Migrants In Britain: 3.5

Question 1

Describe the living conditions of the new Ashkenazi Jewish population in Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the 1880s-1900

Answer 1

• many tenement (apartment) buildings crowded into single areas
  [] little to no sanitation
  [] improper plumbing caused rotting walls or poorly working flushing toilets
  [] crowded
  [] damp (often mouldy due to this)
• some 4000 Jews were supported in finding better living arrangements by the Four Per Cent Dwelling Company in 1884
• many Ashkenazi Jews were extremely poor

Question 2

Describe the key reasons for and impacts of the rising tensions and prejudice towards Ashkenazi Jews in the East End

Answer 2

• the police became afraid to patrol streets in the East End where Ashkenazi Jewish or Irish populations were strong
• tensions between unemployed English and Ashkenazi Jews for taking jobs (worked at lower prices and in poorer conditions)
• the establishment of sweatshops, technically illegal in Britain, drove down wages greatly and drove tradesmen who priced their goods higher out of business
  [] caused much tension between Jewish workers and trade unionists, some of whom like Charles Freak presented cases against the Ashkenazi Jewish sweatshops to the House of Lords Committee etc.
  [] the majority of the early Ashkenazi population in the East End could only speak Yiddish, so didn’t even have the ability to understand the reason why trade unionists were angry at them - police couldn’t communicate the illegality of sweatshops easily either
• government became concerned about the tensions and prejudice in the East End
  [] set up two committees of enquiry to investigate; made the Ashkenazi Jews EVEN more unpopular with the English population in the East End as enquiries meant that the Jews may have been given further rights or protections from anti-Semitism or tension, making life harder for the unemployed English and trade unionists who were being put out of work slowly
  [] anti-Semitic hostility and violence grew

Question 3

When and where were the Ripper murders ?

Answer 3

31st of August to the 9th of November, 1888, Whitechapel

Question 4

Why was Jack the Ripper suspected to be Jewish and what is the significance of this ?

Answer 4

• witnesses who saw the victims talking to the same man before their deaths reported the man to look “foreign” and “Jewish in appearance”
  [] unlikely to be entirely faithful to the truth and is more likely a reflection of English prejudice against the Jews in Whitechapel
• 3 of the 5 Ripper victims lived in areas with a high Jewish population
• Jack the Ripper was suspected to be a doctor or butcher due to the use of a pointed knife in their murders, as well as the nature of the victims’ wounds displaying an accurate knowledge of human anatomy; organs were also carefully removed from the victims’ bodies
  [] Jewish butchers (shochetim) were specially trained in butchering, and so doubt was cast upon them - two were arrested but both had strong alibis and so were released
  [] however, a police investigation into the knives used by shochetim showed that they were not pointed like the weapon that had been used on the Ripper’s victims
• suspect of Jews in the hunt for the Ripper highlighted the hostility that existed against Jews in Whitechapel, and spurred on existing anti-Semitic attitudes and violence in the area now that there was an “honourable” justification for othering Ashkenazi Jews
  [] above where one of the Ripper’s victims were murdered, the graffiti “The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing” was found, seemingly criticising the police for not arresting a Jewish person for the murders, as well as government investigation of violence against Ashkenazi Jews due to tensions about employment in Whitechapel and Spitalfields
  [] the policeman who discovered the graffiti wiped it off before it was seen by the public (taking a copy of it beforehand) due to fearing a riot in support of the accusation of Jews for the murders; demonstrates the sheer amount of tension and the fear that violence could break out at any time; anti-Semitism RIFE