Religious Antisemitism: Host desecration libel
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Host desecration was a medieval accusation that Jews were desecrating the Christian Communion ‘host’ (consecrated bread believed to be the body of Christ), or other sacred objects. Like blood libel, it led to many Jews being killed.
The image below depicts medieval Jews spearing and desecrating the consecrated host. This is nowadays not a common form of antisemitism and is certainly rare in the United Kingdom, but in parts of mainland Europe, it lives on. In 2008 a member of the far-right Jobbik party in Hungary claimed that host desecration was still happening (see example below) and in 2005 a pilgrimage based on host desecration accusations was restarted in Bavaria, but its origins were kept quiet. There is more information in this article https://www.publicmedievalist.com/deggendorf.
The example below is about Csanád Szegedi, formerly of the Hungarian right-wing party Jobbik. The objects mentioned are national symbols as well as, in the case of the Holy Right Hand, a religious relic. The article is of interest since Szegedi explicitly describes scapegoating Jews for populist political purposes. After discovering his own Jewish ancestry, he regretted his previous actions.
https://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/A-whole-new-Jew-478706
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