Mentor's Response to Anderson, "A more wicked assertion to put into print

[Howard Brown]

Dear Nats:

I'll bow out of this thread,as I have already set one up elsewhere on JTRForums for a discussion of the issue of the non existent institutionalized anti-Semitism that reared its head here. Thanks for the inspiration.

The second post in this thread, written by A.P., is where I thought the direction of the thread was heading or at least concomitant to. My mistake. I saw a few people here countering what Sam Flynn was stating with insupportable statements and thought I'd pop in. My mistake again.

Carry on.

[Cap'n Jack]

How, I think we have to accept the premise that when the head of a department makes a statement concerning the workings of that department then his statement is reflecting the view of his department, rather than his personal view.
It is my belief that racism was so widespread and endemic within Scotland Yard during the LVP that it went beyond the realms of instutionalisation, and into the realms of the day to day norm; and that is why it is not remarked upon in the documents of the day, because it was not 'remarkable', just the norm.
You boys are going to have to shift several mountains to get me to temper my view, especially in light of the fact that one senior police officer believed in the imminent arrival of the second coming of Christ; another firmly believed that Catholics were poisoning the water supply of London; and yet another blacked himself up and cavorted around the stage.

[Natalie Severn]

Extraordinarily well put Ap. Also extraordinary is the fact that certain of those researching JtR are so completely out of touch with the nature of the society and the institutions of that society that governed the times.Thank heavens for voices of probity here such as yours and Dan"s.

[Sam Flynn]

Extraordinarily well put Ap. Also extraordinary is the fact that certain of those researching JtR are so completely out of touch with the nature of the society and the institutions of that society that governed the times.Thank heavens for voices of probity here such as yours and Dan"s.

Would that those voices of probity had come up with evidence that policemen discriminated against Jews to the extent they are alleged to have picked on blacks and asians in the late 20th century, but we haven't seen any such thing. I suspect that is because AP's claim - that Police "institutionalised racism" was then "as bad, or possibly worse" than it is today - has very little evidence to support it.

[Natalie Severn]

One very clear indication would be how many of those policing Spitalfields densely Jewish population were themselves Jewish for example....or even how many Jewish police were in Scotland Yard?

[Chris]

One very clear indication would be how many of those policing Spitalfields densely Jewish population were themselves Jewish for example....or even how many Jewish police were in Scotland Yard?

Of course, it wouldn't of itself be evidence of "institutional" racism/antisemitism, unless we had information about what lay behind the numbers.

I don't think applying for a job in the police force would have been an obvious career choice for the newly arrived Jewish population, for example.

Having said that, I don't think I've ever seen such statistics, and they would be interesting in themselves. But I doubt any such numbers would have been recorded officially.

[Natalie Severn]

Chris:"I don"t think applying for a job in the police force would have been an obvious career choice for the newly arrived Jewish population for example"


Why Not? If the police force was such an open, non-discriminatory institution full of scrupulously non-racist and community minded men ,a hundred years ahead of their time,the Jewish community would have been queuing up in huge numbers to join.
I wonder why that was not the case.........?

[Sam Flynn]

Having said that, I don't think I've ever seen such statistics, and they would be interesting in themselves.

Indeed they would, Chris - and a good point about new arrivals perhaps not having a police career as the first thing on their list.

Good idea, though, Nats - although it bears remembrance that Jewish soldiers had fought in the British forces for some time, and a Jewish Prime Minister was in charge when Anderson was appointed to the Home Office in the 1870s. Bearing in mind that it would take more than a century before a black person was elected to Parliament, the Victorian perspective on Jews seems to have been a little more enlightened than we might think.

[Sam Flynn]

Why Not? If the police force was such an open, non-discriminatory institution full of scrupulously non-racist and community minded men ,a hundred years ahead of their time,the Jewish community would have been queuing up in huge numbers to join.
I wonder why that was not the case.........?

If you'd been confined to the Pale and/or pogrommed out of your homeland by authority figures, you might understandably have viewed their equivalents in your country of exile with the teensiest bit of suspicion. It would take a while to lose any such fears as they might have brought with them from Russia and Poland, a little longer to learn a new language, and perhaps even longer to lift themselves up from the level of the sweated labouring class to have enough self-respect (and strength) to feel able to join. There may well have been political ideals and religious strictures that prevented many from aspiring to such a career, also.

[Chris]

Why Not? If the police force was such an open, non-discriminatory institution full of scrupulously non-racist and community minded men ,a hundred years ahead of their time,the Jewish community would have been queuing up in huge numbers to join.
I wonder why that was not the case.........?

It's not hard to think of a number of likely reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with "institutional racism" in the police force. An inability to speak English, let alone read or write it, would be one of the most obvious.

[Cap'n Jack]

ah Sam, that is the nit in the pick... the old Jew was a good Jew, because he was a British Jew, but it is recently arrived Polish Jews we talk of here.
I think you and others blithely ignore the very real tensions between government and Scotland Yard concerning the appointment of Catholics into positions where they actually controlled the most senior Protestant police force of the realm.
Senior police officers with a natural 'antipathy' towards Catholics in the LVP would have regarded the Polish Jew as the devil incarnate.
According to 'The Times' of 1888 Polish Jews murdered babies and prostitutes to obtain oil for their synagogue lamps.

[claire]

You beat me to it, Chris...one of the (few) requirements for joining was literacy.

[Natalie Severn]

Dear Chris and Sam,[and now Claire]
In that case why didnt this fully inclusive organisation ,who must surely have been disturbed at the under representation of the Jewish community in their ranks, not set up "recruitment stalls" at the docks with Yiddish speaking interpreters to ensure a warm welcome into their fully inclusive ranks for those fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe?

[Chris]

According to 'The Times' of 1888 Polish Jews murdered babies and prostitutes to obtain oil for their synagogue lamps.

I don't suppose you'd care to back up that bizarre statement?

[Sam Flynn]

According to 'The Times' of 1888 Polish Jews murdered babies and prostitutes to obtain oil for their synagogue lamps.

Desperate times call for desperate reportage, AP. What you need to find are instances of any number of ordinary Jews being stopped and searched by policemen in the street for arbitrary reasons. Not in connection with the Ripper case either, because in that case there was popular suspicion that the killer may have been Jewish. A "peacetime" example, if you like - the equivalent of the "SUS" apprehensions of blacks and Asians by Met officer in the late 20th Century.