Women and Blood Libel: The Legend of Adil Kikinesh of Drohobycz

Abstract

This article deals with Jewish blood libel legends and women, as expressed in legends about Adil Kikinish of Drohbycz. As with many Jewish blood libel legends created as a reaction to the Christian blood libel legends, these legends refute blood libel accusations and tell about the deliverance of an individual or community. Alongside these deliverance legends we find also Jewish historical legends that end with the hero's death. The legends about Adil Kikinish belong to this category, and end with the death of the heroine. In this article, I analyze the legends about Adil told in Hebrew and Yiddish in the context of other legends about women in times of persecution. These legends create several key paradigms and, like other Jewish legends set in times of persecution, establish heroines who transcend the bounds of gender behavior. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

ABSTRACT

This article deals with Jewish blood libel legends and women, as expressed in legends about Adil Kikinish of Drohbycz. As with many Jewish blood libel legends created as a reaction to the Christian blood libel legends, these legends refute blood libel accusations and tell about the deliverance of an individual or community. Alongside these deliverance legends we find also Jewish historical legends that end with the hero's death. The legends about Adil Kikinish belong to this category, and end with the death of the heroine. In this article, I analyze the legends about Adil told in Hebrew and Yiddish in the context of other legends about women in times of persecution. These legends create several key paradigms and, like other Jewish legends set in times of persecution, establish heroines who transcend the bounds of gender behavior.

KEYWORDS: legend, blood libel, women, persecution, gender.

The accounts of blood libels in Jewish folklore are a reaction to the folklore of the Christians among whom the Jews lived, and its tragic results. Christian legends1 tell of ritual murders committed by Jews, who ostensibly kill a Christian (usually a child) and use his blood in their Passover rites. Over the centuries, blood libels led to the torture and killing of many Jews, and, on occasion, to the massacre of entire communities. In a collection of articles on the subject, the editor, Alan Dundes, describes these tales as the "most bizarre and dangerous legend ever created by the human imagination" (Dundes 1993:vii) and declared that the goal of this book is "to hold an evil legend up to the light of reason" (Dundes 1993:viii). Unlike scholars who refrain from value judgments in their research, Dundes takes a clear stand, asserting that there can be a "evil folklore" and that the Christian blood libel is a classic example of this type of folklore. Noting the catastrophic outcome of blood libels, he argues that folklore, which is generally identified with pleasure and aesthetics, can be destructive (cf. Bar-Itzhak 1993:176-177).

Although the present article does not deal with the Christian legend and its origins, we ought to briefly review a number of hypotheses that scholars have advanced about it.

Alan Dundes sees die Christian blood libel as a "projective inversion." The central Christian ritual of eating the consecrated host, which represents the body of Christ, and drinking the wine, which represents his blood, caused guilt feelings. The guilt feelings that this ritual stirred among die faithful, who were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, caused them to project the same action onto the Jews (Dundes 1991:336-376).

Magdalene Schultz links the blood libel to the frequent abandonment and consequent deatii of children in medieval Christian society. Accusing die Jews of responsibility for the children's deatiis, so that titey could celebrate Passover "properly," was one way for Christians to cope with their guilt feelings over how they treated their children (Schultz 1991:273-303).

Cecil Rodi traces the source of blood libels to a misinterpretation of a Jewish Purim custom, namely, hanging and burning Haman (the Jew hater from the Book of Esther) in effigy, which triggered associations of human sacrifice (Roth 1991:261-272).

Ora Limor sees die blood libel as using a Jewish ritual to confirm a fundamental Christian paradigm - namely, crucifixion-sacrifice-redemption. The blood libels repeat, time and again, the Jews' killing of a Christian, and the Christian victim becomes the redemptive sacrifice (Limor 1993).

According to Amos Funkenstein, the blood libel helped the Church achieve its goals. The demonization of the Jews, which exploited the fear of the Other, resolved die paradox of its inability to convert the unbelievers (Funkenstein 1982:4-15).

