202 • chapter 5
Jewish communities of aleppo (1810), Beirut (1824), antioch (1826),
hama (1829), tripoli (1834), and Jerusalem (1838). Nor was Damas-
cus the last such incident. the blood libel was repeated multiple times
throughout the Middle east, extending into the twentieth century.^65
Declaring— in arabic, and in a work explicitly directed at a non- Jewish
audience— that “human sacrifices” were proscribed by Jewish law in
the context of a biblical tale, Moyal subtly countered ritual murder
accusations against fellow Jews living in arab lands.
the fact that this implied defense against blood libel accusations ap-
pears in a Jewish writer’s arabic commentary on the talmud alludes to
another, related phenomenon in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century Middle eastern history. In this period, arabic polemics against
Judaism and the Jews began to conscript the talmud as weapon, serv-
ing as evidence of the Jews’ iniquity. this appears to have occurred
through the translation of european antitalmudic texts and myths
into arabic, usually by Christian arabs. among the earliest was habib
Faris’s Ṣurākh al- barīʾ fī būq al- ḥuriyya (the call of the innocent with
the trumpet of Freedom).^66 Faris’s book, published in Cairo in 1890,
accuses the Jews of ritual human sacrifice (adh- dhabāʾiḥ al- bashariyya)
and points to a number of european as well as recent Middle eastern
cases of Jews’ alleged horrific acts. Faris, following european sources,
ascribes this phenomenon directly to talmudic teaching. Similarly, in
1899 Yusuf Nasrallah published an arabic translation of a French ver-
sion of august rohling’s 1871 German work Der Talmudjude. In Nasral-
lah’s al- Kanz al- marṣūd fī qawāʿid at- talmūd (the awaited treasure con-
cerning the Laws of the talmud),^67 which also includes a translation of
achille Laurent’s 1846 anti- Jewish work on the Damascus affair,^68 the
author claims that the Jews engage in ritual murder according to the
demands of “the laws of the talmud.” Moyal’s attempt to assert that
human sacrifices are prohibited by Jewish law in his own arabic work
specifically focused on the talmud must then be understood in this
new polemical context.
In fact, the immediate impetus for Moyal’s writing at- Talmūd came
from a Christian arab intellectual. Curiously, however, and highlighting
(^65) See Landau, “ʿalilot dam u- redifot yehudim be- miẓrayim be- meʾah ha- teshaʿ ʿesreh.”
(^66) an edited version of this work appeared as Fāris, adh- Dhabāʾiḥ al- bashariyya
at- talmūdiyya.
(^67) Landau appears to misidentify this book as “an apologia on the laws of the tal-
mud.” Landau, ha- Yehudim be- miẓrayim ba- meʾah ha- teshaʿ- ʿesreh, 111; Landau, Jews in
Nineteenth- Century Egypt, 101. It is possible that Landau did not actually see the book but
rather relied on a mention of it in al- Hilāl.
(^68) Laurent, Relation historique des affaires de Syrie depuis 1840 jusqu’en 1842. Nasrallah
identifies the author as Shārl Lūrān.