Joseph Samuel Bloch, a crusader against anti-Semitism,…
1893 CE
In 1893, instigated by Josef Deckert, a pastor in Vienna, a baptized Jew named Paulus Meyer declares in the Vaterland of May 11 that a number of Russian rabbis from Lentschna had performed a ritual murder in his presence.
In the name of the children of these rabbis, Bloch at once institutes criminal proceedings against Deckert, Meyer, and the publisher of the paper, and on trial, September 15, a conspiracy is unmasked and the defendants are found guilty of conspiracy and imprisoned.
Bloch had left the rabbinate and from 1884 has published Österreichische Wochenschrift ("Austrian Weekly"), financed by a Christian, Baron Scher, in which anti-Semitism is uncompromisingly attacked.
Bloch carries on the fight in the Austrian parliament, of which he is a member three times during the years 1883-85 and 1891-95.