Anti-Zionist activists stage a blood libel display in Washington, DC, on Thursday, according to videos the activists posted on social media.

The blood libel is an age-old antisemitic conspiracy that has caused repeated mass violence against Jews for centuries. It falsely claims that Jews murder non-Jewish children to consume their blood for ritual use.

In the display, actors at a table wore masks of Jeffrey Epstein, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

The actors tore apart and devoured a blood baby and drank mock blood from wine glasses.

The characters wore Israeli flags and an Israeli flag was draped on the table in front of the Epstein character.

Signs on the table said “Satanic elite” and “Zionist World Plan.” A framed image showed Satan, according to the videos.

A menu said, “Israel’s pedophile blackmail dinner” and the appetizer was listed as a “cannibalism special” serving “dismembered baby intestines.”

Another placard on the table accused “satanic ‘Israel’” of “organ theft.”

The display took place on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House.

The videos were shared by the anti-Zionist activists Hazami Barmada and Atefeh Rokhvand, who staged a similar blood libel display in the city in November. Barmada is a Harvard graduate and former UN staffer, according to LinkedIn.

“At the White House, exposing Epstein’s ties to the Zionist establishment,” Barmada said in the video posted on Thursday.

Echoes of the blood libel have previously surfaced among anti-Zionist activists, who often levy unfounded accusations that Israel harvests Palestinian organs.

Late last year, a university researcher in the UK taught a blood libel to students during a lecture.

Anti-Zionists sometimes recycle age-old anti-Jewish tropes, with Israel, Zionists or Zionism taking the historical place of Jews.

The libel is one of the most notorious antisemitic falsehoods and has caused repeated violence to Jews in Europe and elsewhere.

The myth took on a central role in the persecution of Jews in Europe with accusations against the Jewish community in Norwich, England, in 1144.

The false accusation spread through Europe, causing outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in medieval France, Spain, Italy and Germany.

The libel continued into the 20th century, igniting pogroms in Eastern Europe before and after the Holocaust, and becoming a motif in Nazi propaganda.

The blood libel has appeared elsewhere, including in Syria and Iran.

The libel is most often associated with the persecution of Jews in Europe, but it also has a history in the US.

The Puritan clergyman and Harvard University president Increase Mather first introduced the blood libel into the US in the mid-1600s, the historian Pamela S. Nadell wrote in her recent book, “Antisemitism, an American Tradition.”

“The Jews lie under the guilt of blood and murder. Some have laid a most hideous fact to the charge of the Jews, that they have been wont once a year to steal Christian children, and to put them to death by crucifying,” Mather wrote in a 1669 tract.

A blood libel in Damascus in 1840 was a formative moment for the small American Jewish community as it mobilized a response, pushing the US government to help free the Jews who were imprisoned and tortured over the libel, Nadell wrote.

The most significant blood libel in the US took place when 4-year-old Barbara Griffiths disappeared in Massena, in upstate New York, in 1928.

As town members searched for the girl, rumors circulated that the local Jews had kidnapped and murdered her for ritual purposes.

The town’s Jews were interrogated, their shops searched for the body, and a mob blamed the rabbi for sacrificing Griffiths, who was found after being lost in the woods.

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Iran war right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock under difficult conditions to cover this conflict;

Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and

Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 Iran threatens to hit Dimona nuclear site if Israel and US try to topple regime

2 Historic Tel Aviv Bauhaus building damaged by Iran missile explosion

3 IDF planning for at least 1-2 more weeks of Iran ops; over 5,000 bombs dropped

4 Iranian warship was returning from naval exercises hosted by India when hit by US torpedo

5 WATCH: IDF airs video showing world-first F-35 downing of manned plane in Iran

6 US, Israel targeting Iran forces involved in crackdown to enable renewed protests — officials

7 On Iranian TV, cleric calls for ‘shedding’ of blood from Israelis and Trump

8 First repatriation flights land in Israel, outbound travel to start Sunday

antisemitism in the US

© The Times of Israel