Detailed
Description |
|
Broadsheet issued in Jerusalem in response to the blood-libel against the Jews of Corfu and its effect on the etrog market in Erez Israel. In 1891 some anti-Semites on the island of Corfu created a scandal in order to hinder the Corfiote Jews from participating in the elections. A little Jewish girl, Rubina Sarda, was killed, probably by some of these anti-Semites, and the report was spread that a Christian child had been slain for ritual purposes, thereby arousing the opposition of the populace against the Jews. Most of the latter were obliged to leave the place in order to escape a massacre. Although the Greek press disclosed the plot, the instigators, protected by high personages, were not punished. At that time, the Jewish population of 5,000 still lived in their own quarter. The blood libel caused a storm on the island and throughout Greece, and brought in its train large-scale emigration. From then on the Jewish community waned; many Jews emigrated to Trieste and Egypt.
Until that time, Corfu was a center for the cultivation of etrogim, which were distributed to Jewish communities in Europe. Due to the blood-libel and subsequent anti-Jewish demonstrations in1891 at Corfu, a movement was inaugurated to boycott the etrog-growers of that island and to buy etrogim raised in the agricultural colonies of Palestine. This effected the price of etrogim and raised other questions addressed in the broadsheet.
R. Mordecai Eliezer b. David Weber (1822-1892) was born in Petrovoselo, Hungary. An erudite scholar and a colorful personality, he was a student of the Ktav Sofer and a devoted disciple of the Divre Hayyim. After serving for many years in prestigious Hungarian communities he immigrated to Erez Israel in 1875, where he was involved in many polemic battles. |
