In some cases, the alleged victims of human sacrifice have become venerated as Christian martyrs. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically, blood libel claims have been made in order to account for the otherwise unexplained deaths of children. īlood libels typically claim that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos, an unleavened flatbread which is eaten during Passover, although this element of the accusation was allegedly absent in the earliest blood libels in which then-contemporary Jews were accused of reenacting the crucifixion. This libel-alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration-became a major theme of the persecution of Jews in Europe from that period to the present day. It was however, frequently attached to early communities of Christians in the Roman Empire, reemerging as a Christian accusation against Jews in the medieval period. Historically, echoing very old myths of secret cultic practices in many prehistoric societies, the claim as it is leveled against Jews, was rarely attested to in antiquity. Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christian children (or other gentiles) in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals.
