Category talk:North American Jews

Middle Eastern diaspora parent cat
I am of course referring to this. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:North_American_Jews&diff=920962885&oldid=920733399

I am ambivalent on the Asian diaspora parent cat, but there is no reason to remove the Middle Eastern one. The Jewish diaspora originates in Israel, which is in the Middle East. That's not an opinion. That's a fact verified by reams upon reams of scholarship, including every single peer-reviewed DNA paper released over the past 30 years. Therefore, syllogistically speaking, the Jewish diaspora is a Middle Eastern diaspora. That is why we are called 'diaspora Jews' in every country except Israel. This really shouldn't be controversial at all.

User:Debresser's insistence that "not all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent" is not good enough and, for the most part, not even true. One, with the exception of recent converts, who collectively make up less than 1% of the total Jewish population, all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent. 1% is not enough to remove a category. Two, even if that weren't the case, removing it would still be inconsistent with Wikipedia's wider categorization scheme. For instance, Irish people are categorized under "Celtic people". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_people. Does that mean everybody in Ireland is a Celt? Does it mean recent immigrants to Ireland from India or Africa are Celts? Obviously not. Is everybody in Britain "Germanic", as this category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_people) suggests? Again, the answer is no.

Then you have the claim that Ashkenazi Jews are not "really" Middle Eastern, either because they are "phonies" or have been away for "too long". This argument is similarly inconsistent, and borders on blatant anti-Semitism (denying Jewish heritage/identity, as well as applying double standards to Jews, would certainly qualify). The Romani are still categorized as South Asians, even though they've been in Europe for roughly as long as Jews have. Chinese-Singaporeans and Chinese-Malays are categorized as Chinese despite living in those countries since the Middle Ages, if not earlier. I could go on and on.

I don't see these arbitrary guidelines applied anywhere else except here, and I'd really like to know why.

It could also be pointed out that if "not all Jews are Middle Eastern", than the "North American people by ethnic or national origin" category doesn't belong here either. After all, not all Jews are ethnic Jews. That tiny, minuscule percentage of converts isn't ethnically Jewish in any way. So if we're going by the logic that a category is inapplicable unless it applies to "all" within it, why don't we remove that as well? The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 14:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore, "this has been discussed" is a semantic stop sign. It is not valid reason for gatekeeping a category, or enforcing a parent cat's removal. That you obtained a "consensus" (and I'm using scare quotes here because most voted to keep the category, not to remove it) favorable to your own POV years back does not preclude us from revisiting the topic again in the future. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not WP:Consensus. The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 14:34, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Ashkenazi is absolutely Middle Eastern


 * Approximately there’s 82% of Jew is Ashkenazi.Ashkenazi is a descendant of about 330-50 people.Partly of your word is right.Though there’s really Jew who looks European,but they still share some common Jewish features,e.g:Shulem Lemmer,myself(I have a Jew face,a European nose and a pair of Asian eyes),or at least still carry that special Jew gene mark(Except Kaifeng Jews). You should notice a fact that most of Jews still share the same gene,or acknowledges their identity(unless you’re a Marrano that possibility that you forget your identity’s risk will be more higher). Akiva Bernake (talk) 15:01, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you're talking about here? Most of this has nothing to do with the conversation at hand.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 15:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

If Jews are not a founding Middle East people, how are their ancient relics e.g the Dead Sea Scrolls and Temple Mosaics still being found in the Middle East (modern Israel) from 2,600 years ago?  Masses and masses of archeological evidence abounds   In addition there is no significant difference between Ashkenazi populations dispersed to Europe and Mizrachi populations dispersed to the Arab world in terms of genetics, culture, linguistic roots and so on as proven by recent DNA studies. Jews are part of the Middle East diaspora and any efforts to remove this link would be strange to the point of unique bias.  CelebrateIsrael (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that Ashkenazi is Jew and is Middle Eastern.
I absolutely agree that Ashkenazi is Jew and is Middle Eastern. Akiva Bernake (talk) 15:41, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Who is disputing that Ashkenazim are Jewish? What is clear is that Ashkenazi Jews coalesced as a group *in Europe*. Ashkenaz literally means Germany. Nobody disputes that Judaism originated in the Middle East (as did Christianity and Islam). Why would anyone dispute that Ashkenazim, as a group, originated in Europe? It's plain as day. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 16:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but it's much older than that! It's the name of one of Noah's sons. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Good to know that medieval Rhineland Jews were hanging around with Noah's fam. Who knew. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 23:24, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe because Noah (assuming he even existed) was long dead by the time Jews first made their way to the Rhineland? You're clearly missing his point.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 02:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * His point is fatuous, because the ancient meaning of the term has little to do with what Ashkenazi means in terms of the emergence of Ashkenazi Jewish identity in the medieval Rhineland. Bohemia was known by medieval Jews as "The Land of Canaan" (hence "Canaanic" being the term for the Judeo-Slavic language in the Czech lands). This does not mean that medieval Bohemian Jews (or modern ones) have anything to do with ancient Canaan. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 08:29, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for that?The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 04:26, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Lol - they identified with founding Middle Eastern patriarchs. Ashkenaz was identified most closely with Eastern Iranians. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * They coalesced as a diaspora Jewish population in Central/Eastern Europe. Guess where the Jewish diaspora originates? Ashkenazi Jews are so named because they are Jews (read: Middle Easterners) whose ancestors migrated north into Ashkenaz.
 * This is speculation for which there is literally no evidence CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Who are you replying to? Because my claim has reams of evidence. I mean, it's right here in this thread.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:00, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Terms like "Ashkenazi", "Mizrahi", etc are geographic terms denoting where Jews sojourned post-exile. Acting as if this tertiary geographic designator somehow nullifies their Middle Eastern origin/descent is akin to arguing that Boers are not of European descent, which they clearly are.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 18:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The Jewish people most certainly did not originate in the State of Israel. The Jewish people is of slightly older vintage than 71 years ago. The comparison to Boers doesn't stand. Can one convert to Boerism? Is there a Boerist religion? It's a mostly Dutch-derived African culture, nothing more that I can discern. Judaism is an evolving civilization that includes thousands of years of religion, culture, language, customs, ethnicity, nationality, and much else. Jews are not comparable to the Dutch or the Han Chinese. Jewishness is not reduceable to "blood". Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "The Jewish people most certainly did not originate in the State of Israel."


