Myth No. 5 - Jack was Jewish
At the time of the murders (and persistently ever since)
speculation was rife that Jack the Ripper was a Jew; an apparently
racist view that has to be seen against the social background of
the time and London's burgeoning Jewish community.
For centuries, every continental upheaval in which the Jewish
people were sufferers brought influxes of refugees into England. In
the middle to late 19th century, low rents, the proximity of
the new central business district and the presence of an existing
Jewish community drew the newcomers in large numbers to
Whitechapel. Whilst many areas undoubtedly benefited from the
influx of hardworking, entrepreneurial people, racial tension was
inevitable.
After Polly Nichols was killed, police enquiries among
prostitutes in the area discovered that a number of them were
particularly afraid of a local they referred to as "Leather Apron",
a Jewish man who worked in the leather trade and who was rarely
seen without his characteristic piece of working apparel. Leather
Apron's real name was John Pizer, and he was certainly known for
violent extortionism of prostitutes. The press of the day picked up
the story and ran fast and furiously with it. The Star
newspaper, in particular, produced frightening headlines and lurid
copy. "His expression is sinister", one story related, "and
seems to be full of terror for the women who describe it."
At first, no one, not police, press, or local people knew were
to find John Pizer (not surprisingly he'd gone to ground) but on 8
September the urgency to locate him grew when, close by the
mutilated body of Annie Chapman, police found a piece of leather
apron.
The scared local community quickly gave in to anti-Semitic
feelings. 'It was repeatedly observed, ' said the Observer
newspaper, 'that no Englishman could have prepared such a horrible
crime … and that it must have been done by a Jew.' The likelihood
of anti-Jewish riots became a serious concern for the
authorities.
On the 10 September 1888 John Pizer was found and arrested.
At Lehman Street Police Station, though, relief and excitement were
quickly quelled. He was able to account for his whereabouts during
the murders of both Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman. Both alibis
were soon corroborated. Pizer could not be the Ripper.
Pizer might have been exonerated, the Jewish community was not.
On the 30 September, the night of the double event, anti Jewish
feeling was to raise its head again with the discovery of the
chalked writing on the wall near Catharine Eddowes body.
"The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing."
If the double negative was intended, and simply the spelling
incorrect, this seemed to be a deliberate attempt to implicate the
Jewish community in the murders. Either way, an overly-nervous
Charles Warren ordered that the writing be removed, lest it stir up
more anti Jewish feeling.
The Macnaghten Memorandum
Some time after the last of the Whitechapel murders, the Chief
Superintendent of Scotland Yard, Sir Melville Macnaghten, wrote a
document that became known as the Macnaghten Memorandum; important
because it forms the starting point of most modern-day Ripper
studies, because it names the canonical five victims and because it
identifies, for the first time, three men who have since become
important suspects.
The first of these, Montague Druitt, was the subject of an
earlier blog. The other two were Jewish men.
Michael Ostrog
Michael Ostrog, a Jewish doctor and petty thief, was in and out
of trouble (and prison) for most of his adult life. He pleaded
insanity and was incarcerated in Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum, only
to be released in March 1888. He promptly disappeared. Once the
police started to believe they should be looking for a lunatic with
medical knowledge, they started to consider him as a potential
suspect. The investigation began to focus on checking asylums for
men who had recently been released.
At first glance, he looks a likely candidate, except that the
only act of violence he is known to have committed in a long
criminal career, was to pull a revolver at a police station. He was
apprehended (again) in 1891 and sent to Banstead Lunatic Asylum
where he was considered suicidal but not dangerous. He was released
in 1893, imprisoned again in 1904 and then he disappears from
record.
Ostrog had no history of violence against women and given that
there is some evidence of his being incarcerated in France when the
murders took place, he has to slide a long way down the list of
suspects.
NOT GUILTY (PROBABLY) MICHEAL OSTROG
Aaron Kosminski
Rather harder to dismiss, is the Polish Jew Aaron Kosminski.
According to Macnaghten, Kosminski was of particular interest
because two senior police officers with direct responsibility for
Ripper murders considered him the killer. The case against him
hinges on the anecdotal belief that an important eye-witness
identified Kosminski as the killer but refused to give evidence and
send a fellow Jew to the gallows.
Kosminski was mentally handicapped and showed signs of insanity
in the late 1880s. He believed that a higher power spoke to him,
and controlled his actions. He refused to wash and would not accept
food from others, preferring to forage in the streets.
Schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid and incoherent he almost
certainly was, but in all the years of his incarceration, Kosminski
was never classed as homicidal and it is specifically stated in his
records that he was not a danger to others.
Other than the uncorroborated eye witness account, there is no
evidence at all to connect Kosminki with any of the murders.
NOT GUILTY (PROBABLY) AARON KOSMINSKi