Anti-semite or not

[Mr Poster]

Well now....it didnt take long for Bens true colours to surface did it?

Aggression, ranting, barely concealed psychosis....

Which is obviously the reason why, even though he admits there is no reason to think he was Jewish, arrives at the startling conclusion that, while he cannot show he was Jewish, can show that he was trying to utilise some ill-defined general attitude to Jews and used that in his murders.

Bizarre.

Now where is that Ignore button?

p

[Ben]

No evidence has been ignored. As the majority recognise, there is no evidence that our man had anything against Jews or was trying to finger Jews.

Really? According to who? A Norweigan chemist who posts aggressively all the time on internet bulletin boards. I'm sorry Lars, but while you may have an interest in the topic, nobody is ever going to look upon you as the final arbiter as to what consistitutes "evidence". Does it not trouble you a little that Scotland Yard apparently subscribed to the absolute reverse view? With Donald Swanson, who was in overall charge of the Whitechapel murder investigation, believing that the "evidence" pointed towards the killer implicating the Jews? Or Charles Warren, the police official at the very top of the hierarchical ladder, endorsing the same view? Same with Sir Henry Smith of the City Police etc?

Maybe it doesn't.

But then the fact that pretty much every expect under the sun, crime scene evidence, and established historical precedent pointed towards the likelihood of a local or locally-based offender didn't deter you from trying to claim they're all wrong either.

Disagree with them if you want, but it's a little cocky and undeservedly over-confident to start decrying "no evidence" when the comtemporary police clearly thought otherwise, especially if your sole intention behind debating here is an unsuccessful attempt to bring me down a peg or two. And as for my "deferall" to Sugden, what? Is he in your bad books now that you've find him supporting a view shared by contemporary police officials?

Here's what he said, for what it's worth:

"...Martin Friedland's suggestion that the murders were carefully contrived to throw as much suspicion as possible on the Jewish community deserves better than it has received by modern commentators. The murder of Elizabeth Stride next to the International Working Men's Education Club, the apparent hailing of an accomplice by the name "Lipski", the murder of Kate Eddowes close to another club (The Imperial) frequented by Jews, and the message "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" chalked in the entry of a house of Jewish tenements - these signify little by themselves but, taken together, begin to a make a persuasive case"

So once again, no, I am not suggesting for a moment that Jack the Ripper was Jewish; only that he took advantage of a convenient scapegoat on occasions wherever convenient, a view endorsed by the contemporary police and one of the most respected modern commentators.

1. all the victims lying outside synagogues?
2. all the victims lying outside Jewish clubs?
3. perhaps a Jewish type cloth/garment/knife thrown at the scene?
4. a specific, attributable-to-Jack graffiti at a scene?
5. such graffiti at all the scenes?
6. and so on.

This is a genius argument.

You're basically arguing that unless he implicated the Jews all the time, at every opportunity, in the most incredibly blatant and unsubtle manner imaginable, he wasn't implicating the Jews at all at any point. That's such a terrible argument, Lars. I think Caz had it spot on: "it has to be at least possible that Jack would have been happy to nudge the tiller in that direction if it occurred to him to do so and he had the means. There are many stages between pure accident and design by sledgehammer. And more than one commentator at the time actually saw the message coupled with the apron piece as a rather unsubtle exercise in shifting the blame back onto the Jews"

[cappuccina]

I don't think JtR was anti-Semetic, as I think...

...that he was a local Jewish man...

[Mr Poster]

hi Pilgrim

What would amount to evidence ?

1. all the victims lying outside synagogues?

2. all the victims lying outside Jewish clubs?

3. perhaps a Jewish type cloth/garment/knife thrown at the scene?

4. a specific, attributable-to-Jack graffiti at a scene?

5. such graffiti at all the scenes?

6. and so on.

God bless jack...for a man who wanted to blame Jews, he certainly was very subtle. So subtle in fact he failed.

Without actually knowing who the murderer was, the immediate facts linked to the crime scene can only serve as mere indications.

True Pilgrim...true. of course perhaps you can explain then why these mere indications have transmogrified themsleves into:

All except the evidence you've ignored, Lars.

or perhaps you will just post a fairly cryptic picture and some complex quoting in nice colours and hope that will serve as a reasonable contribution and if not, pass as some kind of puzzle that if we do not get ......its because we are thick?

Why would a (hypothetically) anti-semitic murderer kill a Gentile woman in the possibly most anti-semitic street in the East End ?

No idea. Lucky for me I amnt touting the notion.

