Jacob Levy

[curious4]

Segregation can happen in pretty subtle ways. Take Nashville for instance. There is a surprising number of Jews in Nashville, and a considerable number of Irish Catholics. And of course, black people. Now the richest neighborhood in town could have said "No blacks, Jews, or Irish" but post Reconstruction that would be problematic. So they borrowed from the English and declared that no house in Belle Meade can have more than three bedrooms. Black people, Jews and the Irish tended to have more kids, so needed more bedrooms. And they bought elsewhere. In the meantime, you had the occasional English Protestant building extra parlors to accommodate their uncharacteristically large family. Leading to some fairly peculiar structures. The law was taken off the books maybe 5 years ago? And Jews, Catholics and black people still tend not to live there.

effective segregation without technically segregating.

I think it is a mistake to compare living conditions of today to those of the East End in 1888. The one common denominator was extreme poverty (at least for the people we are talking about, that is those who stayed in lodging houses). We are straying into very murky waters if we start believing that we can judge ethnicity by appearance. Hutchinson's man stood out "like a sore thumb" because he appeared to be wealthy. And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Jack used different disguises.

Best wishes
C4

[Errata]

I think it is a mistake to compare living conditions of today to those of the East End in 1888. The one common denominator was extreme poverty (at least for the people we are talking about, that is those who stayed in lodging houses). We are straying into very murky waters if we start believing that we can judge ethnicity by appearance. Hutchinson's man stood out "like a sore thumb" because he appeared to be wealthy. And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Jack used different disguises.

Best wishes
C4

Good point, though the example I used was originally from Reconstruction, so 1880 ish in the American South. Not a perfect analog, but really just intended as an example of subtle methods of segregation that work. And work well.

Jews at that time did tend to self segregate, certainly being within walking distance to a synagogue originally limited how far the population would spread. And if a landlady made Jews feel unwelcome in one area where ten blocks down another landlady had no problem, that makes a difference.

It's just not Warsaw Ghetto like, is my point. Segregation does not require a hostile population mandating where the Jews lived. It was less than that, but still pretty effective. Zoning laws is one example, social ostracism, unfair renting practices, geography, self selection... it's a whole stew. So while the Jewish population was relatively segregated, it was only relatively, and it was not Nazi or American South level of legalized segregation. Which I don't think you were implying, but I added on for the sake of clarity, which apparently failed.

[curious4]

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/4844/1/4844.pdf

Jack the Ripper and the East End Labyrinth page 5, headed "the streetscape of poverty".

"Whitechapel was one of the poorest districts in London, it had one of the largest concentrations of lodging houses.. Yet it is important also to note that the district had a wide variety of poverty, as is evident from the Booth maps. The influx of Jewish immigrants in the 1880s provided new unskilled jobs and this influx, coupled with the street layout that contained a fine grain of poverty and relative prosperity cheek by jowl, created a situation of high levels of economic interdependence between the two populations. 9 Despite perceptions of the immigrants living a ‘ghettoised’ life separate from the existing population, spatial analysis coupled with historical evidence suggests that the situation was much more complex: there was likely to have been considerable contact between the two populations."

I found this interesting

Cheers

C4

[lilyofthevalley]

Our family is Isaac Levy who married Sarah Levy born 1777 Amsterdam,
The children are the correct ones.

Hello Tji,
Do you know Sarah's maiden name and/ or date of birth? I've looked for her in the Dutch archives, but cannot find her so far.

[John Wheat]

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

[Errata]

One of the reasons I'm a fan of all the research into him even though I don't think he's the Ripper is because he's actually a pretty fascinating case from a diagnostics point of view. He was institutionalized prior to his final illness. And there was no trace of neurosyph. Occam's Razor etc. says that his mental illness prior to his final illness was related to his final illness, and therefore he did not die from Neurosyph. But he did die. Which is not at all a common feature of your average mental illness. Leaving us with three options. 1: Both of Levy's hospitalizations were a result of neurosyphilis, and he was the only person to ever have a recovery period of that disease. 2: He was mentally ill, and he had Neurosyphilis, a few years apart. Not impossible, but the timing is suspect. or 3: He was neither mentally ill nor did he have Neurosyphilis. It was some 3rd thing.

Now if 1 is true, thats amazing. If 2 is true, thats less amazing but still begs the question of motive. If 3 is true, then thats super fascinating. If he had Huntingtons, he was not the Ripper. If he had chemical poisoning, maybe he was, but with a different motive. Or not, depending on the chemical. Neurosyphilis has a known progression, so we can deduce when he started becoming so symptomatic that he could not kill. It's tight, but it's possible in his case. And thats true of other diseases or problems, but it's all different timelines. So we would have to diagnose him to rule him in or out as a suspect. Which I find interesting.

[Elamarna]

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

John

while that is certainly true, in some respects he is a better fit for Kosminski than Kosminski!

There is a definite trigger event.

He seems to be a better fit for Cox/Sagar and Butchers Row, where not all were butchers of course, than Kos.

steve

[lilyofthevalley]

That's a great approach Errata. Why do you feel the timing is suspect with point 2? Isn't it possible that there was a pathology that stemmed from early childhood, which could account for his murdering intentions and then get neurosyphilis on top of that?

[lilyofthevalley]

Hello Tji,
Do you know Sarah's maiden name and/ or date of birth? I've looked for her in the Dutch archives, but cannot find her so far.

