Was the killer a jew

[Limehouse]

I would say that, if the killer was Jewish, he broke the Sabbath because the urge to kill was stronger than his personal need to keep his faith.

I feel strongly that the pattern of the killings was driven by the killer's availability to kill but also his urge to kill and the availability of victims as they presented themselves. Also relevant would be a suitable place to carry out the attacks, either at the point where the killer and victim actually met, or nearby.

[Phil H]

Not just someone who was Jewish. Imagine if it had been a surgeon/doctor.

Medical students were seriously investigated.

According to Swanson, who would have known, they sought to identify Kosminski, a Jew, and the witness was Jewish.

Why do all that if they were not going to prosecute?

Also the scandal if it had come out that there had been a cover-up would have been as bad as dealing with any situation that might arise by being open.

Sorry but I reject this as anachronistic nonsense. Before Watergate no one would have given credence to such ideas.

How are they gonna spin that? So forth and so on. It's alot less work to keep it underwraps.

No - it's more work. And maintaing need-to-know etc would have been difficult. The Littlechild letter reveals that there was gossip in the office.

I am not suggesting that men like Matthews, Warren, Anderson etc were not capable of being devious, but I do not think they would have covered up a killer against whom they had firm evidence. Insanity might have made it impossible to prosecute and I don't think they would have killed him.

Further, as I recall, the JtR furore died down quite quickly after MJK's murder. So the situation after 1888 might have been less volatile than you postulate.

Just my views though (albeit based on having worked inside Government for many years).

Phil

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo Phil H.

Not just someone who was Jewish. Imagine if it had been a surgeon/doctor. How are they gonna spin that? So forth and so on. It's alot less work to keep it underwraps. And possibly less volatile. Of course that requires them to prove it too. Actually, if they knew who it was but knew they couldn't prove it, the simplest way to deal with it is to just kill "JTR". Problem solved. Wow, that's a funny thought.

[Phil H]

One can never rule out a "political" element in anything, of course.

But I think, if they could have caught "Jack" and made the charges stick, they would have tried him.

The political and organisational embarrassment surrounding the failure - and chief officers returning to the case in retirement in their memoirs as an indicator that it was still very much in their and the public mind - was evidently great.

I think they would have believed that they could deal with any social unrest that might arise, either by "diplomacy" and negotiation (through the Chief Rabbi etc) or by normal policing methods.

Those would have been the approaches taken when I was a British civil servant and the mind set of the late C19th would have been even stronger.

Happy to explain more if needed.

Phil

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo Damaso Marte.

Remember there are two possible conspiracy theories involving a Jewish ripper getting off - one with the community refusing to testify against him, one with the police not wanting to spark a pogrom

If you are a police officer in 1888 London, would you rather have a few more murders of individuals, or a possible mass riot, with potentially dozens of casualties and years of lingering ethnic tension?

Right! And thank you. I've posed the question before, who wins from the killer being revealed? The likely answer is no one. These possible outcomes need not have even been possible, just perceived as possible. Remember Warren and the GSG? I get the feeling something was hinky in all this Ripper stuff and sometimes I think that that was what it was.

[Damaso Marte]

Remember there are two possible conspiracy theories involving a Jewish ripper getting off - one with the community refusing to testify against him, one with the police not wanting to spark a pogrom

If you are a police officer in 1888 London, would you rather have a few more murders of individuals, or a possible mass riot, with potentially dozens of casualties and years of lingering ethnic tension?

[Errata]

Hi all,

Being Jewish I was appalled when I first saw Robin Odell's suggestion of the insane shocket back in the 1970s. But as I have been getting older I started realizing that there could be some sense in the idea. My general feeling is that someone who visited the East End a great deal, or who lived there, was mose likely to have been the Ripper - they knew where to hide when needed (or where to spring out of). This would include members of the Jewish community in the East End. So yes, I could believe Jack was a Jew.

After that I am at a loss about the who and the why. An insane anything is likely, but also one wonders if the ladies he killed had insulted somehow, or if he was violently against sexual sin. If so, he must have forgotten how even the Old Testament had prostitutes in it who helped the Jews (the one who protected Joshua and his companion on their spying mission comes to mind - she was later admitted into the Jewish community).

Jeff

I could buy some sort of scrupulosity (religious delusion) at work if these women had been killed in some vague semblance of a biblical fashion. Bashed in the head with a rock for instance. But this is like nothing in the Bible. So no remotely religious Jew did this, because frankly I can't even think of how to recover from the unclean act of reveling in THAT much dead flesh, other than hanging out in a Mikvah for about a decade.

Non religious Jew? Sure. But not the way Anderson implied with the community covering for him. Because despite the patriarchal system Judaism has become (and was at it's height then), the matrilineal side still forces itself to the fore, and there is no way Jewish women let this happen and say nothing. Assuming the guy's mother didn't beat him to death with a frying pan. Even if they didn't personally talk to the police, they sent a Christian friend to tip off the cops.

No one could know he did this. No matter what community he was a part of. There is no religion, no secret society, no political agenda that accepts something like this as the cost of doing business. Murder, sure. But not this kind of murder.

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

Being Jewish I was appalled when I first saw Robin Odell's suggestion of the insane shocket back in the 1970s. But as I have been getting older I started realizing that there could be some sense in the idea. My general feeling is that someone who visited the East End a great deal, or who lived there, was mose likely to have been the Ripper - they knew where to hide when needed (or where to spring out of). This would include members of the Jewish community in the East End. So yes, I could believe Jack was a Jew.