As to th erest of you rpost..................isnt it odd that given that th epolice apparently liked the idea of a Jewish killer....our man, who apparently was trying to finger the jews and for which fingering "evidence" apparently exists..................was doing nothing at all to help his plan.

Nothing. Not so much as a Yiddish fart to further his dastardly plan.

Bizarre isnt it? he must have been trying to blame Jews because Jews were being blamed even though we have no evidence he was trying to blame Jews..

Unbeleivable. Only round here could such tosh make its appearance.

Its like: he must have been local because he knew his way round and we know he knew his way round because he was local.

Escher logic. At first it seems to make sense....but closer inspection reveals it to be nothing but trickery.

Designed for amusement. But unfortunately some round here are convinced that stairs can be never ending and geese go from black to white.

+p

[Pilgrim]

Evidence & Hypotheses.

What would amount to evidence ? Without actually knowing who the murderer was, the immediate facts linked to the crime scene can only serve as mere indications. Indications can however serve to build hypotheses, which may or may not be strenghtened, weakened or negated by any supporting evidence that might possibly exist, at the crime scene, immediate, extended, and beyond it. Clearly, the explanatory value of any fact linked to the crime scene can only be confirmed retroactively; by actually knowing who the murderer was.

~~~

Why would a (hypothetically) anti-semitic murderer kill a Gentile woman in the possibly most anti-semitic street in the East End ? There surely can seem to be some indications that the conclusion already had been made, that the murderer was "foreign-looking" and a "low-class Polish Jew" ?

~~~

Pall Mall Gazette, 24 March 1903

"All agree, too, that he was a foreign-looking man,--but that, of course, helped us little in a district so full of foreigners as Whitechapel. One discrepancy only have I noted, and this is that the people who alleged that they saw Jack the Ripper at one time or another, state that he was a man about thirty- five or forty years of age. They, however, state that they only saw his back, and it is easy to misjudge age from a back view."

~~~

"In Anderson's memoirs he makes the following statement with regard to his supect:

During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him. Investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were certain low-class Polish Jews; for it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice.

This passage has led some modern theorists to argue that the house to house search must have yielded evidence as to the identity of the killer. Anderson was wrong on one point here, for the search was conducted after his return from the continent in early October 1888., and not during his absence abroad. We know from the comments of senior officers such as Swanson and Monro, and arguably Anderson himself in 1889, that the police had no clue as to the identity of the murderer." Evans & Rumbelow, "Scotland Yard Investigates", p.254)

Throughout October the police continued to focus their attention on young Jewish or "foreign-looking" males with dark complexions, black hair and beards, and dark clothing. No doubt thousands of men in the East End answered this generic description. Although some suspects did deviate from the Jewish stereotype in so far as they possessed sandy moustaches or fair complexions, the Goulston Street inscription kept the hot coals of anti-semitism glowing. (...) Far from being an exclusively working-class problem, anti-Semitism thrived within the political and social elite. Robert Andersson, the new Assistant Commisioner of Police, who took charge of the Ripper investigation on October 6, believed not only that the killer was a "low-class Polish Jew," but also that the Jews would never "give up one of their number to Gentile Justice." (L. Perry Curtis, Jack The Ripper and The London Press, p.170-71.)

1882. Tiszaeszlár blood libel.

~~~

[Varqm]

I think if the ripper was an anonymous guy who would not or think he would not be questioned by the police anytime soon that he would have no reason but to go home after the murders. I kinda do not see the point. Unless he lived in the district or an acquaintance.

[Carrotty Nell]

I would like to add my voice to that of Mr P.

I can believe the following hypothesis: that Jack was not an anti-Semite per se, but that following the attempt to blame the murders on the Jews post Chapman he decided to take advantage of the situation on the next night he went a-slaying.

But what then happened on 8 November? Why did he not keep this up? On 8-9 November he killed a woman with no known Jewish connection in a street which far from having any Jewish connections is supposed to have been the most anti-Semitic street in the East End.

I'm sorry but it makes no sense to me.

[Mr Poster]

hi ho

All except the evidence you've ignored, Lars.

No evidence has been ignored. As the majority recognise, there is no evidence that our man had anything against Jews or was trying to finger Jews.

Public Service Announcement: Could readers please not that we have now slipped into the usual "evidence exists" mode of operation where we are assured evidence exists for something, its never put forward, and the only argument for its existence is couched in laboured tortured contortions designed to wear people out so they wont persist and th emyth can continue.

I repeat: there is no evidence our man was anti-semitic or trying to finger Jews.

It's also completely hypocritical for you, Lars, to start bemoaning anything that militates against the "simplest" explanation, when you've just finished criticising others for jumping on the "simplicity" bandwagon by subscribing to the local-man theory.

