r God, which was
absurd, as they never had a God--nothing but images. Besides, what
they accused us of had happened so long ago; the Gentiles themselves
said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have
had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and
wore them on their necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these
false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us,
insisting that we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to
torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the
cross.

Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of
murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that
was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew
everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very
little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in
the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were
used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special
vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack
the new dishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were
put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the
house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress,
I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions,
about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things,
and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know
all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked
of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house
knew how Passover was kept.

The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just
happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that
Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was
true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian
cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families
lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always
changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the
Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that
lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would
get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill
the Jews