Blood libel: A historical view  Sarah Palin's use of "blood
libel" today, as is already clear to most people, is divorced
from the historical origins of the term. But it's worth taking a
moment to revisit the original meaning of the phrase and the
violent context from which it emerged.  I called Ronnie Hsia, a
history professor at Penn State who has written extensively on
blood libel and early modern Europe. He explained that the term
generally refers to the medieval "fantasy in Christian belief
that Jewish communities needed Christian blood for Passover."
"It was based on an ignorance and fear of Jewish rituals on the
part of Christians and also the Christian fixation on blood," he
says. Most often, it would be the blood of a child; thus, the
idea often surfaced after the murder or abduction of a child....
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