As noted, Jewish legends about blood libels are a reaction to the Christian tales and their devastating results. From this perspective, the Jewish legends offer us a way to study the reciprocal relations between different types of folklore and the influence of the folklore of the Other on die evolution of Jewish folklore, and point out die manner in which a persecuted minority creates a folklore response to the evil folklore directed against diem.

This suggests that if the Christian legend accused die Jews of ritual murder and resulted in persecution and massacre of Jews, the Jewish legends should refute the accusation and tell how a Jewish individual or community was delivered from a blood libel. This is, indeed, the most common paradigm in Jewish folk narratives on the subject (Noy 1967:32-51).

The Jewish oikotype formulated in the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA), AT 730*, "Rescue of a Jewish Community," enumerates a number of possibilities, on the basis of the many such legends in its holdings:

* AT 730d: The resuscitation or resurrection of the "murdered child" leads to the discovery of the truth.

* AT 730e: "He Who guards Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps": The (gentile) ruler cannot sleep. He goes out in the middle of the night and comes upon the plotters who are trying to incriminate the Jews by murdering a Christian or exhuming a dead body. He frustrates their scheme.

* AT 730f: The Christian child whom the Jews were accused of murdering turns up safe and sound.

* AT 730g: The Jews, warned in advance (usually by a dream) , get rid of the bottle of blood that the plotters planted in the Holy Ark and thus are saved from the libel.

From a genre perspective, most Jewish stories about blood libels are sacred legends. The community is saved by divine intervention, overt or concealed. For the most part, this involves an appearance by the prophet Elijah, the figure that rescues and saves in times of trouble and crisis in Jewish folklore and is associated both with Passover and with the final redemption of the Jewish people at the time of the Messiah.2 These legends, with their happy ending - the individual or community is saved and the wicked enemies are punished - reflect the terror inspired by Christian blood libels and the yearning for God to save his people and rescue them from the direatening outcome of blood libels in the sacred time of Passover.

Alongside legends of this type, there are also historical legends that end with the hero's death. These keep alive a traumatic event in the collective memory of the community. Such legends reflect the link between ethnopoetics and legendary chronicles, a topic I have addressed elsewhere (Bar-Itzhak 2001). In these legends the hero is usually a community leader, a rabbi or Torah scholar who is targeted by the Christian blood libel. The legend associates his deatii with two Jewish key values - the individual's willingness to give his life to save the community, and his willingness to die in sanctification of the divine name (because he turns down a chance to save himself by means of apostasy) . The wellknown Eastern European Jewish folk narratives in this category include the legends of the Reitzes brothers and of Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Pozna . These legends played two key roles: first, they gave voice to the terror that the historical incidents branded on the Jewish psyche and preserved it in the community's collective memory. Second, the glorification of the protagonist, manifested in his willingness to die a martyr in order to sanctify God's name and sacrifice himself to save the community.

As noted, in most legends of this type the hero is a historical figure, an eminent man. This does seem to be de rigueur. The legends recount a confrontation that has a religious basis and in which the leading actors on both sides have roles in the public space: hence in legends told in Jewish patriarchal society a man acting as a protagonists is obvious. On the other hand, although I am aware that the private sphere is the arena of action deemed appropriate for women in Jewish folk narratives and that they are excluded from the public sphere, it is obvious that blood libels are a time of crisis and persecution. Having learned from my previous research that in such times legends permit women to go beyond the private sphere and act in the public space as well (Bar-Itzhak 2001:149-154; 2008:59-65), I looked for Jewish blood libel legends with a woman at their center. It turns out that Eastern European Jewish legends include several legends about Adii Kikinesh, the daughter of Moses Kikinesh of Drohobycz, to which I now turn my attention.

There are a number of versions of the story of Adii Kikinesh of Drohobycz in Hebrew and in Yiddish. Even though the legend no longer circulates orally among Jews of Eastern European ancestry, the multiple versions are evidence of a multiple existence that is typical of folk narratives (Dundes 1975:xii-xiii).

