Film prompts cathedral to remove ‘blood libel’ leaflet.
A church has deleted a booklet describing an antisemitic mediaeval story, in response to a new film.
Norwich Cathedral took action after participating in the short documentary The Innocents, which was created for the UK Jewish Film Festival 2025.
The pamphlet featured the Norwich blood libel, a false accusation made in the 12th century claiming Jews ritually murdered a local lad named William, a narrative that spread over the world.
In the film, the Norwich Jewish community raised concern about the pamphlet being placed in the cathedral’s Holy Innocents chapel, which is named after the biblical narrative of King Herod’s killing of newborns.
Dr. Marian Prinsley, president of Norwich Hebrew Congregation, stated that the removal of the pamphlet was symbolic for all Jewish people in the country and beyond. You can’t have the stories of King Herod and William of Norwich combined, and Jews blamed for baby deaths.”
IMAGE SOURCE, SHAUN WHITMORE/BBC
Dr. Prinsley stated in the video that presenting the two stories together was “an issue that has been festering within the Jewish community”.
“Saint William was the boy that was supposed to have been killed in Norwich and there’s certainly no evidence that the Jews killed him,” she told me.
She believed the falsehood was made up to attract pilgrims to the cathedral and help it generate funds, but the repercussions were far-reaching for Jewish people.
IMAGE SOURCE, SHAUN WHITMORE/BBC
The Dean of Norwich Cathedral, the Very Revd Dr Andrew Braddock, emphasised the need of being open about the cathedral’s past.
This is one of the locations where the blood libel story begins to be spread and shared, resulting in awful, terrible damage and suffering.”
He went on to say that the Norwich blood libel “has played a tragic part in the long and dark history of antisemitism”.
IMAGE SOURCE, SHAUN WHITMORE/BBC
The Jewish Small Communities Network commissioned director Jonathan Weinberg to create a short documentary.
He stated that the manner the event was told in the chapel did not necessarily cause people to believe the blood libel myth. But as Weinberg stated, “the way that it was presented was definitely, I think, still a bit offensive to the Jewish community” .
“The making of the film, it gave the Jewish community the confidence to speak to the cathedral community about how they felt and about how they would like to see this presented in different way, in a more honest way,” he told me. Dr. Braddock informs Dr.
Prinsley that the leaflet has been removed from the cathedral after acknowledging that “we need to do this better” in the final moments.
Representatives from the Norwich synagogue and the cathedral will meet next month to begin the process of determining how best to share William’s tale in a more “meaningful” way.
The Innocents will be presented in theatres as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival 2025.
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