When I first saw the headline — “Jack the Ripper identified through DNA traces: sleuth” — I joked to myself: Don’t let it be a Jew.

Well, joke’s on me. Courtesy of AFP:

But after extracting DNA from a shawl recovered from the scene of one of the killings, which matched relatives of both the victim and one of the suspects, Jack the Ripper sleuth Russell Edwards claims the identity of the murderer is now beyond doubt.

He says the infamous killer is Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish emigre from Poland, who worked as a barber.

Ami Eden is JTA’s CEO and editor in chief.