In Hebrew, the legend was first published in Matzevet kodesh (Holy Tombstone) by Gabriel Suchestow (1860:46). Another version appears in Abraham Menahem Mendel Mohr's Shevilei olam (World Paths) (Mohr:1880). An additional version was included in Salomon Buber's Anshei shem (Famous People) (1895:19). Versions were also published in two anthologies: Simon Bernfeld's Sefer ha-Dema'ot (Book of Tears) (1923:211-233) and Shlomo Sneh's Ha'enut ve-ha-gevurah (Affliction and Valor) (Sneh 1979:144-145).

All of these versions closely resemble Suchestow's. The most important difference is that Buber assigns the historical event to 1718 rather than to 1710, as Suchestow did. Buber relied on M. Finger's Matzevot rabbanim (Rabbis Tombstones) (105) and the fact that Friday, 27 Elul (the date inscribed on Adii Kikinesh's tombstone) could not refer to 5470 (1710), when that date fell out on a Monday.

Here is the story, as presented by Suchestow:

The martyr, Adii (daughter of Rabbi Moshe Kikinesh), made her home in the city of Drohobycz and was caught up in a blood libel along with the entire community. On Seder night, her gentile serving-maid had hidden a dead Christian child in her home and said that she had killed him at her mistress' behest for the needs of the community. When this righteous woman saw the distress of the many she sacrificed herself and said that she alone had given the order and the people were guiltless. After she had been sentenced to death the serving maid regretted her wickedness and made a full confession to the judges that she had perjured herself. But the judges refused to overturn their verdict. The priests said, though, that they would allow her to live if she converted and endeavored to seduce her with this promise. The woman was young and very beautiful, her husband was very wealthy, and her family was renowned in Israel. In her righteousness she refused to turn away from the Lord and died willingly to sanctify His great name. (Suchestow 1860:46)

Suchestow also quotes the inscription on her tombstone:

On Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, 27 Elul 5778, the holy and pure woman Adii, the daughter of the magnate and leader Rabbi Moses Kikinesh, sanctified [God's name] and gave her life on behalf of all Israel. May the Lord avenge her blood and by this merit may her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life. (Ibid.)

The first sentence of the story already refers to her as a "martyr," thereby alerting readers to her tragic end. The Hebrew adjective qadosh, whose primary signification is "holy," also bears the connotation of "martyred" (just as many early Christian saints earned that title through martyrdom) .

The confrontation in the story has a religious background. On one side we have Adii and the Jewish community as a collective hero, and on the other side we have the judges, priests, and Adil's serving maid. Even though this version does not say that the maid planted the boy's body in Adil's house at the instigation of the priests and judges, members of the upper class, this is implied by the continuation, when the maid recants her story but the judges refuse to vacate their verdict and the priests are willing to save Adii only if she converts.

All of the Hebrew versions are short and concise. The Yiddish versions, by contrast, are marked by epic expansion and the typical poetics of oral narrative.

The Yiddish versions were transcribed by Gershom Bader (1927:212215) and by Leo Finkelstein (1947:230-231). Because they are very similar I will include only one of them here.

THE STORY OF ADIL KIKINESH

They told many stories about the martyr Adii Kikinesh, who lived in Drohobycz at the beginning of the eighteenth century, both during her life and after her death. She was the daughter of the merchant Moses Kikinesh, a magnate from Lemberg, and was renowned for her extraordinary beauty. Her husband was a scholar who sat and learned Torah day and night. After receiving the salt concession from her wealthy father-inlaw, she conducted die business with great skill. Her beauty, wisdom, and way with words enflamed the local magnates and priests. In their rabid jealousy the priests looked for a way to destroy the lovely Adii and, with her, the whole Jewish community.

They say that they persuaded her Christian serving-woman to murder her own child and blame Adii for it, as if she had done it with her own hands to get Christian blood for the Passover matzot.

Adii was arrested and thrown into prison, where they tried to get her to betray her accomplices. But she took the full blame on herself and said she had done the deed with no help from anyone.

She was convicted in Lemberg3 and sentenced to death - an extremely cruel and painful death. The verdict was that her long tresses be tied to the tail of a wild stallion and that the beast be whipped along a rockstrewn path; afterward she would be burned.

