So what if the Ripper was Jewish?

[Harry D]

Hello John,

That's all well and good but there's no evidence to suggest the Ripper was Jewish.

What would satisfy you as 'evidence' then?

Just out of interest what source have you got for Whitechapel being predominantly populated by Jewish immigrants?

Not my primary source, but this might interest you:

[Errata]

Hello John,



What would satisfy you as 'evidence' then?



Not my primary source, but this might interest you:

I believe the map shows that the area was not predominantly populated by Jews, however I would say it was significantly populated by Jews compared to the general scarcity of Jews. I don't think there has ever been a time since the 10th century that Jews have made up more than 1% of the population on this planet, so an area of London where 25% of the population is Jewish is astounding. That being said, it does not mean the majority of the area was Jewish, just that a comparatively large area was Jewish. It's a ratio thing.

Of course given everything we know abut Jack the Ripper, Victorian London, the LVP, it turns out that the statistics are useless. Either he was or he was not Jewish. We don't know who he was, we don't know where he came from, we don't know where he lived... we can make educated guesses, but in the end, either he was or he wasn't.

Given what I know of Jewish communities in the LVP, I tend to think he was not Jewish, simply because the eastern European Jewish notion of adulthood and privacy was (and still is) very different from a British Protestant sense of adulthood and privacy. In other words, we are a nosy lot who tend to view our children as children long past the time other cultures see their children as adults. We tend towards "boundary issues". I think Jack had to operate under an amount of secrecy that seems unsustainable in Jewish culture. My objection isn't the religion. No religious person does this, whatever faith they subscribe to. It's the socialist community adopted by Eastern European Jews that seems not to lend itself to these crimes. Everything belongs to everyone, including information and personal details. It is very hard to keep a secret, and those that do immediately stand out.

But I lean in this direction. I do not stand in this camp.

[Harry the Hawker]

That is an interesting map, Harry. Is there anywhere one can view it at a larger resolution? Can't quite make out the legend at that size.

Cheers!
Harry

[Harry D]

Hello Errata,

I believe the map shows that the area was not predominantly populated by Jews, however I would say it was significantly populated by Jews compared to the general scarcity of Jews.

Whitechapel was predominantly a Jewish area, according to that map, at least.

My objection isn't the religion. No religious person does this, whatever faith they subscribe to.

The history books say otherwise.

It's the socialist community adopted by Eastern European Jews that seems not to lend itself to these crimes. Everything belongs to everyone, including information and personal details. It is very hard to keep a secret, and those that do immediately stand out.

Knowing and suspecting are two different things. But given the brutal nature of the murders, would the close-knit Jewish community bring themselves to believe that one of their own could commit such crimes? Let alone shop him to the British authorities, whom they already mistrusted?

That is an interesting map, Harry. Is there anywhere one can view it at a larger resolution? Can't quite make out the legend at that size.

Cheers!
Harry

Sure,

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/deliveryfiles/JML/2002.25/0/1.pdf

[Damaso Marte]

To Harry

Why would the Ripper be Jewish? The only reason people suspect that the Ripper was Jewish is because of the GSG, which in my opinion is a red herring.

Cheers John

The GSG can be interpreted as either being anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic. I think that tells you all you need to know about its usefulness as a piece of evidence.

In any event, it's certainly plausible that the Ripper was Jewish. There were Jews living in the area and one possible victim was killed outside of a Jewish club. Chapman's killer potentially had a foreign accent as well, and the % of foreigners in London that were Jewish was even higher than the % of London that was Jewish. Apart from this there's not much meaningful evidence about the ethnicity of the killer (ethnicity rather than religion - there's no religion that condones serial killing). If the killer was in fact jewish and the police covered it up to avoid a pogrom, that's probably the right moral decision.

In any event there's no reliable evidence for the idea that a Jewish suspect was put away and covered up. The police memoirs are horribly contradictory of each other and they're the only evidence where, after I read it, I feel like I know even less about the case.

