The International Working Mens Club and the GSG.

[KatBradshaw]

Hello all!
I was watching a doc I have on DVD again and a thought came to me. Stride was killed near a Jewish social club and then on the same night a message believed by some to have been written by the killer makes a reference to Jews. It struck me that this may be more than a coincidence. I just wondered what other peoples thoughts might be. Appologies if this is an idea that has already banded about.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Kat,

It's hardly surprising, given that the percentage of Jews living in the area concerned was so high.

In today's terms the set up would translate to someone being stabbed outside a Bangladeshi curry-house in Brick Lane, the victim's wallet being found later in the lobby of an East End tenement building, of primarily Asian occupancy, with "Pakis go home" spray-painted on the elevator door.

[KatBradshaw]

Thats true.

[Ben]

Hi Kat,

I was watching a doc I have on DVD again and a thought came to me. Stride was killed near a Jewish social club and then on the same night a message believed by some to have been written by the killer makes a reference to Jews. It struck me that this may be more than a coincidence.

Yes, I believe it's more than a coincidence too. Consider that the Mitre Square murder was also committed in close proximity to another Jewish club, and it wasn't as if clubs proliferated the locality. It needn't point towards an anti-semitic killer per se, just one who saw the easy advantage in "scapegoating" the generic scapegoat, an opinion endorsed by several contemporary police officials. In fact, I'd be amazed if the killer bypassed this opportunity.

Best regards,
Ben

[The Good Michael]

Aha! So if there is a connection, and if Sam's scenario of the Bangladeshi curry house is a parallel, the only thing missing is a Jewish victim. This is even more reason to suggest that the message was a pro-Jewish one. Wouldn't a 'Jews go home' message coupled with a murder, necessitate a Jewish victim, as the emphasis for the warning, rather than a Gentile?

Cheers,

Mike

[KatBradshaw]

I was thinking a long the same lines as you with the scapegoat idea. I also thought that maybe the Ripper was frustrated at being disturbed by someone he could assume was Jewish. I am not even sure that I think that the GSG is anything to do with the killings but assuming that it is for the puropse of the theory.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Ben,

Consider that the Mitre Square murder was also committed in close proximity to another Jewish club

A small, obscure Jewish businessmen's club, located on the first floor of a building over a cricket-pitch's distance away from "Ripper's Corner" does not equate to "close proximity". Furthermore, the "Brick Lane Curry House" argument applies as much in this case as it does to the GSG. It was an area with a significantly high population of Jews that it would have been difficult to avoid doing anything without being within walking-distance of a Jewish premises.

We've been through this before, and unless we've forked into separate histories in parallel universes since then, the geography and demographics of Jack's East End has not changed one iota in the interim.

[KatBradshaw]

Thanks for your info Sam. I have to admit I was not aware of the demographic of the area.

[Ben]

Hi Gareth,

A small, obscure Jewish businessmen's club, located on the first floor of a building over a cricket-pitch's distance away from "Ripper's Corner" does not equate to "close proximity".

It wasn't a cricket-pitch distance away. It was the nearest viable and secluded spot to the club - that's "close proximity" in my book. I'm not saying the club's proximity was the prime consideration, but it's not as if I'm the first to make the observation that Jewish scapegoating on the killer's part may have played a part in these murders. especially in relation to the clubs on the night of the double event.

It was an area with a significantly high population of Jews that it would have been difficult to avoid doing anything without being within walking-distance of a Jewish premises.

Yes, but clubs were the only establishemts to have Jews active at the time the murders were committed, and thus made for more suitable venues in terms of any Jew-implicating antics the killer may have wished to engage in.

Don't think we'll see eye to eye on this one, m'afraid.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Don't think we'll see eye to eye on this one, m'afraid

But, Ben - it can't be a matter of opinion that Berner Street, Goulston Street and the Whitechapel/City boundary area had a large percentage of Jewish premises and residents, so why pretend otherwise?

t wasn't a cricket-pitch distance away. It was the nearest viable and secluded spot to the club - that's "close proximity" in my book.

...and you can forget that for a start.

Please get real, old mate.

[Ben]

But, Ben - it can't be a matter of opinion that Berner Street, Goulston Street and the Whitechapel/City boundary area had a large percentage of Jewish premises and residents

Absolutely, with Goulston Street being a particularly concentrated and well-known Jewish hotspot. If you wanted to find Jewish people awake and active at that time of the night of the double event for whatever reason, their clubs were the places you were most likely to find them, and those clubs happened to be situated close to where the double event murders were committed. That's all I'm saying. If the killer had any interest in those clubs, he was probably helping to keep a false wheel in motion; the widespread suspicion that a Jew may be the murderer.

Best regards,
Ben

[The Grave Maurice]

I don't see why we're getting all testy here. Ben made the perfectly reasonable observation, in reply to Kat's query, that it seems odd that two of the murders occurred in very close proximity to Jewish clubs. As he says, he is not the first to make this connection. Well it is odd, isn't it? Does it have any significance? Dunno.

[Ben]

Thanks, GM, and I fully agree - "odd" it cetainly is, if nothing else.

[DVV]

It's odd, and it deepens the semantics of the "double-event", though, just like the Grave Maurice, I don't know if it is really significant.

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Maurice,

I don't see why we're getting all testy here.

Because I believe that there's a danger of (unnecessarily) over-egging the case for an anti-semitic, indigenous Ripper. Like Ben, I believe that the Ripper was quite probably an indigenous local, but I find it unnecessary that every single facet of the case should be used to support that argument, especially when, in so doing, objective truths are stretched or overlooked.

Ben made the perfectly reasonable observation, in reply to Kat's query, that it seems odd that two of the murders occurred in very close proximity to Jewish clubs. As he says, he is not the first to make this connection. Well it is odd, isn't it?

It would only be odd if it were actually true that the Imperial Club was in "close proximity" to the spot where Eddowes' body was formed. The simple fact of the matter is that the Imperial Club was not in "close proximity" to the corpse. One had to walk to the top end of Mitre Square, traverse Church Passage, and walk several more yards up Duke Street before one got to the club entrance, and then climb the stairs.

I lost my original drawing and map overlay in the "Great Casebook Crash", but here's a reconstruction from memory - murder site as a red "X", location of Imperial Club (as I recall) at the green rectangle:



I make that a distance of roughly 100 yards which, with respect, is not "close proximity" by any reasonable definition of the term.

Stride's being killed within the gates of a well-known and popular Jewish radical club is one thing, Eddowes being found a hundred metres from a discreet and short-lived gentlemen's social club is quite another. The comparison does not stand up to scrutiny - anymore than does the notion of a Ripper who puts off killing his victim until he knows there's a building with a menorah in the window within sprinting-range.