When the Christian serving-woman heard this sentence she recanted and told the truth about who had instigated her to kill her child. But they immediately dragged her off to prison and strangled her.

Adii was promised her life if she would convert. But she steadfastly refused die offer.

Adil's execution was conducted with much pageantry in the market square of Lemberg, which was packed witìi tens of thousands of Christians. Even the roofs and windows were jammed witìi spectators. The judges sat on the dais in their velvet robes. Next to them stood Adii, bound. The Archbishop of Lemberg asked her if she had a last wish.

She asked that they untie her hands and give her some pins. She forced the pins through the hem of her dress and then deep into the flesh of her calves. Now she was sure that when the wild stallion dragged her through the market square her naked body would not be exposed.

On her tombstone tfiey engraved that she died on Friday, the eve of the holy Sabbath, the seventh day of the month of Elul, in the year 5478 (1718). She is described there as "the holy and pure woman, who sanctified God's name and gave her life for all Israel. May die Lord avenge her blood." (Finkelstein 1947:230-231)

The Yiddish versions hint at an oral tradition, inasmuch as Yiddish, not Hebrew, was the spoken vernacular of Eastern European Jews in which the stories were told. This is reflected in the use of phrases such as "They told many stories about the martyr Adii Kikinesh." Or again, "They say that they persuaded her Christian serving-woman," In addition, they are marked by the contrast and dramatization typical of folk legends. In the Hebrew versions the serving maid kills "a boy." In the Yiddish texts, carrying the matter to an extreme, she "murders her own child." In all of the versions she regrets what she has done, but, whereas in the Hebrew versions the judges simply refuse to retract their verdict and sentence, in the Yiddish versions "they dragged her off to prison and strangled her."

What all the versions have in common is their depiction of the heroine as raised above the common herd, extremely wealthy, respected, and beautiful. In the Yiddish versions, unlike the Hebrew, these traits are explicidy presented as the reason behind and motive for the blood libel. There is a covert message here, found in outer legends about women who came into contact with non-Jews on account of their status, such as the legends about women who rescued a synagogue - Golden Rose (di gildene Roize) of Lwów4 and Mirele of Brahilov:5 exposure to such contacts is extremely perilous for a Jewish woman and should be avoided unless important matters are in the balance - saving a synagogue from demolition in one case, saving the entire community from death in the other.

The Yiddish versions say in so many words what can only be inferred from the Hebrew, namely, that the priests were looking for a way to attack Adii and the Jews and that they were the ones who persuaded the serving woman to her dastardly action.

Whereas the scene of Adil's execution is not found in any of the Hebrew versions included in volumes of historical documentation, it is given wide play in the Yiddish versions, which were published in more popular books. The Yiddish versions include descriptions of the mode of death (tied to the tail of a horse and dragged over a rock-strewn path) and descriptions of the throng that turned out to watch, the judges in their velvet robes, and the bound Adii, standing on the other side. Her confrontation with the archbishop, the representative of the Christian faith, and her last wish to be given pins, which she uses to attach the hem of her dress to the flesh of her calves, so that her nakedness will not be exposed, are important elements in the characterization of a woman who became a cultural hero who died to sanctify God's name - as a woman who, even at the last and worst moment of all, guarded the values and behavioral norms consecrated by Judaism. We should recall that the same motif appears in the literary legend by I. L. Peretz, "Three Gifts," in his Folkshtimlikhe geshikhten (From the Mouth of the People),6 in which a pin, smeared with the blood of a female martyr, is the second gift brought by the wandering soul that is seeking redemption (Peretz 1961:26-36).

Men, too, suffer cruel deaths in the wake of blood libels. It is stated explicitly that Rabbi Joshua Reitzes, executed along with his brother, Rabbi Hayim Reitzes (they too from Lemberg/Lwów, the execution place of Adii as well) , was sentenced to be tied to the tails of horses. But in Jewish culture, when such a fate strikes a woman it aroused associations with the destruction of the Temple and the bitter suffering of noble women at such a time. Echoing in the background is the story of Miriam (Martha) daughter of Boethus, recounted in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ketubbot 5:11 [38b]), in the Babylonian Talmud (Ketubbot 67a Gittin 56a), and in Midrash Lamentations Rabbah 1:47, where R. Eleazar b. Zadok says of her, "May I [not] live to behold the consolation [of Zion] if I did not see them tie her hair to the tails of Arabian horses and make her run from Jerusalem to Lydda. I quoted this verse in connection with her, 'She who is most tender and dainty among you (Deut. 28:56) ?

