Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel BeilisOn Sunday, March 20, 1911, children playing in a cave near Kiev made a gruesome discovery: the blood soaked body of a partially clad boy. After right wing groups asserted that the killing was a ritual murder, the police, with no direct evidence, arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39 year old Jewish manager at a factory near the site of the crime. Beilis's trial in 1913 quickly became an international cause c l bre. The jury ultimately acquitted Beilis