Just to add: I did find a Sara Levy born in 1777 in Amsterdam. She was of Portugese-Israelian background. The reason I looked into this is because there was some discussion about the way Levy looked.

[Elamarna]

Errata,

Post 141 seems to be very well thought out .
2 looks very interesting given his history.

Steve

[Abby Normal]

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

that's my main issue with him also. because of Anderson, and via Fido, I think has set off a 125 year witch hunt for a "crazy jew".

Plus the fact that nothing ties him to the case.

except- I believe Tracy and collegues have discovered that one of Lawendes companions might have been related to Levy, and recognized him with Eddowes-hence his reluctance to talk.


Tracy
has there been any more work on this connection? How sure of we of a relation?

[Errata]

That's a great approach Errata. Why do you feel the timing is suspect with point 2? Isn't it possible that there was a pathology that stemmed from early childhood, which could account for his murdering intentions and then get neurosyphilis on top of that?

It has to do with the disease progression of syphilis. Initial infection to neurosyphilis is typically 8-10 years. More on the 8 side. Now this is in no way an absolute, but thats the average. Which means he should have been symptomatic during his first commitment. He should already have had the lesions. That should have been in his files. But it wasn't. And they did ask, given the prevalence of Neurosyph at the time.

If he didn't have it during that first commitment, that is a very fast disease progression from infection to death. Like, super fast. Unlikely fast. So that's why the timing is a little problematic. Not impossible, but tough.

Also given the fact that his wife and children apparently never contracted a form of the disease, it does make me question if he had syphilis at all. The timing of his decline does match Huntington's to an extent. So the key to figuring that out would be to see if he had parents or children who also didn't survive past 40ish. But also his symptoms in his two hospitalizations are different. Mania for his first stay, and essentially catatonia for his last. While that could potentially be Bipolar, Bipolar doesn't kill. Mercury does. And mercury can create very different presentations in the same person. As can anything that is eating the brain. Or Schizophrenia in extremely rare cases, but that's a whole other set of behaviors that really should have been noticed.

The whole thing is mysterious and fascinating.

[tji]

Hi Lily

Hello Tji,
Do you know Sarah's maiden name and/ or date of birth? I've looked for her in the Dutch archives, but cannot find her so far.

Just to add: I did find a Sara Levy born in 1777 in Amsterdam. She was of Portugese-Israelian background. The reason I looked into this is because there was some discussion about the way Levy looked.

Unfortunately we haven't been able to find any reference to Sarah's maiden name or marriage to Isaac (basically anything prior to 1810 besides info on the census.

Thing is we don't know Sarah would be a Levy as she married into the Levy family, now that's not to say that she wasn't, we have seen instances of different branches of fame surname marry but it's also not that common.

that's my main issue with him also. because of Anderson, and via Fido, I think has set off a 125 year witch hunt for a "crazy jew".

Plus the fact that nothing ties him to the case.

except- I believe Tracy and collegues have discovered that one of Lawendes companions might have been related to Levy, and recognized him with Eddowes-hence his reluctance to talk


Tracy
has there been any more work on this connection? How sure of we of a relation?

.

Hi Abby yes Lawendes companion was Joseph Hyam Levy and newspaper sat the time commented on him being a 'reluctant witness' though we dont' really know what he's reluctant about in all honesty.
Also as much as I woudl like to say its the case, unfortunately we don't know Joseph recognised Jacob with Catherine we can only speculate he did.
Joseph and Jacob were cousins.

[tji]

One of the reasons I'm a fan of all the research into him even though I don't think he's the Ripper is because he's actually a pretty fascinating case from a diagnostics point of view. He was institutionalized prior to his final illness. And there was no trace of neurosyph. Occam's Razor etc. says that his mental illness prior to his final illness was related to his final illness, and therefore he did not die from Neurosyph. But he did die. Which is not at all a common feature of your average mental illness. Leaving us with three options. 1: Both of Levy's hospitalizations were a result of neurosyphilis, and he was the only person to ever have a recovery period of that disease. 2: He was mentally ill, and he had Neurosyphilis, a few years apart. Not impossible, but the timing is suspect. or 3: He was neither mentally ill nor did he have Neurosyphilis. It was some 3rd thing.

Now if 1 is true, thats amazing. If 2 is true, thats less amazing but still begs the question of motive. If 3 is true, then thats super fascinating. If he had Huntingtons, he was not the Ripper. If he had chemical poisoning, maybe he was, but with a different motive. Or not, depending on the chemical. Neurosyphilis has a known progression, so we can deduce when he started becoming so symptomatic that he could not kill. It's tight, but it's possible in his case. And thats true of other diseases or problems, but it's all different timelines. So we would have to diagnose him to rule him in or out as a suspect. Which I find interesting.

Hi Errata

I personally am confident he died from neurosyphilis as doctors stated at the time. All his symptoms match the symptoms. The research I did showed that the timeline for the final stage of neurosyphilis (tertiary stage) is 5 years on average.

This works exactly with Jacob's timeline starting at 1896 when he was sent to prison/asylum and his death 5 years later in 1891.

He also had the common symptoms of syphilis including the copper stained skin and uneven pupils, illusions of grandeur etc. His doctors at the asylum were also of the opinion it was syphilis and I imagine they dealt with a lot of it and recognised the signs.

[tji]

Hi John

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

I woudl have to disagree John, Levy is his own suspect, there may be a few similarities but Jacob stands up to scrutiny on his own merit.