The link to the story of Miriam/Martha daughter of Boethus conveys the full force of the terror that the narrating society felt when faced by a blood libel - a terror that can be compared only to the greatest calamity of all - the destruction of the Holy Temple.

The legends about Adii Kikinesh of Drohobycz belong to the topic of women in times of persecution in Eastern Europe that I have discussed in the past. These legends feature two kinds of heroines. The first type are young girls - whom the legends refer to as "virgins." The best-known of these were published in Yeven metzulah (Abyss of Despair), the chronicle of the Chmielnicki pogroms of 1648-1 649 ,8 first published shortly after die events themselves in 1653 (Hannover 1968 [1653]:38). Many of them had been published in 1887, in H.J. Gurland's Annals of the Persecutions of Israel, including the legend of "the Cossack and the Damsel," "the Bride and Groom," and "the Hetmán and the Damsel" (Gurland 1972 [1887]:33-36). Legends that circulated orally were an important part of the Jews' lives in Eastern Europe, as attested by S. An-Ski (An-Ski 1920), one of the pioneering researchers of Eastern European Jewish folklore, who collected some of them during the ethnographic expedition he led.9 The interesting point is that these legends, which can be traced back to 1648/49, were still circulating orally in the 1950s; one of them is found in the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA 1935), under the title "the Girl and the Cossack."10

The second type are mature women, as in the legends about Adii. These relate mainly to the rescue of synagogues, as mentioned above, and in our case to blood libel.

In all these legends the women act in the public space, radier than in the private sphere that is normally deemed to be appropriate for Jewish women. Pogroms, persecutions, and blood libels bring into contact those who never would or should meet in normal times. In these terrifying times, the girls and women in these stories find themselves dealing with murderers, rapists, libelers, and executioners, but they are not helpless - quite the contrary. Each of them, in her own way, takes her destiny in her hands and overcomes her persecutor. Even if the story ends in the heroine's death, she overcomes the villain.

In the past I noted the existence of several main key paradigms in legends about women in times of persecution (Bar-Itzhak 2001:149-154; 2008:59-65), such that every legend of this sort can be assigned to one and sometimes to several patterns:

1 . The heroine surrenders her innocence, but does so on behalf of her people. Despite her deviant behavior, she is not depicted in a negative light despite her non-normative action. In the folk narratives of Polish Jews, for example, we find Estherke, the beloved of King Casimir the Great. Her character is associated with positive archetypes from ancient Jewish literature, notably the biblical Queen Esther.

2. The heroine fights back and kills her assailant, displaying physical bravery and setting up an association with traditional archetypes such as apocryphal Judith who killed Holofernes.

3. The heroine chooses to die rather than surrender her innocence. Here women employ the age-old weapon of die weak - deception. Sometimes the woman tricks the villain into killing her against his will; sometimes she kills herself after managing to obtain, by deception, what the community deems to be most important of all; and sometimes she prays to God, who takes her soul.

Although the legend about Adii Kikinesh of Drohobycz, which centers on a blood libel, shares several motifs with the paradigms listed above, it also adds a new paradigm:

4. The heroine chooses death in order to save her community and to avoid apostasy, and dies a martyr sanctifying God's name.

An analysis of these legends reveals that it is precisely in those that are set in times of persecution that women are allowed a status denied them in other Jewish legends. These legends establish heroines who transcend their normal gender role. They act in the public sphere, which is normally reserved to men. Even though the stories highlight the terrible peril that lurks for women in the public sphere, they also recount the strength, ability, and resolve displayed by Adii Kikinesh and her Jewish sisters to safeguard what the narrating culture cherishes as most sacred of all.