[Errata]

Hello Errata,



Whitechapel was predominantly a Jewish area, according to that map, at least.

The blue is the highest concentration of Jews, the red is the lowest all the way down to the total absence. So significantly, but not predominantly.

The history books say otherwise.

There are any number of historical situations in which religious doctrine is changed to acquire power. This does not apply to serial killers, nor to the LVP. A religious person didn't do this. Although ironically there are some faithful Christian serial killers who believe that they are possessed by the devil, but that's how they explain why they were serial killers. It's not why they kill.

Knowing and suspecting are two different things. But given the brutal nature of the murders, would the close-knit Jewish community bring themselves to believe that one of their own could commit such crimes? Let alone shop him to the British authorities, whom they already mistrusted?

In a heartbeat. First of all, they were in fact looking at each other because they weren't stupid. It might have been deemed a long shot, but no one was under the impression it was impossible. Especially given the anger some immigrant Jews expressed at the behavior of English women. Rabbis especially. There is some suggestion that the Chief Rabbi of London requested that rabbis keep their eye out, because one thing the Jews of this time were intimately familiar with was their entire community being punished for the acts of a single member. They got rid of their "problem children" in the Pale, they would do it in London. In a cold second. It was a very tight knit community. But as sort of generally socialist, they protected the whole community. Not individual members.

Granted, that didn't necessarily mean turning lawbreakers over to the cops. Typically it meant expulsion. My great great uncle was expelled from his little village in the Pale because he was a radical and took a shot at some Russian bureaucrats. He got sent to London in 1878 (the East End, which is where the family story intersects JTR). My grandfather remembered a rapist cousin actually being killed by a member of the family rather than turn him over to the authorities, because at that point the authorities were the Nazis, and their Jewish community in Southern Austria had managed to stay invisible up to that point. They refused to shelter him, but there was no way in hell they were going to alert the authorities that there were a few hundred Jews a couple hours outside Vienna. But that was extreme. It's not that there aren't other examples of judicial murder in Jewish communities. They exist although it is very rare. But my family is the only story I've ever heard where a family member performed the execution, and not some community authority.

We also have a fine tradition of not just disowning children, we declare them dead. Mourning ritual and everything. And people who do it mean it. It cannot be undone. Marrying outside the faith used to be a big one, my father was threatened with it. Finding out your kid is a prostitute mutilating serial killer? People could be declared dead for talking to a prostitute. Murdering one is so far outside acceptable behavior... a mother might try to conceal her only son if the relationship was one of those creepy super close ones (the kind that seem to breed serial killers), but the father would never do it, and it's his call. Plus this is information that immediately goes to the Rabbi, who does not especially have a confessional seal. A rabbi is like a shrink. If you are going to kill someone, he will report you. He's not going to discuss it with others in the congregation, and he is unlikely to report something after the fact, say if someone confessed to the murders 10 years later. But if he thinks there is a chance you might kill again, it does not stay with him. At the very least he confers with the rabbinical council as to what to do, and we know the Chief Rabbi of London was in communication with the police, and was English. Not an immigrant. If you cheat on your wife, it stays with the Rabbi. But not murder.

One of things about being a part of a Jewish Community is that no one got to jeopardize the safety of that community. They might not go to the cops, but they will get rid of the killer somehow. Which may be what happened. But the Jewish community would not shield Jack the Ripper. They did shield socialists, separatists, minor criminals, they might shield a killer if they decided it was self defense or unavoidable. But not the Ripper. Anymore than the Christian community would have shielded him.

[Harry D]

Going by that, would you agree that it's possible the Jewish authorities and the police might have conspired to have the Ripper carted off to asylum instead of exposed as the murderer?

[robhouse]

The blue is the highest concentration of Jews, the red is the lowest all the way down to the total absence. So significantly, but not predominantly.

The important thing about this map is that the highest concentration of blue corresponds almost exactly to the area where the murders took place... so it does not mean that "Whitechapel" or "Spitalfields" or "the East End" was predominantly Jewish. But the place where the Ripper murders took place was predominantly Jewish.

