
Cfr. ibidem, pp. 25-32, who presents an exhaustive exposition of the details of Mosè Bamberg's long deposition.