In the Beilis trial of 1913, false accusations of ritual murder were leveled against the Jewish people generally, and the chassidic movement specifically. This documentary vividly reconstructs the events as they unfolded, through a series of interviews with experts, alongside period photographs and press clippings.
Featuring (in order of appearance): Robert Weinberg, Professor of History at Swarthmore College, PA, and author of Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis (Indiana University Press, 2013); Edmund Levin, Writer and Producer at ABC News, and author of A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia—The Beilis Blood Libel (Schocken, 2014); Jay Beilis, grandson of Mendel Beilis; and Eli Rubin, research writer and editor at Chabad.org.
It's interesting that he was exonerated. Around the same time, right here, Leo Frank was found guilty, and when his sentence was commuted to life at hard labor, he was lynched.
And decades later, the best Georgia could do was pardon him, leaving him considered guilty.
Where there even Jews in Georgia before the 1920s?
Absolutely. David Emmanuel was the nation's first Jewish governor after the previous governor resigned in 1801. He chose not to run for the office. Possibly encouraged not to.
I never knew there was Jews in America before 1881. Where there?
Of course. They had to petition to be allowed to stay in New Amsterdam in the very early days, which was allowed; and George Washington wrote one community a very nice letter later. Worth looking up.