Was the killer a jew

[lynn cates]

condemnation

Hello Michael.

"Established Jews looked at these people as outsiders and rabble-rousers...these atheist anarchists, yet, they probably didn't even care about that really."

Actually, they did. I'm sure you've seen the condemnation of the IWMEC by the "Jewish Standard"?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

spero

Hello Dave.

"Is this about to become an Isenschmid thread?"

Well, I certainly hope so. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Damaso Marte]

Hello Jon. Could it have been a logical outgrowth of stories containing phrases like "foreign looking" and "foreign sounding"? Sometimes these were understood as "Jewish person."

Cheers.
LC

What % of foreigners in Whitechapel were Jewish? Elizabeth Long saw a foreigner with Chapman, and the percentage of foreigners who were Jewish was surely higher than the percentage of general whitechapel residents who were Jewish.

That sighting, plus the Seaside Home story (even discounted for the chance of being made up/inaccurate) is reason to think that a Jewish killer is more likely than probability would suggest.

Gholston Street graffiti can be variously interprted as pro or anti semite...even if the killer wrote it, I have no idea what it means and neither does anyone else here.

[martin wilson]

I don't think the police were following the 'No englishmen would have committed these murders' line.
Given that no murders of this type had happened before, in an area with a large ethnic community presence, and given the witness statements of Elizabeth Long,and George Hutchison, it seems pretty reasonable to me.
They may have tangled up ethnicity and faith as I did, but otherwise I don't see any scapegoating going on.
All the best.

[The Good Michael]

Actually that would be a factor back in Lithuania (to use your example) but not London. In about 1870 is when the big Jewish debate sprang up (and in London apparently) about whether or not believing in god is necessary to Judaism. And the answer apparently was "Yes, but". Yes, but atheism is not contrary to Judaism.

It certainly would be a factor. Established Jews looked at these people as outsiders and rabble-rousers...these atheist anarchists, yet, they probably didn't even care about that really.

Mike

[Cogidubnus]

It's not like Jews aren't inordinately represented in the serial killer population. We make up about .003% of the populations, and 1% (maybe) of serial killers. Which is an enormous gap, but while it has to do with their being Jewish, it doesn't have to do with Judaism. Being Jewish is alienating. The only place it isn't is New York City. And even then you are never under the impression that you are living in a world of your own creation, so to speak. You live as something other. Some people find that empowering. Some people find that alienating. Most waffle between the two. It is as revealing as a stutter. Most people with stutters are not alienated to the point they become killers. But a few do, and when we see how people treat stutterers, we aren't surprised.

I don't know if the majority of you know this, but a lot of us grew up with Christmas break at school. Which was fine. But then to be inclusive they decided to call it holiday break to recognize Hanukkah. Which is a nothing holiday. It's like St Valentines day. Whatever it started out as, it's something completely different now. And in all my years of schooling, I think there were only two years where Hanukkah wasn't over by the time break rolled around.

So imagine the whole school gets off for Passover, and you can have Good Friday off if it falls within Pesach, but you are expected to show up to school for Easter unless you bring a note like it was a sick day. As a kid, that's huge. It is like having all of the Jewish kids step forward so they can be recognized, and then telling them that their important holidays carry the same weight as a stomach virus, but Christmas is so important that you get two weeks off for a 48 hour holiday. It's humiliating, it's exasperating, it's enraging. You get three months of Christmas in Walgreens, but you have to ask where Hanukkah candles are.

The culture of isolation and rejection is there because these suspects were Jewish. But it wasn't Judaism that isolated them. It was everything else. The effect would be the same if they were Muslim, but not Hindu oddly enough. Judaism was not a contributing factor, no religion ever really is. But being Jewish, and therefore other, might have been. The way a stutter can be a contributing factor, or illness, deformity, being a different race, being a difference sex, being a different sexual orientation. Anything that causes people to set a person apart and treat them as other can be a contributing factor.

This is one of the soundest and most sensible posts I've ever read on here about the possibility of a Jewish suspect. For the record I personally believe a Jewish suspect is no more or no less possible (by proportion of population) than any other...

We've wandered a long way from the casual possibilities Richard and I were casually discussing, mostly re Schwartz!

