The Accusation

An extraordinary--and timely--story expertly told. Edward Berenson, a distinguished historian of modern Europe, opens up a side of early twentieth-century American history that feels both startling and eerily familiar in its mix of ethnocentrism and political toxicity. A lucid, deeply intelligent, and important book.--Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History This model of micro-history illuminates both the persistence and inconsistency of antisemitism in Western culture through the unlikely prism of an almost forgotten event in a backwater American town during the presidential election of 1928. Berenson's research ranges widely over time and space, and his narrative deftly blends scholarly generalizations with nitty-gritty historical reconstruction. The highly readable result is a tour de force of insight and synthesis.--Peter Hayes, author of Why? Explaining the Holocaust The Accusation starts with what amounted to an obscure footnote in regional narratives and a minor curiosity in studies of American Jewish history, and builds upon it a very large, important story. In a richly woven tapestry, Edward Berenson examines the many strands that link early twentieth-century Massena, New York, to the Middle Ages, when Jews found themselves accused of using the blood of young Christians to bake matzah, their ritual Passover bread. Deftly connects the very local to the national and to the global.--Hasia R. Diner, Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History, New York University