Anti-semite or not

[Mr Poster]

There ye go.

Was JtR anti-semitic and was there an anti-Jew slant in his killings.

p

[kensei]

I suppose it depends on one's interpretation of the Goulston Street graffito (if indeed it was written by the Ripper, which I believe it was). It was worded so peculiarly that it's impossible to tell exactly what it meant. If it was worded properly it could be suggesting that the "Juwes" are guilty of something, but if it was actually gramatically incorrect it could be looked at as a Jew denying guilt, as when someone says "I didn't do nothing!" But might I suggest that if he had a hatred for Jews then at least some of his victims should have been Jewish? What the Ripper definitely had a hatred of was women, or at least fallen ones.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi MrP,

Since not one of his victims was Jewish, and only one was murdered in a particularly Jewish residential area (she didn't even live there), the Ripper must have been the most subtle anti-Semite ever to have drawn breath. To run the clock forward to the late 20th Century, he operated as it were an IRA member deliberately targeting Catholics to make his point. Seen in light of this parallel, the notion that the Ripper's crimes were motivated by his (theoretical) antisemitism seems completely absurd.

[Monty]

All,

Why is the Goulston Street writing deemed anti semitic?

Its quite versitile in its interpretation.

Monty

[Mr Poster]

Hi ho SamF

I totally agree.

If he didnt like Jews it was a bloody funny way of going about expressing his dislike of them.

BUt I only set up this thread to try and deflect the deviations and wandering that were occurring on the up-to-recently quite focussed Local man thread.

As to the Goulston St graffiti and the presence of clubs and the like.......its a bit of a pity that the Stride club accepted all and sundry and that the Mitre Square club happened to also be beside a handy dark whore killing spot.

And if someone thinks that dropping the rag beside the graffiti is some kind of anti-semitic indication......well I do not knwo what to say.

p

[caz]

I suppose it depends on one's interpretation of the Goulston Street graffito (if indeed it was written by the Ripper, which I believe it was). It was worded so peculiarly that it's impossible to tell exactly what it meant. If it was worded properly it could be suggesting that the "Juwes" are guilty of something, but if it was actually gramatically incorrect it could be looked at as a Jew denying guilt, as when someone says "I didn't do nothing!" But might I suggest that if he had a hatred for Jews then at least some of his victims should have been Jewish? What the Ripper definitely had a hatred of was women, or at least fallen ones.

Hi Kensei, Mr P, Sam, Monty, All,

I can't really see a Jew defacing a building housing Jews with some ambiguously worded, but neat and legible complaint. It would be akin to an asylum seeker today writing 'No! I ain't going back home or nowhere else' on the wall of a hostel housing fellow asylum seekers.

Without knowing who Jack was I don't see how we can possibly argue the toss and say whether he was a Jew, hated Jews like poison or just didn't care for them too much, or never gave the matter a moment's thought. The evidence can be looked at in different ways, because certain areas associated with the murders were predominantly Jewish, while others were not.

I don't get the argument that if Jack was anti-Semitic we'd expect to see Jews among his victims, or an out-and-out campaign against Jews and only Jews. Maybe he didn't like homosexuals either. Can't a man like him take against all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons while only selecting one type to attack - eg a type unlikely to give him too much trouble? Jack presumably hated six foot coppers built like brick outhouses and carrying enormous truncheons, but we don't expect him to have tackled and murdered any. If Jewish prostitutes were outnumbered by Gentile ones, it could have been a simple matter of Jack not encountering any potential Jewish victims during his brief period of killing.

And again, why does Jack 'definitely' have to have a hatred of fallen women, specifically? He could just as easily have been ambivalent towards them, as Dr Harold Shipman appears to have been about the elderly patients of both sexes in his care, who were almost certainly selected, not because he had a pathological hatred of old people, but because their deaths were least likely to look like murder and put him straight in the frame. Likewise with Jack, fallen women of the Dorset Street variety arguably gave him the best chance of murdering and mutilating and remaining free to repeat the process.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mr Poster]

Hi ho Caz

If someone didnt like Jews and wanted to make people think that Jews were killing women, having decided that this subtle social engineering was better than just killing them, then I reckon his attempt to label the Jews would have been a bit more than some vague graffiti and a shitty apron.

Given the notions as to what Jews were like at that time, I would have expected the killings to be fairly exotic and to reflect the misconceptions as to the contents of the Talmud for example......

I do not think he had anything against fallen women. They were just handy targets.

Plus....I am not discussing his Jewishness or not. I have no idea what he was.

[Mike Covell]

Hi Kensei, Mr P, Sam, Monty, All,

I can't really see a Jew defacing a building housing Jews with some ambiguously worded, but neat and legible complaint. It would be akin to an asylum seeker today writing 'No! I ain't going back home or nowhere else' on the wall of a hostel housing fellow asylum seekers.

Hi Caz, is that not similar to what Banksy is creating all over the UK?

British Bobbies kissing, British artworks with stencilied helicopters and traffic cones?

Just a thought.

(I like Banksy's work )

[Pilgrim]

Yevno Azef & Bologna massacre.

