The kindness of strangers

Examines the evidence that abandonment of children and the rearing of foundlings by strangers were widespread in pre-modern Europe. On pp. 352-356 states that blood libels may be linked to the large number of Christian children found missing or dead as a result of abandonment during the medieval period. The Jews could easily have been blamed for cases of infanticide. Christians may even have fabricated such accusations in order to blackmail the Jews. Jews who raised abandoned Christian children could be accused of stealing and killing them if they died, but possibly the accusations were pure antisemitic fantasy. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)