Ritual Murder and the Corruption of Law in Bernard Malamud’s the Fixer

Abstract

Bernard Malamud's novel The Fixer (1966), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, focuses on the abuse of the legal system in Russia during the reign of Nicholas II. Malamud's poignant novel, involving Yakov Bok-a Jew falsely accused of murder, is about the role of antisemitism in the corruption of the judicial system. The work is based on a historical case, that of Mendel Beiliss, a Jew falsely accused of ritual murder in 1913 in Kiev. Ritual murder is a false charge concocted by antisemites that has been employed since 1144 as an excuse to kill or imprison Jews. A ritual murder would involve the murder of a Christian by a Jew for sacrificial and religious purposes-draining the blood of the victim to bake Passover matzos. Although the blood accusation has no basis in reality, Jews have been punished severely for the alleged crime for a long time, and people believe the lies simply because of anti-semitism and ignorance. As Malamud demonstrates in the novel, the false accusations derive partly from political purposes. Nicholas II and the Black Hundreds hope to make a scapegoat out of Bok to maintain their political authority, claiming that they must remain in power in order to suppress the supposed threat to the masses that the Jews pose. Malamud concentrates much of the novel in a Russian prison, manifesting how Bok, through the suffering and enduring of his ordeal, attains a moral growth.