 * Needless contrarianism and nitpicking. You knew exactly what I meant.


 * "The comparison to Boers doesn't stand. Can one convert to Boerism? Is there a Boerist religion? It's a mostly Dutch-derived African culture, nothing more that I can discern."


 * Jews are an ethnoreligious/national group. Boers are more strictly an ethnic group, but this is splitting hairs. My point is that there absolutely IS an ethnic component to Jewishness, and the vast majority of Jews (both historically and presently) are not converts. It is a given that other ethnoreligious groups (e.g. Druze, Yezidis, Maronites, etc, all of whom allow conversion and yet are still categorized as Middle Eastern) would have been better comparisons here, but the comparison with Boers is still valid for the reasons I've outlined. And I used Boers specifically to illustrate my broader point that an ethnic group's settlement in another part of the world (i.e. diaspora) does not constitute ethnogenesis, nor does it cancel out the origins/descent of that ethnic group prior to their settlement in other parts of the world. Descent is immutable. It's not clay.


 * "Judaism is an evolving civilization that includes thousands of years of religion, culture, language, customs, ethnicity, nationality, and much else. Jews are not comparable to the Dutch or the Han Chinese. Jewishness is not reduceable to "blood"."


 * Jews are a nation and ethnic group. And like virtually all nations, there exists an autochtonous ethnic group indigenous to where that nation originates. Jews are no different in this regard (with conversion being more akin to a naturalization process - it's not at all like conversion to Islam or Christianity or Buddhism). And this brings me back to my earlier points about Irish and English people. Irish are an ethnic group and a nation, just like the Jews. Most modern Irish people trace their ancestry to native Celts. But not ALL of them do, and yet Irish people are still categorized under "Celtic people" on here. No one objects to that categorization because they know that foreign ancestry/immigration does not cancel out the origins of most Irish people. Likewise, English people are categorized under "Germanic peoples", but no one in their right mind would argue that Sadiq Khan or Priti Patel (both of whom are included under English people) are in any way, shape, or form Germanic. So, by that same metric, what's the problem with including Jews under Middle Eastern? After all, Jews originate in the Middle East, and most Jews (as in, 99% of global Jewry) have Middle Eastern descent. What's the problem with acknowledging that? The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 01:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

There is no question that Jews are a founding Middle Eastern people and there is no significant difference between Ashkenazi Jews who were dispersed and Mizrachi Jews who stayed in the Middle East in terms of genetics, culture or language roots. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 15:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Jews are not from Middle Eastern descent. 1. There have been so many proselytes, that almost no living Jew can be sure who were their forefathers. 2. Most Jews do not self-identify as being of Middle Eastern descent. I, for example, identify as being of Dutch descent. Without self-identification, Wikipedia should not use the category. 3. Even if technically, many Jews are from Middle Eastern descent, this is from over 2,00 years (~100 generations) ago, and is not relevant to Wikipedia categorizing. 4. This has been discussed intensively years ago, and there is a clear consensus not to have this category. 4. These categories were added by User:The Human Trumpet Solo on September 26 in this edit, and the consensus version of this page is without it. The burden of proof is therefore on him to show that there is consensus for this. Please note that consensus is established on all related categories. Category:People of Jewish descent, which is the parent category of this one, shows no Middle eastern category.  6. User:The Human Trumpet Solo was reported at WP:ANI in 2017 for edit warring about precisely this same issue (see User_talk:The_Human_Trumpet_Solo), and he is at it again. Another editor also has warned him already on his talkpage (see User_talk:The_Human_Trumpet_Solo). Debresser (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Jews are not from Middle Eastern descent. 1. There have been so many proselytes, that almost no living Jew can be sure who were their forefathers.