Although we may assume that these stories were originally told by women, the written texts we have today were set down by men. In other words, these legends about women in times of persecution received a male approval in patriarchal Jewish society. Cultural heroines such as Adii Kikinesh, who transcend the bounds of gender behavior in times of persecution, are not unique to Jewish culture. At such times, when the social order is overturned by a threatening outside agency, the comprehensive code of values and norms is blurred and the society is forced, whether it wants to or not, to establish a new order, one in which it must concede some of the traditional values in order to preserve those that are most important - the values that Judaism places in the category of those for which one should die rather than transgress.

In times of persecution the men cannot play their traditional gender role of guarding and protecting the women, and cultural heroines such as Adii Kikinesh must be created to do so.

Adii Kikinesh and other women who are active in times of persecution are set up as revered heroines who are willing to do everything in their power to protect their community and religion. Their actions are presented as worthy of emulation, which ensures that when catastrophe threatens in the future, too, women will stand vigil over the most sacred values of all.

Footnote

NOTES

1. I use "legend" in the sense that is conventional in the study of the genres of folk literature, namely, to designate a story that is set in a specific geographic space and in historical time and that the narrating society believes to be true (Georges 1971:1-13; Dundes 1971:21-36).

2. At the Passover Seder, it is customary to fill a goblet with wine for Elijah the Prophet and to open the door to admit him. According to Jewish tradition, Elijah will appear to herald the coming of the messiah.

3. The Jewish pronunciation of Lwów (today Lviv).

4. On Golden Rose, see Balaban 1906:178-186. Balaban cites diree version of the legend. See also Bader 1927:119-122; Kahana 1992:79; Finkelstein 1947:229; Sadan 1990:122-143.

Balaban refers to the legend of Adii Kikinesh as part of his detailed consideration of the legend of Golden Rose, who saved her local synagogue from destruction (Balaban 1906). At first he associates die two legends, on die grounds that Rose's cruel deadi may have been influenced by Adil's fate. Ultimately, though, he rejects this possibility and sees it as characteristic of the deaths of heroic figures. One may infer from what he says that Balaban was not aware of the legend of Mirele of Brahilov, whose pattern is identical, both formally and thematically, to that of Golden Rose.

Balaban also cites the strange argument by Lettris (1906:185) diat die heroine was die mistress of King Jan III Sobieski (on Sobieski in Jewish folktales, see Bar-Itzhak 2004). Balaban rejects this idea out of hand, and attributes it to Lettris's having confused it with die legend of Esdierke and Casimir die Great. He is certainly correct in this. None of the versions of die legend even hint at such a relationship, and it is quite absurd to suppose diat die narrating society might imagine diat such a venerated heroine, who dies so horribly, had intimate relations with the king of Poland.

5. For a detailed discussion of tins legend in the context of stories about synagogues, see Bar-Itzhak 2001:133-158.

6. For a discussion of die origins of "Three Gifts," see Abramsky 1948:1277.

7. On die story of Miriam die daughter of Boedius, see Hasan-Rokem 1 996: 1 33-1 34.

8. 1648/49 was the period of die Cossack revolt against the Polish overlords, under die leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki. At first die Cossack routed the Polish armies and overran many cities and towns in the Ukraine, Podolia and Vohlynia. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed during die course of die revolt, whose participants included Cossacks, Tatars and Ukrainians. The number of Jews killed had been estimated by some scholars at half of Polish Jewry. The mourning and despair that descended on die Jews in die wake of these pogroms served as die background of die rise of the Shabbatean movement (die false messiah, Shabbtai Zvi) .

9. The edinographic expedition headed by S. An-Ski and funded by Baron Guenzburg, operated between 1912 and 1914. Its members traveled through small towns in the Ukraine and collected a vast quantity of folklore material. On S. An-Ski as a pioneer of Jewish ethnography and folkloristics, see BarItzhak 2010.

10. For a discussion of this legend, see Bar-Itzhak 2008:59-65. On the heroism of women see also Noy 1960:2-8.

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