All the best

Dave

[Errata]

Lack of Judaism may have been an isolator as well. This would have been a huge factor in not being accepted by the extant London Jewry...if you think about a young immigrant from say, Lithuania who happened to be Jewish by birth, but an unbeliever. and who had only Russian and Yiddish to go by in a tough alien country...well one can envision some of the psychological issues that might develop.

Mike

Actually that would be a factor back in Lithuania (to use your example) but not London. In about 1870 is when the big Jewish debate sprang up (and in London apparently) about whether or not believing in god is necessary to Judaism. And the answer apparently was "Yes, but". Yes, but atheism is not contrary to Judaism.

And this was in response to the unprecedented numbers of atheist Jews in the latter half of the 19th century. Assuming that even the purest of theological debate has a political motive, it would be a way to keep Jews in the society, in the culture, and therefor marrying inside the culture. Keeping the culture if not the faith. the 1880s is when people start identifying themselves as Jewish by birth, but not by practice to society as a whole. And today the two can be mutually exclusive, where in the 1700s the two were inextricable.

You know I hear people talking about religion giving them clarity, but I usually end up feeling like I'm plowing through a 400 year old Portuguese book on contract law.

[lynn cates]

equivocal phrasing

Hello Jon. Could it have been a logical outgrowth of stories containing phrases like "foreign looking" and "foreign sounding"? Sometimes these were understood as "Jewish person."

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

We have good reason to believe that some of those best placed in the investigation considered a Jew to be their prime suspect, and good reason to extend that to say those key to the investigation believed a particular Jew was not only their prime suspect but proven to their own satisfaction if not that of a court.

Hi TomTom.

Apart from Pizer, whom they cleared, can you think of another Jew the police suspected at the time of the murders?

What I think we have is a number of police officials who chose a Jewish culprit sometime after the murders had concluded. None of these officials gave a reason based on evidence, so what was it based on?

From what remains of official police opinion during the murders, none of the police officials had a clue about a particular suspect.

[The Good Michael]

The culture of isolation and rejection is there because these suspects were Jewish. But it wasn't Judaism that isolated them. It was everything else. The effect would be the same if they were Muslim, but not Hindu oddly enough. Judaism was not a contributing factor, no religion ever really is. But being Jewish, and therefore other, might have been. The way a stutter can be a contributing factor, or illness, deformity, being a different race, being a difference sex, being a different sexual orientation. Anything that causes people to set a person apart and treat them as other can be a contributing factor.

Lack of Judaism may have been an isolator as well. This would have been a huge factor in not being accepted by the extant London Jewry...if you think about a young immigrant from say, Lithuania who happened to be Jewish by birth, but an unbeliever. and who had only Russian and Yiddish to go by in a tough alien country...well one can envision some of the psychological issues that might develop.

Mike

[Errata]

We have good reason to believe that some of those best placed in the investigation considered a Jew to be their prime suspect, and good reason to extend that to say those key to the investigation believed a particular Jew was not only their prime suspect but proven to their own satisfaction if not that of a court.

Assuming that they believed A Jew, if Cohen, Kozminski or somebody else, was responsible and that this belief was well placed then I doubt the man was a killer BECAUSE he was a Jew, or Eastern European, or even because of cultural influences. Find any group big enough and you will find all the worst examples amongst their number, including any group you consider to place yourself.

It's not like Jews aren't inordinately represented in the serial killer population. We make up about .003% of the populations, and 1% (maybe) of serial killers. Which is an enormous gap, but while it has to do with their being Jewish, it doesn't have to do with Judaism. Being Jewish is alienating. The only place it isn't is New York City. And even then you are never under the impression that you are living in a world of your own creation, so to speak. You live as something other. Some people find that empowering. Some people find that alienating. Most waffle between the two. It is as revealing as a stutter. Most people with stutters are not alienated to the point they become killers. But a few do, and when we see how people treat stutterers, we aren't surprised.

I don't know if the majority of you know this, but a lot of us grew up with Christmas break at school. Which was fine. But then to be inclusive they decided to call it holiday break to recognize Hanukkah. Which is a nothing holiday. It's like St Valentines day. Whatever it started out as, it's something completely different now. And in all my years of schooling, I think there were only two years where Hanukkah wasn't over by the time break rolled around.