You could not be more wrong. Every Jew who marries has a Ketuba - it's a document checked by a rabbi and verified in front of 10 members of the community saying who the parents are. Every male child has a brit mila (checked) and every death is checked. We have always been a highly literate and documenting people. There have been tiny numbers of proselytes - both because we don't accept converts and because it was no pleasure to be Jew in Christendom; no one wanted in to the tribe, for sure! Apart from genetics, which prove 75% Levantine DNA across the entire Jewish population (including Ashkenazi) there are ancient family names - Cohen, Levi (priests,) Benjamin, Judah... names that non Jews never take.CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * There are those who maintain that the number of proselytes used to be much higher at times. Even if I accept the figure of 75%, then that clearly does not justify that we on Wikipedia should add a category to the 100%. Debresser (talk) 10:52, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you didn't read my original post, because not a single category on here requires "100%" to be included within a parent cat. And I gave a ton of examples, which you ignored.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

2. Most Jews do not self-identify as being of Middle Eastern descent. I, for example, identify as being of Dutch descent. Without self-identification, Wikipedia should not use the category.

Because one person self identifies as Dutch, it does nothing to change the fact that Jews are a Middle Eastern people who are closely associated with Israel in daily prayers, customs, festivals and the Hebrew language. Europeans would tell us to "go back to your Palestine!" CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:16, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but self-identification is a very important principle on Wikipedia. We often should not add ethnicity categories without it. See also WP:CAT/EGRS. Debresser (talk) 10:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. That you choose not to recognize our collective origins in the Middle East (whatever your reasons) does not make those origins any less a reality. For instance, it doesn't matter how loudly or angrily a Boer individual insists he is "not of European descent". He's still going under the European descent category.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

3. Even if technically, many Jews are from Middle Eastern descent, this is from over 2,00 years (~100 generations) ago, and is not relevant to Wikipedia categorizing.

Jews have returned to what is now renamed Israel century after century. You may not know the history but most of us do. For example, the first printing press in the Middle East was built in 1577 in Safed and printed in Hebrew. The Safed community and Jerusalem Jews had several working synagogues - the Rambam having been operational almost without cease since 1267. There are thousands of citations in libraries of European Rabbis turning to the superior knowledge of the parent, Middle Eastern communities and bringing Jews home where possible. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 23:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

We literally have our own bone marrow bank world wide because the mitrochondrial DNA is 75% Levantine (Middle Eastern) and Jews are more likely to get a medical match from other Jews than from ANY host population. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Please refrain from personal attacks ("You may not know the history"). How is modern Israel even relevant to a discussion about Jewish descent? Debresser (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "Please refrain from personal attacks". Indeed. But you should take your own advice first.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

4. This has been discussed intensively years ago, and there is a clear consensus not to have this category. 4. These categories were added by User:The Human Trumpet Solo on September 26 in this edit, and the consensus version of this page is without it. The burden of proof is therefore on him to show that there is consensus for this. Please note that consensus is established on all related categories. Category:People of Jewish descent, which is the parent category of this one, shows no Middle eastern category. 6. User:The Human Trumpet Solo was reported at WP:ANI in 2017 for edit warring about precisely this same issue (see User_talk:The_Human_Trumpet_Solo), and he is at it again. Another editor also has warned him already on his talkpage (see User_talk:The_Human_Trumpet_Solo). Debresser (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

"Another editor also has warned him already on his talkpage". That was you. You simply refused to sign your name initially, presumably so that it would look like I have more people against me than I really do. The only other "warning" was from a similarly aggressive user whose antics recently got him topic-banned (and justifiably so).The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

You have some kind of personal issue that is against the vast bulk of Jewish opinion. Even Ashkenazim have, and have always had, family in the Middle East. To pretend Jews are not a founding Middle Eastern people, with the history (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish Temple mosaics and royal seals, synagogues of centuries and more turning up in the archaeology every week ) is, frankly, to disenfranchise us from reality. Most Jews would find this very insulting. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Again, please refrain from personal attacks ("You have some kind of personal issue"). Please be insulted, but I am willing to maintain that almost no Jew would identify as being of "Middle Eastern descent" based on the 2,000 year old history. As I have stated in the previous discussion, people tend to restrict their feelings of descent to 2-4 generations. Debresser (talk) 11:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Please also notice that you left a few of my arguments without reply... Debresser (talk) 11:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * "I am willing to maintain that almost no Jew would identify as being of "Middle Eastern descent" based on the 2,000 year old history." WP:ANECDOTE. Unless you have sources to support this claim, it has no relevance. But while we're on the subject of anecdotes, I've not met a single Jew in my entire life who did not identify as Middle Eastern. At least not until I got on Wikipedia.


 * Also, is this some kind of a joke? Jew" literally means "Judean". To be a Jew is be part of a Middle Eastern nation and ethnic group that originates in historic Judea, which is *surprise* in the Middle East. There is absolutely nothing on here - no rule or guideline - that suggests ethnic origins become "moot" after centuries of diaspora. Quite the opposite. English people are still listed under Germanic, even though A ) not all English people have Germanic descent and B ) most English people have not been in Saxony since the early Middle Ages. Romani are still listed as South Asian despite leaving India in the Middle Ages. I've not seen a single category on here that has some arbitrary "statute of limitations", except this one. Why?The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * "Please also notice that you left a few of my arguments without reply..." He/she may have, but I didn't. I've responded to each one. You still have yet to address most of my arguments.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:21, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

"Jews are not from Middle Eastern descent"

Have any citations for this?

1. You should read what I wrote above, because I answered this point in great detail. To recap... "User:Debresser's insistence that "not all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent" is not good enough and, for the most part, not even true. One, with the exception of recent converts, who collectively make up less than 1% of the total Jewish population, all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent. 1% is not enough to remove a category. Two, even if that weren't the case, removing it would still be inconsistent with Wikipedia's wider categorization scheme. For instance, Irish people are categorized under "Celtic people". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_people. Does that mean everybody in Ireland is a Celt? Does it mean recent immigrants to Ireland from India or Africa are Celts? Obviously not. Is everybody in Britain "Germanic", as this category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_people) suggests? Again, the answer is no. Then you have the claim that Ashkenazi Jews are not "really" Middle Eastern, either because they are "phonies" or have been away for "too long". This argument is similarly inconsistent, and borders on blatant anti-Semitism (denying Jewish heritage/identity, as well as applying double standards to Jews, would certainly qualify). The Romani are still categorized as South Asians, even though they've been in Europe for roughly as long as Jews have. Chinese-Singaporeans and Chinese-Malays are categorized as Chinese despite living in those countries since the Middle Ages, if not earlier. I could go on and on. "

2. I'd like to see some statistics for that. Otherwise, it is just WP:ANECDOTE and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You are free to identify however you please, but feelings mean nothing. And I don't see how acknowledging the Middle Eastern origin of Jews detracts in any way from your own identity, as if it is somehow in competition with pre-diasporic Jewish history.

3. I answered this already. Refer back to number 1.

4. One, WP:CCC. Two, the majority actually "voted" in favoring of keeping the category. It was only removed after you WP:HOUNDed an admin for his decision to keep it.

5. My adding the category was consisted with WP:BRD. You could've just reverted and then discussed, but instead you opted for gate-keeping and semantic stop signs (i.e. "this has been discussed"), ignoring WP:CCC.

6. That was 2 years ago. And if I recall, you were brought to ANI for the same exact reasons, as well as for emotionally-charged attacks and belligerent behavior. In fact, you are doing the same things again right now. You are now over well over the 3RR, last I checked. Now it looks as though you're also guilty of WP:Personal attacks and WP:BULLY. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Rainbowofpeace&diff=921221448&oldid=915169507 The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 16:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * @User:CelebrateIsrael There no question that Christians and Muslims originated in the Middle East either, but that doesn't mean that Christians/Muslims are inherently Middle Eastern. Judaism also originated in the Middle East. But to say that an Ethiopian Jew or a Chinese Jew or a Lithuanian Jew is "Middle Eastern" is an absurd atavistic racist essentialism. Jewishness is a culture and a religion and a multi-ethnic ethnicity and a nation, but it is not a race.

Jews are not a race - we are an ethno nationalism - a group of people connected by Middle Eastern culture, Middle Eastern language (Hebrew,) 75% Middle Eastern genes. No one would say Sikhs were French in origin... or Yazidis who have fled as refugees to England are not clearly Middle Eastern. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Being Jewish is not genetically determined. That's a plainly racist viewpoint. A Jew is someone with a Jewish mother or someone who has converted to Judaism. If you are Reform, you would accept patrilineals as Jewish as well.

This is a nit picking argument based on a tiny percentage of the population and the recent emancipation of Jewry. In the last two millennia, the number of converts into Judaism has been miniscule. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The claim that there are no differences between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim is absurd on its face, the terms of distinction wouldn't even exist if there weren't notable differences. "Mizrahi", furthermore, is a label of fairly recent usage and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with genetics. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 16:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "There no question that Christians and Muslims originated in the Middle East either, but that doesn't mean that Christians/Muslims are inherently Middle Eastern. Judaism also originated in the Middle East."


 * This isn't comparable. Christianity and Islam are both openly proselytizing religions, and neither of them have an ethnic component. Jewishness, on the other hand, does have an ethnic component. Furthermore, Judaism is not an openly proselytizing religion. It is a national/ethnic religion (much like Maronite Christianity, Coptic Christianity, Druze, Yezidis, Samaritans, etc and all of these groups are included under the Middle Eastern category without question), one which many Jews do not practice. And most importantly, the vast overwhelming majority of Jews are not converts. Per the main article on Jews... "Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent. The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language. " and Jews (יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation,   originating from the Israelites   and Hebrews  of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated,  as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance. 


 * ''Jews originated as an ethnic and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, in the part of the Levant known as the Land of Israel. The Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE (Late Bronze Age). The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as 'Hebrews'. Though few sources mention the exilic periods in detail, the experience of diaspora life, from the Ancient Egyptian rule over the Levant, to Assyrian captivity and exile, to Babylonian captivity and exile, to Seleucid Imperial rule, to the Roman occupation and exile, and the historical relations between Jews and their homeland thereafter, became a major feature of Jewish history, identity and memory.


 * Botticini, Maristella and Zvi Eckstein. "From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of History." pp. 18–19. August 2006. Accessed 21 November 2015. "The death toll of the Great Revolt against the Roman empire amounted to about 600,000 Jews, whereas the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 caused the death of about 500,000 Jews. Massacres account for roughly 40 percent of the decrease of the Jewish population in Palestine. Moreover, some Jews migrated to Babylon after these revolts because of the worse economic conditions. After accounting for massacres and migrations, there is an additional 30 to 40 percent of the decrease in the Jewish population in Palestine (about 1–1.3 million Jews) to be explained" (p. 19).
 * Boyarin, Daniel, and Jonathan Boyarin. 2003. Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Diaspora. p. 714 "...it is crucial to recognize that the Jewish conception of the Land of Israel is similar to the discourse of the Land of many (if not nearly all) "indigenous" peoples of the world. Somehow the Jews have managed to retain a sense of being rooted somewhere in the world through twenty centuries of exile from that someplace (organic metaphors are not out of place in this discourse, for they are used within the tradition itself). It is profoundly disturbing to hear Jewish attachment to the Land decried as regressive in the same discursive situations in which the attachment of native Americans or Australians to their particular rocks, trees, and deserts is celebrated as an organic connection to the Earth that "we" have lost" p. 714.
 * Cohen, Robin. 1997. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. p. 24 London: UCL Press. "...although the word Babylon often connotes captivity and oppression, a rereading of the Babylonian period of exile can thus be shown to demonstrate the development of a new creative energy in a challenging, pluralistic context outside the natal homeland. When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in AD 70, it was Babylon that remained as the nerve- and brain-centre for Jewish life and thought...the crushing of the revolt of the Judaeans against the Romans and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman general Titus in AD 70 precisely confirmed the catastrophic tradition. Once again, Jews had been unable to sustain a national homeland and were scattered to the far corners of the world" (p. 24).
 * Johnson, Paul A History of the Jews "The Bar Kochba Revolt," (HarperPerennial, 1987) pp. 158–61.: Paul Johnson analyzes Cassius Dio's Roman History: Epitome of Book LXIX para. 13–14 (Dio's passage cited separately) among other sources: "Even if Dio's figures are somewhat exaggerated, the casualties amongst the population and the destruction inflicted on the country would have been considerable. According to Jerome, many Jews were also sold into slavery, so many, indeed, that the price of Jewish slaves at the slave market in Hebron sank drastically to a level no greater than that for a horse. The economic structure of the country was largely destroyed. The entire spiritual and economic life of the Palestinian Jews moved to Galilee. Jerusalem was now turned into a Roman colony with the official name Colonia Aelia Capitolina (Aelia after Hadrian's family name: P. Aelius Hadrianus; Capitolina after Jupiter Capitolinus). The Jews were forbidden on pain of death to set foot in the new Roman city. Aelia thus became a completely pagan city, no doubt with the corresponding public buildings and temples...We can...be certain that a statue of Hadrian was erected in the centre of Aelia, and this was tantamount in itself to a desecration of Jewish Jerusalem." p. 159.
 * Cassius Dio's Roman History: Epitome of Book LXIX para. 13–14: "13 At first the Romans took no account of them. Soon, however, all Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by overt acts; 2 many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. 3 Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and his under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. 2 Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. 3 Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, 'If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health'" (para. 13–14).
 * Safran, William. 2005. The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective. Israel Studies 10 (1): 36. "...diaspora referred to a very specific case—that of the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land and their dispersal throughout several parts of the globe. Diaspora [galut] connoted deracination, legal disabilities, oppression, and an often painful adjustment to a hostland whose hospitality was unreliable and ephemeral. It also connoted the existence on foreign soil of an expatriate community that considered its presence to be transitory. Meanwhile, it developed a set of institutions, social patterns, and ethnonational and/or religious symbols that held it together. These included the language, religion, values, social norms, and narratives of the homeland. Gradually, this community adjusted to the hostland environment and became itself a center of cultural creation. All the while, however, it continued to cultivate the idea of return to the homeland." (p. 36).
 * Sheffer, Gabriel. 2005. Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique? Reflections on the Diaspora's Current Situation. Israel Studies 10 (1): pp. 3–4. "...the Jewish nation, which from its very earliest days believed and claimed that it was the "chosen people," and hence unique. This attitude has further been buttressed by the equally traditional view, which is held not only by the Jews themselves, about the exceptional historical age of this diaspora, its singular traumatic experiences its singular ability to survive pogroms, exiles, and Holocaust, as well as its "special relations" with its ancient homeland, culminating in 1948 with the nation-state that the Jewish nation has established there... First, like many other members of established diasporas, the vast majority of Jews no longer regard themselves as being in Galut [exile] in their host countries.7 Perceptually, as well as actually, Jews permanently reside in host countries of their own free will, as a result of inertia, or as a result of problematic conditions prevailing in other hostlands, or in Israel. It means that the basic perception of many Jews about their existential situation in their hostlands has changed. Consequently, there is both a much greater self- and collective-legitimatization to refrain from making serious plans concerning "return" or actually "making Aliyah" [to emigrate, or "go up"] to Israel. This is one of the results of their wider, yet still rather problematic and sometimes painful acceptance by the societies and political systems in their host countries. It means that they, and to an extent their hosts, do not regard Jewish life within the framework of diasporic formations in these hostlands as something that they should be ashamed of, hide from others, or alter by returning to the old homeland" (p. 4).
 * Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts Between the Exiles and the People who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE), A&C Black, 2013 p. xv n.3: 'it is argued that biblical texts of the Neo-Babylonian and the early Persian periods show a fierce adversarial relationship(s) between the Judean groups. We find no expressions of sympathy to the deported community for its dislocation, no empathic expressions towards the People Who Remained under Babylonian subjugation in Judah. The opposite is apparent: hostile, denigrating, and denunciating language characterizes the relationships between resident and exiled Judeans throughout the sixth and fifth centuries.' (p. xvii) Prior to World War II, the worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of the world population at that time. Approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has slowly risen again, and  was estimated at 14.6–17.8 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank, less than 0.2% of the total world population. 
 * We have no trouble recognizing these realities, supported by a vast wealth of academic RS, elsewhere on Wikipedia. So why are we having this problem here? WP:RS and WP:CONSISTENCY come first.
 * Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts Between the Exiles and the People who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE), A&C Black, 2013 p. xv n.3: 'it is argued that biblical texts of the Neo-Babylonian and the early Persian periods show a fierce adversarial relationship(s) between the Judean groups. We find no expressions of sympathy to the deported community for its dislocation, no empathic expressions towards the People Who Remained under Babylonian subjugation in Judah. The opposite is apparent: hostile, denigrating, and denunciating language characterizes the relationships between resident and exiled Judeans throughout the sixth and fifth centuries.' (p. xvii) Prior to World War II, the worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of the world population at that time. Approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has slowly risen again, and  was estimated at 14.6–17.8 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank, less than 0.2% of the total world population. 
 * We have no trouble recognizing these realities, supported by a vast wealth of academic RS, elsewhere on Wikipedia. So why are we having this problem here? WP:RS and WP:CONSISTENCY come first.


 * Furthermore, as I outlined in my original comment here, this claim "that 'not all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent' is not good enough and, for the most part, not even true. One, with the exception of recent converts, who collectively make up less than 1% of the total Jewish population, all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent. 1% is not enough to remove a category. Two, even if that weren't the case, removing this category would still be inconsistent with Wikipedia's wider categorization scheme. For instance, Irish people are categorized under "Celtic people". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_people. Does that mean everybody in Ireland is a Celt? Does it mean recent immigrants to Ireland from India or Africa are Celts? Of course not. Is everybody in Britain "Germanic", as this category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_people) claims? Again, the answer is no. I could go on and on with this.


 * Then you have the claim that Ashkenazi Jews are not "really" Middle Eastern, either because they are "phonies" or have been away for "too long". This argument is similarly inconsistent, and verges on blatant antisemitism (denying Jewish heritage/identity, as well as applying double standards to Jews). The Romani are still categorized as South Asians, even though they've been in Europe for roughly as long as Jews have. Chinese-Singaporeans and Chinese-Malays are categorized as Chinese despite living in those countries since the Middle Ages, if not earlier. I could go on and on.


 * I don't see these arguments applied anywhere else except here. Why? What makes Jews different? Why should we make an exception for Jews? Why the double standards?


 * It could also be pointed out that if "not all Jews are Middle Eastern", than the "North American people by ethnic or national origin" category doesn't belong here either. After all, not all Jews are ethnic Jews. That tiny, minuscule percentage of converts isn't ethnically Jewish in any way. So if we're going by the logic that a category is inapplicable unless it applies to "all" within it, why don't we remove that as well?"


 * "But to say that an Ethiopian Jew or a Chinese Jew or a Lithuanian Jew is "Middle Eastern" is an absurd atavistic racist essentialism." Why? Because they mixed with other populations? I don't know of any other instance wherein ancestry/origins are "canceled out" by acquisition of other ancestries. All three of the aforementioned groups are united, at least in part, by common ancestral origin in Israel. Jews are not, and never were, simply a religion (or even primarily a religion, as there are many Jews who do not practice it at all). But while we're on that note, 99% of the world's Jews are either Ashkenazi, Sephardi, or Mizrahi (or some combination of the three), all three of whom are clearly of Middle Eastern descent. If you have ancestry from any of those populations, there is zero chance that you are not of Middle Eastern descent So even if one accepts the demonstrably false premise that Ethiopian or Chinese Jews have no Middle Eastern ancestry, they amount to less than 1% of the global Jewish population. And, again, 1% is not enough to remove a category, especially when "genetic purity" standards are not applied anywhere else (because if any argument can be considered racist, it's certainly that one).


 * For example, no one would argue that someone who is 1/4 Chinese should be precluded from the Chinese descent category because the rest of their ancestry is non-Chinese. Or that someone who is half-black/half-Mexican can only be included in one of those categories. No one makes those demands because they are self-evidently ridiculous. So I don't know why acknowledgement of the Jewish diaspora's Middle Eastern origin is being so bitterly opposed on here, to the point that opposing editors have aggressively attacked, insulted, smeared me and called on admins to ban me all because I disagree.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 18:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * What is being "bitterly opposed" is explicitly racializing, ahistorical viewpoints that would be considered fringe scientific-racism by many Jews and non-Jews alike. Despite the Southern Levantine origins of the Jewish people, Jewishness and Judaism has become a multi-faceted, multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-racial religion and civilization that is absolutely not reducible to racially essentialist interpretations of genetics. I'm fully aware that being Jewish isn't "just a religion", I'm fully aware that many Jews have a partial genetic inheritance that can be traced back to the Ancient Levant, none of this is news to me or negates my objections. You hugely diminish the number of gerim and their role throughout Jewish history. Halachically speaking, a ger is just as Jewish as a Jew born to a Jewish mother (maybe halacha doesn't matter to you, that's fine, I have no animosity towards secular Jews). A substantial portion of Ashkenazi Jews, Beta Israel, and many others are the descendants of converts (mixed or otherwise). Many of the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews were European women (and men) who converted to Judaism and married Jews. It's most likely that the ancestors of the Beta Israel were originally majority converts who mixed with a small cohort of Middle Eastern Jews. None of this negates Ashkenazi or Ethiopian Jewishness, nor does it have anything to do with "purity" (I think "purity" is an absurdity in this context). And it's not a matter of "mixing" causing Middle Easternness to be "canceled out", it's a matter of numerous Jews not being from the Middle East and not being part of or identifying with Middle Eastern culture and identity. A Lithuanian Jew isn't Middle Eastern because they are from...Lithuania...not the ME. A Chinese Jew, also not from the Middle East. Chinese Jews are Chinese. Etc. Millions upon millions of diaspora Jews, historically and presently, identified/identify quite strongly with the culture or nation they were raised in and would scoff at the idea of being "Middle Eastern" as ridiculous. Can individual non-MENA Jews identify with being Middle Eastern? Sure, go ahead, nobody's stopping you. But the desire to assert an inherent "Levantine" racial essence to Jews is, 1.) Explicitly racialist and promoting discredited 19th century-style pseudo race-science, and 2.) In all likelihood, a tired attempt to trumpet a very particular form of Zionist ideological propaganda while claiming that Zionist political viewpoint to be "the" objective Jewish viewpoint. This is all problematic, and yes, offensive to many Jews who don't want their diasporic identities stripped away and erased, to have racist pseudoscience branded as "Jewish fact", and aggressive Zionist propaganda heralded as the voice of all Jews and Judaism. Declaring all Jews to be "Middle Eastern" invalidates and erases both diasporic Jewish identities as well as Middle Eastern Jewish identities. If all Jews are "Middle Eastern", what are Jews from the Middle East? Middle Eastern Middle Eastern Jews? I'd rather not trample on MENA Jewish identities or echo the tired old refrain that Jews in the diaspora are essentially foreigners who do not belong (Palestinians who wandered into Europe, to paraphrase that great friend of the Jews, Immanuel Kant). I would note that it isn't true that only Judaism has an ethnic component, many religions (including many variants of Christianity and Islam have ethnoreligious aspects).


 * As for Ashkenazim being "phony" Jews or whatever, that is absolutely not my perspective. Hopefully you aren't implying that it is. That sounds like some weird Khazar conspiracy bullshit that I don't subscribe to. A Jew is a person with a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism, regardless of race, skin color, national origin, or genetics. As for the Romani, I would consider branding them as inherently "South Asian" as almost equally farfetched. The Romani are a global diaspora culture that has settled in a huge variety of countries and could be described as "European" just as easily, maybe even more easily, as they could be described as "South Asian." There are Romani of every imaginable skin color, nationality, language, religion, etc. I've met plenty of Roma who identify as white and/or European, for example. There are Arab and MENA Roma, Latino Roma, and so on. I don't want to argue endlessly about Roma identity, but referencing the Roma in regards to Jewish identity isn't very convincing to me. There's no double standard coming from me. I'm sure there are other similar diasporic populations I could point to.


 * One last note: Jews who don't identify as "Middle Eastern" are not "denying Jewish heritage/identity", because being "Middle Eastern" is *not* the heritage or identity of non-MENA Jews who belong to and identify with diasporic cultures. I'm not sure if you are implying that Jews who don't identify as "Middle Eastern" are "bordering on blatant anti-Semitism", but it looks like you are advocating that view or something close to it. My DNA test (take such "tests" with a grain of salt, if not a whole salt block) indicates that I have partial "Middle Eastern DNA" and partial "European DNA". I wouldn't identify as Middle Eastern in a million years. All of my known ancestors are from Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, traceable back at least a few centuries. In terms of heritage, culture, language, cuisine, politics, I would most strongly identify as Eastern European. My "genetics" has literally nothing to do with my culture. You identify as Middle Eastern? Go for it. Don't act like you speak for everyone else though. I have no idea who is harassing or calling for you to be banned. I don't think you should be banned, I just strongly disagree with the ideological views that you are advancing. What can I say, opening a convo about Jewish identity is opening a can, no, a barrel of worms. As they say, 2 Jews 3 opinions. This convo has literally been going on for thousands of years (and hopefully thousands more). Anyway. Chag Sukkot Sameach. It's a New Year, we'll work something out somehow (after arguing over it even more). Best, Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Around 5% of Jews - some here, it seems - adhere to sophisticated arguments and nitpicking to say a whole range of things about Jewish identity in the diaspora. Out in the real world, no one ever thought Jews anything but a Middle Eastern people throughout history. Jews paid for their remains to go home century after century and there are 70 thousand Jewish graves from 3,500 years ago to today in Jerusalem - the Mount of Olives. It would be biased in the extreme and, frankly, weird to divorce the majority of Jews from our Middle Eastern origins - especially based on the arguments of a few naysayers. CelebrateIsrael (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

"What is being "bitterly opposed" is explicitly racializing, ahistorical viewpoints that would be considered fringe scientific-racism by many Jews and non-Jews alike."

The fact that Jews are an ethnic group and that the vast majority of Jews have origins in the Middle East is hardly fringe. On the contrary, there's been an overwhelming genetic consensus on this for decades, and an overwhelming academic one for even longer than that. In fact, Jews have always self-defined this way.