The blue on the map indicates 50% or more of the population was Jewish. The dark blue, of which there is a good deal, indicates 90%+ Jewish. This map is from 1890, so we can assume a similar (if slightly less) proportion at the time of the murders.

RH

[Observer]

The saturation of Jewish inhabitants (when considering a suspect) living in the killing zone for want of a better word is irrelevant in my opinion. One man perpetrated the killings. English, Russian, German? Take your pick.

[Errata]

Going by that, would you agree that it's possible the Jewish authorities and the police might have conspired to have the Ripper carted off to asylum instead of exposed as the murderer?

I think it highly unlikely. It the Jewish leaders were going to commit the guy, I don't see them talking to the cops about it. That they had done it might eventually trickle down to the police, possibly through the Chief Rabbi, but the entire point of committing him and not turning him over would have been to avoid involving the police.

If they did not trust the police to protect the community from the backlash, they would not conspire with the police. If they did trust the cops, they would have just handed him over. They would not protect Jack the Ripper. They might feel the need to protect him if that was the only way to protect the rest of the community, but that protection would not include letting him continue threatening the community with his presence.

Judaism is about Law more than it is about faith. And murder is unacceptable. I could see the Jewish community getting rid of him on their own. And I could see the cops doing it on their own if they could not prove their case. But they would not work together to subvert the system. There's no benefit.

And given the story of following a guy and an identification and a commitment... once the killer had attracted that much police attention, it behooved no one in the Jewish community to continue to keep the cops out of it. They would have thrown him at the police wrapped in a bow. The Jewish community handling it themselves only works if the cops don't know who he is. Once attention zeroes in on a Jewish suspect, the community has no choice but to play it above board if they are to continue to survive. They learned that in the Pale too.

[John Wheat]

What would satisfy you as 'evidence' then

To Harry

Evidence that Jack the Ripper was Jewish. There isn't any actual evidence.

Cheers John

[Harry D]

To Harry

Evidence that Jack the Ripper was Jewish. There isn't any actual evidence.

Cheers John

More evidence for than against, John.

[Observer]

What evidence would that be Harry?

[Harry D]

What evidence would that be Harry?

Hello Observer,

1. Murders happened in a dense Jewish area. Jack must have been a local to know the backstreets, therefore a high probability he was Jewish.
2. Several of the murders took place near Jewish social clubs.
3. Police memoirs identifying the Ripper as a Jew.
4. Not one of the victims was Jewish, despite the murders taking place in a Jewish neighborhood.
5. Several witness statements describe a man of Jewish descent.

We can debate all of the above until the cows come home. Whether they are conclusive or not isn't the question, but they are certainly indicative of the Ripper being Jewish.

[Observer]

Hello Observer,

1. Murders happened in a dense Jewish area. Jack must have been a local to know the backstreets, therefore a high probability he was Jewish.
2. Several of the murders took place near Jewish social clubs.
3. Police memoirs identifying the Ripper as a Jew.
4. Not one of the victims was Jewish, despite the murders taking place in a Jewish neighborhood.
5. Several witness statements describe a man of Jewish descent.

We can debate all of the above until the cows come home. Whether they are conclusive or not isn't the question, but they are certainly indicative of the Ripper being Jewish.

1) Why is that? There were also thousands of gentiles living in that area, equally at home with the back streets, and alleyways.

2)Coincidence, and Eddowes murder was a fair way off the Jubilee Club, there were public houses nearer the murder site. Also, what of the three murder's which did not take place near to Jewish social clubs?

3)What evidence did those police officer's have which would suggest the Ripper was Jewish?

4)The Jewesses (if there were any) who were prostitutes at that time got lucky

5)Which witnesses would they be Harry?

In my opinion, the answers you provided were all non starters. There's no real evidence that a Jew was responsible for the murders, in fact there's no real evidence against anyone as far as I'm concerned.

Regards

Observer