Anti-Semitism feared after Ripper revealed
After report reveals that serial killer Jack the Ripper was a Jewish immigrant, family concerned about blowback
Days after a study identified 19th-century London mass murderer Jack the Ripper as a Polish Jewish immigrant, his descendants are raising fears the discovery may bring new anti-Semitism.
The disclosure, first published by British newspaper The Mail on Sunday, was made by amateur British researcher Russell Edwards and Finnish molecular biologist Dr. Jari Louhelainen after they tested a DNA sample found on the shawl of a victim of the man now thought to have been Aaron Kosminski.
A female relative of Kosminski’s sister allowed the pair to collect a DNA swab from her, but the family had expressed serious concerns that revelation of the serial killer’s identity may harm the Jewish community.
“They are very afraid of anti-Semitism… so they asked to remain anonymous because they still live as Jews and do not want this linked to them,” said Edwards, according to Israel’s Channel 2 news.
Louhelainen disassociated the infamous murderer from his newly discovered heritage, asserting that Kosminski was mentally ill and that there was no connection between the vicious murders and his Jewishness.
Until now, the true identity of Jack the Ripper had been in doubt and there had been a great deal of speculation around the man who viciously murdered five women in 1888. Local authorities had listed Kosminski as a suspect, but did not have enough evidence to convict the 23-year-old barber who had fled the violent pogroms of Russian-occupied Poland with his family in 1881.
Kosminski spent the end of his life in a number of different mental institutions. He died in 1919, without ever being convicted of murder.
