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JewishHistoryעברית

Corfu blood libel

Date
12 April 1891 – May 1891Hebrew date: 4th of Nisan, 5651
Location
Corfu, Kingdom of GreeceGreece
Then part of
Kingdom of Greece
Perpetrators
  • Local Greek Orthodox rioters (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
20[1]Jews killed in the rioting, according to Yitzchak Kerem in Sephardic Horizons. The Jewish Encyclopedia Corfu article does not give a death toll; it states that most Jews had to leave to escape a massacre.
Locality

0.4% of the Jewish population of Corfu, Kingdom of Greece[1]

Country

0.027% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Greece (c. 1933)[6]

Worldwide

0.00026% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1880)[4]

Category
Blood libel, Pogrom
Confidence
DisputedKerem gives some twenty Jews killed and more than 1,500 who left. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes flight to escape a massacre and names Rubina Sarda, but does not give a death toll. The casualty figure is Kerem's alone among the fetched pages.

Summary

On the night of 12 April 1891 an eight-year-old Jewish girl, Rubina Sarda, was murdered on Corfu. A rumour spread that the child was a Christian killed by Jews for ritual use. The Jewish Encyclopedia records that her teacher attested she was Jewish, that the Greek press exposed the plot, and that most Jews had to leave to escape a massacre. Kerem describes about three weeks of rioting, some twenty Jews killed, a curfew on the Jewish quarter, and more than 1,500 of about 5,000 Jews leaving the island.

Sources

  1. Yitzchak Kerem, The Blood Libel in Corfu (1891). Sephardic Horizons
  2. Richard Gottheil, M. Caimi, Corfu. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  3. Blood Accusation. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 7,800,000[4]c. 1880
  • Kingdom of Greece: 73,000[6]c. 1933USHMM 1933 Europe table for Greece.
  • Corfu, Kingdom of Greece: 5,000[1]About 5,000 Jews on Corfu in 1891, the year of the riots. Kerem says more than 1,500 of them left. The same author gives 6,000 in 1879, twelve years earlier.

Sources for population estimates

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