After that I am at a loss about the who and the why. An insane anything is likely, but also one wonders if the ladies he killed had insulted somehow, or if he was violently against sexual sin. If so, he must have forgotten how even the Old Testament had prostitutes in it who helped the Jews (the one who protected Joshua and his companion on their spying mission comes to mind - she was later admitted into the Jewish community).

Jeff

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo PhilH.

I've lived in the Bible Belt my entire life. There are somewhere around 500 churches just in the city I live in alone. And this isn't even that large of a number compared to the size of the city. Religion is big business down here and basically inescapable. I think I might have a decent concept of a time/place like that. In general terms of course.

Hullo Errata. Many apologies and noted. If you catch me doing it, please do not hesitate to tear me assunder. No malice was intended.

[Errata]

Hi Errata,
It goes without saying that this threads Title was never intended to be insulting to any person, and if it offended any person, that has read this, or reads this in the future, please accept my apologies.
Regards Richard.

I was in no way offended. And you did nothing wrong. There is a general preference for "Jewish" over "Jew", but it's not that big a deal. Everyone has experience a situation in which tone and the specific words chosen have heralded a bad day. Like when your mother uses all of your names, or "Hey look what I can do" when people have been drinking. Most women will tell you that being addressed as "girl" or especially "girlie" is kind of threatening. And most black people will say that when an elderly lady refers to them as "colored", they know she doesn't mean anything by it because that was the socially acceptable term in her day, but it's still very uncomfortable. I personally react very badly to the phrase "Well look what we got here..."

It's just a preference. It is not some universally accepted slur that you somehow didn't know about, and it was not incorrect. It's just that around here, and in other parts of this country, when someone says someone is "a Jew" they don't mean it as a positive thing. They use it to imply character failings like being sneaky or tightfisted or treacherous. And of course theres a tone that goes along with it that can't be conveyed while typing.

So really all I'm saying is that if it doesn't matter to you which descriptive you use, then my preference would be to refer to someone as Jewish. If you have a reason for using one over the other, then ignore me. Just stating a preference.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Errata,
It goes without saying that this threads Title was never intended to be insulting to any person, and if it offended any person, that has read this, or reads this in the future, please accept my apologies.
Regards Richard.

[Observer]

So, I'm just going to say this, and it's nitpicking and I know it... but...

When referring to a person, it is better to say that they are Jewish, rather than saying they are a Jew. And there is some subtle difference between the two that doesn't really matter at this point. It comes down to context.

When someone says to me "I didn't know you were Jewish" that's fine and I usually say "Why yes, I am Jewish"
When someone says "I didn't know you were a Jew" I flinch. Because usually something ugly follows that statement.

There is no appreciable difference between the two, but I have never had a bigot call me Jewish. They have always referred to me as "A Jew".

Consequently, every time someone refers to someone as "a Jew" makes me cringe a little. I don't for a moment think any of you are bigoted. Like I said, the preference has to do with context, and none of you have ever addressed me or anyone else in that context. It's just you know how one ******* can ruin it for everybody? Well they did.

As for the actual topic, no observant Jew could mutilate a person in that manner without being severely delusional. Severely in an almost non functional kind of way. However it would be fair to say that about a quarter of the Jews in London were non observant. Weddings and funerals sure, but not observant. They would still identify as Jewish, they just wouldn't have set foot in a synagogue or prayed in a very long time. It may be more than a quarter, there was not a lot to praise god about in the East End.

I'm not sure how to take the above Errata. Does the

"It's just you know how one ******* can ruin it for everybody? Well they did."

mean that Richard God bless him Nunweek is guilty of bigotry? I have read most of Richards posts, and I must say he most definitely does not come across as a bigot. Of course, I may very well have hold of the wrong end of the stick, apologies in advance if I have.

Regards

Observer

[Errata]

What about the recent immigrants from Poland etc? Did they dress differently (in the way we see in pre-War films of Russia and eastern Europe). Did they adhere to somewhat different rites?

I am thinking in particular of the Kosminskis.

Phil

Only for the first couple of years. I mean, they would not be a little group of matroyska dolls trundling through the streets, but they would wear things slightly differently. But adopting English culture was important to these immigrants, so as soon as they were buying new clothes (or used new clothes) they would be buying English styles. Still with scarves probably, because they were valuable, but Western cuts and cloths.

[Errata]

So, I'm just going to say this, and it's nitpicking and I know it... but...

When referring to a person, it is better to say that they are Jewish, rather than saying they are a Jew. And there is some subtle difference between the two that doesn't really matter at this point. It comes down to context.

When someone says to me "I didn't know you were Jewish" that's fine and I usually say "Why yes, I am Jewish"
When someone says "I didn't know you were a Jew" I flinch. Because usually something ugly follows that statement.

There is no appreciable difference between the two, but I have never had a bigot call me Jewish. They have always referred to me as "A Jew".

Consequently, every time someone refers to someone as "a Jew" makes me cringe a little. I don't for a moment think any of you are bigoted. Like I said, the preference has to do with context, and none of you have ever addressed me or anyone else in that context. It's just you know how one ******* can ruin it for everybody? Well they did.

As for the actual topic, no observant Jew could mutilate a person in that manner without being severely delusional. Severely in an almost non functional kind of way. However it would be fair to say that about a quarter of the Jews in London were non observant. Weddings and funerals sure, but not observant. They would still identify as Jewish, they just wouldn't have set foot in a synagogue or prayed in a very long time. It may be more than a quarter, there was not a lot to praise god about in the East End.

[Phil H]

What about the recent immigrants from Poland etc? Did they dress differently (in the way we see in pre-War films of Russia and eastern Europe). Did they adhere to somewhat different rites?

I am thinking in particular of the Kosminskis.

Phil