(CNN) Earlier this week, a Russian Orthodox cleric investigating the 1918 assassination of Czar Nicholas II and his family raised the possibility that it was a "ritual murder." To many observers, that statement might sound strange, but more or less inoffensive. To Jews, however, it raised the haunting specter of "blood libel," a pernicious and long-lasting lie about Jews murdering Christian children and using their blood in religious rituals. "The ritual murder charge, coming from a Russian Orthodox priest, gives undeserved credence to a core anti-Semitism myth long propagated by fringe elements in Russian society," said David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, "and, more generally, fits into the incendiary conspiracy theories connecting Jews to every calamity known to humankind."Author takes on one of the common myths of "blood libel"She says people in power spread such lies, not angry mobs
Used for hundreds of years as a pretext to torture, imprison and kill _, the "blood libel" myth may be the worst religious lie in circulation, but it is far from the only one.