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JewishHistoryעברית

Surami blood libel

Date
June 1850 – 1853
Location
SuramiGeorgia
Then part of
Russian Empire
Perpetrators
  • Local investigators and the Imperial Senate (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Blood libel, Persecution
Confidence
DisputedBen Oren dates the Surami accusation to June 1850. Kirmse dates the case 1851–53 and cites Ben-Oren 1984 for the Siberian exile. Encyclopaedia Judaica lists 1852 among six Georgian blood libels without naming Surami. The three pages agree that a mid-century Georgian blood libel ended in punishment of Jews; they disagree on the start year.

Summary

In June 1850 Jews in Surami, in Russian-ruled Georgia, were accused of the ritual murder of a Georgian Christian boy. Gershon Ben Oren of the Georgian Jews World Congress records that the local community appealed through Istanbul to Moses Montefiore, who asked Caucasus viceroy Mikhail Vorontsov to intervene; Vorontsov, in Ben Oren's account, confined himself to evasive replies and to defending the Russian courts. Stefan B. Kirmse, writing in Central Asian Survey, states that seven Jewish men, all learned in religious matters, were accused, that local investigators pressed the case for three years without evidence, and that the Senate in St Petersburg convicted them and exiled each to a separate place in Siberia under strict supervision. Kirmse notes that rumours and sporadic violence against Jews continued afterwards.

Sources

  1. Stefan B. Kirmse, Russian imperial borderlands, Georgian Jews, and the struggle for ‘justice’ and ‘legality’: blood libel in Kutaisi, 1878–80. Central Asian Survey (2024)
  2. Gershon Ben Oren, The History of the Jews of Georgia. Georgian Jews World Congress
  3. Georgia. Encyclopaedia Judaica / Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 3,143,000 – 4,000,000[16]c. 1850Contemporary estimates compiled in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Jacobs): Jost, 1846, summed to 3,143,000; Berghaus, 1854, estimated 4,000,000. Nearby Boudin (1857) gave 3,900,000.
  • Russian Empire: 3,932,000 – 4,748,640[19]c. 1881Bartal and Moss (Posen Library) give about 2,912,000 Jews in the Pale of Settlement and 1,020,000 in Congress Poland in 1881 (sum 3,932,000), excluding Jews outside those zones. Boustan cites about 4.1 million for the empire in 1881. A contemporary German compilation of Russian Jewish statistics (Freimann Sammlung) reconstructs 4,748,640 for 1879/1884 (Pale 2,920,639 + Poland ~1,078,000 + outside the Pale ~750,000) and says the total had by then passed five million. Figures cover the Russian Empire including Congress Poland.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
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  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
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  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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