Sarah Scharf, who was jailed together with her husband Joseph in 1883 during the Tisza Eszlar ritual murder charge, has just died here.
Frau Scharf and her husband were among 15 Jews against whom formal accusations were brought that year in connection with the disappearance and death a year earlier, of a 14-year-old Christian peasant girl, Esther Solymosi, in the little Hungarian town of Tisza-Eszlar. The blood-accusation against the Scharfs and the others came after Moritz, 14-year-old son of the Scharfs, removed from his parents and intimidated by cruelty and threats, “confessed” that his parents together with two shochtim and other Jews of the town had connived to murder the Christian girl on the eve of Passover for ritual murder purposes.
The girl’s body was later found in a river and it was proven that no ritual murder had been committed, as a result of which all the accused Jews were freed. The Tisza Eszlar case stirred all Europe at the time, and among those who came to the defence of the Jews and condemned this outburst of mediaeval fanaticism in Hungary was Louis Kossuth, famous Hungarian patriot who was then living in exile, and Karl Eötvös, Christian journalist and member of the House of Deputies.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