As all the victims were female prostitutes and there is no evidence that they were Jewish, were killed in ways Jews might be expected to kill people, were killed anywhere near significant Jewish facilities or locations, were left in places or poses indicative of Jewishness etc etc ....the simplest solution is that Jewishness had nothing to do with it.

Ben tries to divert the debate away from there being no evidence to point out that I may be hypocritical.

What he is of course referring to is the local man debat where he knows full well that I am not on the "simplicity" bandwagon.

I am on th ebandwagon that says that th elocal man theory has only been propogated by people wishing to distance themselves as much as possible from "toff" theories to quickly invest themselves with a shred of credibility.

Neither the local man concept nor the Jew framing one have any evidence.

Bens position on both is not established on the existence of evidence, never has been and never will be and solely exists as one more thread is his over arching theory of everything that is well described elsewhere at length.

Just so people are clear as to what is going on.

As to his rather pathetic deferral to Sugden.....need I remind folk that his suddenly discovered touchstone also favoured Chapman and dismissed GH.

STrangely selective of Ben there. But then again....I feel he may be under the weather somewhat and will cut him some slack as its been long and many the day since someone typed "Growl" (his emphasis) at me in what I can only assume was some kind of John Inman-esque "hows yer *****" type event.


p

[Ben]

Loads of posts later an still.....not one shred of evidence that our man had any notion of trying to make Jews look like killers.

All except the evidence you've ignored, Lars.

And I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the argument that the Imperial Club isn't close to Mitre Square makes about as much sense as arguing that Duke Street isn't close to Mitre Square. It was - simple as, unless we wish to argue that a 20-second walk of a few yards wasn't "close" (which means imposing some pretty funky and arbitary limitations on what constitutes "close"), or that it was somehow feasible to kill right in front of the Imperial Club. Dutfiield's Yard was bad enough. It's also completely hypocritical for you, Lars, to start bemoaning anything that militates against the "simplest" explanation, when you've just finished criticising others for jumping on the "simplicity" bandwagon by subscribing to the local-man theory.

I'm not suggeting it was his ulitmate number one prioity; merely that he sought, on occasions, to take advantage of a generic scapegoat when it would have expended precious little effort to do so. There's really nothing complicated about it, and Philip Sugden didn't think so either. There's endorsing simplicity, and there's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

...or Nichols, for that matter.

That's because the Leather Apron brouhaha had only kicked in after the Nichols murder, Gareth.

[FrankO]

(as opposed to just being killed in a dark corner).

Or: as opposed to being killed close to the 'Prostitutes Church'.

Cheers,
Frank

[Sam Flynn]

it should be mighty craic wacthing ye try and do it for Chapman and kelly...

...or Nichols, for that matter. Personally speaking, I can only see a Jewish connection with the murder site of Liz Stride - and there's a reasonable argument in favour of even that being circumstantial, given the large number of Jews living in the area in which her body was found.

[Mr Poster]

hmmmm

Loads of posts later an still.....not one shred of evidence that our man had any notion of trying to make Jews look like killers.

One victim possibly was killed near an orphanage/synagogue or maybe a club or something (as opposed to just being killed in a dark corner).

The masonic conspiracy is about as valid and possibly more likely.

Now i think I'll just watch the goalposts shift by the hour and watch as the thing gets more complex and all the while the only logical and the simmplest conclusion gets lost in the dust.

Dont forget folks......still no evidence to suggest that there was any Jewish connection of any kind at all for all the victims. And given tht you are struggling to find one for one victim....it should be mighty craic wacthing ye try and do it for Chapman and kelly.

Oh yes....

p

[Monty]

It was a Jewish Library, which actually overlooked St James Place really.

As Gareth states, we can find connections anywhere, Kearley and Tonge in Bucks Row and Mitre Square eh AP?

Monty

[Sam Flynn]

Sam
wasn't there a Jewish orphanage or children's home, or even something similar, that had a view over Mitre Square, and access through there?

I daresay, AP. Mitre Square/Aldgate bordered on one of the more densely-packed Jewish enclaves of London. It would have been difficult not to have found some tenuous Jewish link with a body deposited there.

So, it's clubs, synagogues or orphanages now... Oy gevalt! Shlomo Minsky (whom I've just made up), who had an umbrella stand in St Martin's Lane had better watch out.

[Sam Flynn]

If my memory serves me well, wasn`t it the Great Synagogue that formed one side of Chuch Passage ?

There or thereabouts, Jon.

So - and this is mainly for Ben - if it's not clubs, it's synagogues. Ever feel you're in a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario