Menahem Mendel Beilis

Menahem Mendel Beilis
מנחם מענדל בייליס
Portrait of Beilis
Born1874 (1874)
DiedJuly 7, 1934(1934-07-07) (aged 59–60)
Resting placeMount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, New York
NationalityRussian
Criminal chargeRitual murder

Menahem Mendel Beilis[a] (1874 – July 7, 1934; sometimes spelled Beiliss)[1] was a Russian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in the Russian Empire in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or the "Beilis affair". Although Beilis was eventually acquitted after a lengthy process, the legal process sparked international criticism of antisemitism in the Russian Empire.

Beilis's story was fictionalized in Bernard Malamud's 1966 novel The Fixer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.


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  1. ^ The top of his gravestone says "Martyr: 1862–1934".