Easter in Kishinev

by Edward H. Judge

In February of 1903, in a small town in the southwestern part of the Russian empire, a peasant stumbled upon the corpse of 14-year-old Mikhail Rybachenko, bruised and covered with stab wounds, in a garden. The murder immediately fueled wild rumors that he had been killed by local Jews in need of his Christian blood to prepare their matzah bread. Panic rumors, grounded in sinister superstitions of Jewish sorcery and ritual murder, quickly spread to nearby towns. By April, they had hit Kishinev - a growing metropolis of 100,000 inhabitants rife with the unrest of rapid expansion, ethnic rivalry, revolutionary agitation, and anti-Semitism - with full force. The resulting massacre left dozens dead, and hundreds wounded, maimed, widowed, orphaned, or homeless. This is the story of Kishinev. In this extensively researched book, Edward Judge examines these anti-Jewish riots, detailing their background, cause, and aftermath. He traces the evolution of the riots, analyzing the broader impact of