So imagine the whole school gets off for Passover, and you can have Good Friday off if it falls within Pesach, but you are expected to show up to school for Easter unless you bring a note like it was a sick day. As a kid, that's huge. It is like having all of the Jewish kids step forward so they can be recognized, and then telling them that their important holidays carry the same weight as a stomach virus, but Christmas is so important that you get two weeks off for a 48 hour holiday. It's humiliating, it's exasperating, it's enraging. You get three months of Christmas in Walgreens, but you have to ask where Hanukkah candles are.

The culture of isolation and rejection is there because these suspects were Jewish. But it wasn't Judaism that isolated them. It was everything else. The effect would be the same if they were Muslim, but not Hindu oddly enough. Judaism was not a contributing factor, no religion ever really is. But being Jewish, and therefore other, might have been. The way a stutter can be a contributing factor, or illness, deformity, being a different race, being a difference sex, being a different sexual orientation. Anything that causes people to set a person apart and treat them as other can be a contributing factor.

[The Good Michael]

We have good reason to believe that some of those best placed in the investigation considered a Jew to be their prime suspect, and good reason to extend that to say those key to the investigation believed a particular Jew was not only their prime suspect but proven to their own satisfaction if not that of a court.

Assuming that they believed A Jew, if Cohen, Kozminski or somebody else, was responsible and that this belief was well placed then I doubt the man was a killer BECAUSE he was a Jew, or Eastern European, or even because of cultural influences. Find any group big enough and you will find all the worst examples amongst their number, including any group you consider to place yourself.

Glad you brought this up. I don't think it was any sort of profiling or a witch hunt based upon Jewishness. Maybe based upon immigrant status...I'd say that's an unconscious possibility. We know that the gentrified Jewish community of London didn't care for the new immigrants and their poverty and perceived anarchistic ways. I wonder if some of them inadvertently helped to push a Jewish suspect concept to the fore?

Mike

[TomTomKent]

We have good reason to believe that some of those best placed in the investigation considered a Jew to be their prime suspect, and good reason to extend that to say those key to the investigation believed a particular Jew was not only their prime suspect but proven to their own satisfaction if not that of a court.

Assuming that they believed A Jew, if Cohen, Kozminski or somebody else, was responsible and that this belief was well placed then I doubt the man was a killer BECAUSE he was a Jew, or Eastern European, or even because of cultural influences. Find any group big enough and you will find all the worst examples amongst their number, including any group you consider to place yourself.

[The Good Michael]

One trap I see casebook fall into again and again, especially when discussing Jewish suspects or Jewish witnesses, is to tie every strange thing the person does to some aspect of Judaism.

If we were talking about a Protestant suspect, we would not try to explain every odd thing he does by linking it to the doctrines or traditions of the Anglican church. We would rather admit that most of what people do - most of what even devout people do - is unrelated to their faith.

Jews, Catholics, Hindus, etc. are no different. There's no need to search Jewish law or tradition to explain why a Jew may have killed and mutilated prostitutes in Victorian London: the explanation likely lies instead in the realm of far more universal human behavior. I think trying to divine the killer's religion from his murders is a fool's errand.

I've been saying this for years. If the killer were Jewish, it means there was a killer and his Jewishness meant nothing except as a means of identification and narrowing down the suspect field...again, if he were Jewish. I do lean to a Jewish murderer only because of the Goulston Graffiti, and the heavy concentration of Jews in the area there as compared to gentiles. If Eddowes death is ever proved to have been done by someone non-Jewish, I'll lean back the other way.

Mike

[Scott Nelson]

One trap I see casebook fall into again and again, especially when discussing Jewish suspects or Jewish witnesses, is to tie every strange thing the person does to some aspect of Judaism....
There's no need to search Jewish law or tradition to explain why a Jew may have killed and mutilated prostitutes in Victorian London: the explanation likely lies instead in the realm of far more universal human behavior.

Agree. I've seen this same attempted rationalization over and over. A killer is a killer. Period.