I guess it might be fair to say that hardly anyone would argue that antisemitism would have been a primary motivation for these murders. But if one really were, as suggested in one of the above posts, somehow to compare these murders to political acts of terror, then it would perhaps make better sense, in view of the subject of this thread, to mention a couple of cases were the purpose was indeed to scapegoat another party.

~~~

Yevno Azef

Yevno Azef (1869-1918), was a Russian socialist revolutionary who was also a double agent working both as an organizer of assassinations for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (also known as SRs or Esers) and a police spy for the Okhranka, the Imperial secret police. He was an agent provocateur, carrying out acts of terrorism, which justified the police's arresting his accomplices. By 1908, Azef was playing a double role of a revolutionary assassin and police spy who received 1000 rubles a month from the police. Sympathizers in the ranks of the police leaked information to the party that refused to believe it by taking it as malicious propaganda.

~~~

Bologna massacre, August 2nd 1980.

The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing at the Central Station of Bologna, Italy on the morning of August 2, 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200. The main culprits came from the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, while two—and one former—members of the Italian military intelligence agency (SISMI) and Licio Gelli were charged with investigative diversion.

TIME. Monday, Jul. 28, 1975. Red Rule in Fiat City.

The most famous example of competent Communist government is Bologna (pop. 500,000), which has been party-run for 30 years. Under Mayor Renato Zangheri, 50, a onetime economics professor who last month was overwhelmingly elected to a second term, Bologna has almost become a model city. The town's historic center has been preserved by renovating housing with public funds and subsidizing rents to persuade people to live there. Draconian traffic controls ban automobiles from large sectors of the inner city; free rush-hour transit service further persuades people to leave automobiles at home. To aid working mothers, Bologna has built 300 nursery schools, which are maintained with municipal funds. "That Zangheri," says Novelli admiringly, "is a golden monster when it comes to administration."

~~~

[Ben]

Hi all,

Interesting thread (thanks, Lars), but I feel a minor clarification may be in order here. There is a huge difference between taking full and easy advantage of anti-semitic under-current in the East End and being anti-semitic onesself. Do I believe the killer was rabidly anti-semitic? I have no idea. He may not have given two poos either way. Do I believe he took subtle advantage of an already existing generic scapegoat in the form of the Jewish population? Yes, I think a compelling argument can be made in that regard.

All the best,
Ben

[Mr Poster]

Hi ho Ben

There is a huge difference between taking full and easy advantage of anti-semitic under-current in the East End and being anti-semitic onesself.

There is. But there is no evidence he was taking advantage of anything.

There are three tenuous links.

1. between a tenuous victim and a club that catered for everyone

2. between a victim a Jewish club/whatever beside a prime whore killing spot

3. between a shitty apron fragment and a vague graffiti

And to accept the link in #3 one must assume:

1. that he stopped to read and study the graffiti

2. that he understood the relevance

3. that he detemined that his rag would be found (as opposed to something that had a better chance of not being missed like a knife or ooooh......some innards?)

4. that he figured out the mesage (ie. his trying to pin it on the Jews) would not being missed. As opposed to doing something less subtle like scrawling a star of David on the wall using the guts as a brush.

Its hardly a strong case.....now is it?

Unless you want to argue that the prevailing animosity against Jews was such that he couldnt fail to use it as a smoke screen?

of course the anti-Jew feeling was hardly less than anti-Irish, anti-Police, etc.

In fact...given the anti-police feeling and the better links between the rippper crimes and the ploice than with Jews....I think the Ripper was trying to make it look like the police done it.

p

[caz]

Hi Mr P,

Jack's victims (whichever ones we choose for him) were handy targets for any man looking to take human life. I think he picked them because he felt able, probably through personal experience, to calculate how easy it would be. His primary purpose on any one occasion seems to have been to murder and mutilate and not be caught. He may not have had any bigger picture in mind at all. Even when back at his base, considering what he had just done, it may never have entered his mind to do anything positive to try and shift blame onto someone quite unlike himself.

That said, I can see how the timing, coming shortly after the clearing of Leather Apron, and all the circumstances of the night of the double event (whether Jack killed one or both) could have helped a non-Jewish Jack by appealing to the section of the public who wanted the fiend to be Jewish. Let's face it, it wouldn't have taken much, would it? Such an impression could have been created without Jack lifting a finger before or after his encounter with Kate.

But if we accept that such an impression was created, incidentally or otherwise, for anyone predisposed to suspecting a Jew (not least because Kate's apron piece was left by her killer in the entrance of a building housing Jews), then 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.

Love,

Caz
X

[Carrotty Nell]

I'm curious as to why the Mitre Square murder is deemed to have taken place in a significantly Jewish location. The Imperial Club and the Synagogue was on Duke Street not in Mitre Square. Would it not be just as logical to consider whether Jack was a sacked employee of Kearly and Tongue?

[Monty]

Nell,

Stop asking logical questions...it upsets the conspiritory thought process.

Monty


PS Apparently Jewish workers held meetings in the square.

[Fisherman]

You´re in for a thrashing here, Nell!

But thanks for that post; thoroughly called for, hilariously funny - and a good numer of metres more spot on than the Imperial Club could brag about ...

The best, Nell!
Fisherman