"Despite the Southern Levantine origins of the Jewish people, Jewishness and Judaism has become a multi-faceted, multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-racial religion and civilization that is absolutely not reducible to racially essentialist interpretations of genetics."

In other words, Jews can and did mix with outside populations, like almost every other ethnic group in existence. That's hardly news. My point is, it doesn't change a thing. However mixed one may be, or however strongly attached they are to their diaspora countries, the Middle Eastern descent is still there. My objection is that you appear to view descent/origins as something that can be swapped out or replaced on the fly, simply by settling somewhere else or by dint of intermarriage. It doesn't work that way, certainly not on any other article of this nature.

"You hugely diminish the number of gerim and their role throughout Jewish history."

Outside of Ethiopia, a brief period in ancient Rome, and in ancient Canaan itself, conversion was always rare. Hell, it's still rare. Even in North America. And the vast majority of Jews - all but 1% of global Jewry (if even that) - trace at least part, if not the majority, of their ancestry to ancient Israel. Hence, Middle Eastern diaspora in North America. The vast majority of us are not converts. Are gerim equally Jewish? Of course they are. But that doesn't invalidate the Middle Eastern descent of the Jewish diaspora writ large (which is what this category pertains to). Please refer back to my point about Irish and English people.

"I have no animosity towards secular Jews"

And why do you think secular Jews exist? Could it be that we're.... and ethnicity? Would secular Jews exist if Jews weren't an ethnicity? Hell no. If that were the case, I'd be able to trade in my Jew-card any time I want. But alas, I can't do that. Because it's not possible to change one's ethnicity.

"A substantial portion of Ashkenazi Jews, Beta Israel, and many others are the descendants of converts (mixed or otherwise)."

Ashkenazim, on average, are genetically more than half-Levantine. Without exception. They cluster in between Druze, Lebanese, and southern Europeans on PCA plots. So, Ashkenazim are indisputably Middle Eastern. They're European too (specifically Greek/Italian), but also Middle Eastern. Beta Israel descend primarily from converts, but all of them have Middle Eastern descent (albeit significantly less than that of other Jews). They are African and Middle Eastern.

See, one does not cancel out the other. Both can co-exist, and be acknowledged simultaneously.

"Many of the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews were European women (and men) who converted to Judaism and married Jews."

There were women who converted, but very few men. The Y-DNA line is solidly Middle Eastern. And those who did convert married into the larger Jewish (Middle Eastern) gene pool, and contributed to it. You act as though they outright replaced the original Middle Eastern population that set up colonies in Europe.

"And it's not a matter of "mixing" causing Middle Easternness to be "canceled out", it's a matter of numerous Jews not being from the Middle East and not being part of or identifying with Middle Eastern culture and identity. A Lithuanian Jew isn't Middle Eastern because they are from...Lithuania...not the ME. A Chinese Jew, also not from the Middle East. Chinese Jews are Chinese. Etc."

You contradicted yourself here. First, you say it doesn't cancel out their Middle Eastern. Then, in the same breath, you argue that it does. Which one is it?

As for "not being part of or identifying with Middle Eastern culture and identity", what do you think Jewish culture/identity is? It's literally southern Israelite culture, as preserved by Jews throughout the world and in Israel itself.

"Millions upon millions of diaspora Jews, historically and presently, identified/identify quite strongly with the culture or nation they were raised in and would scoff at the idea of being "Middle Eastern" as ridiculous."

Can you source this please? Because I highly doubt that "millions upon millions" number is accurate. From my experience, most Jews have no trouble at all acknowledging their Middle Eastern origins.

"Can individual non-MENA Jews identify with being Middle Eastern? Sure, go ahead, nobody's stopping you."

You can spin it however you want, but by zealously working to remove the Middle Eastern category from this page, that is precisely what you are doing. I mean, you just said point blank that Ashkenazi Jews are "not Middle Eastern". And for the countless Ashkenazim out there who do identify primarily (if not entirely) as Middle Eastern, you absolutely did deny their identity.

"But the desire to assert an inherent "Levantine" racial essence to Jews is, 1.) Explicitly racialist and promoting discredited 19th century-style pseudo race-science"

When you're done strawmanning and gaslighting me (and comparing peer-reviewed academic papers from less than a decade ago, as well as Wikipedia's own reliably-sourced articles on this same subject, to 19th century race scientists), you might want to go back and read my comments again. You claim you're not denying the Middle Eastern identity of Ashkenazi Jews, and yet here you are equating them with white nationalist pseudo-scientists.

"In all likelihood, a tired attempt to trumpet a very particular form of Zionist ideological propaganda while claiming that Zionist political viewpoint to be "the" objective Jewish viewpoint. This is all problematic, and yes, offensive to many Jews"

You are aware that 97% of the world's Jews are Zionists, right?

"who don't want their diasporic identities stripped away and erased,"

I'm not denying anyone's identity. I'm not the one removing categories and equating Jews who ID as Levantine to "racists" and "discredited pseudo-scientists". You and Debresser are the one's doing that, not me.

Adding on the "Middle Eastern diaspora" category in no way diminishes diaspora history. That is a ludicrous assertion.

"to have racist pseudoscience branded as "Jewish fact","

I cited quite a few RS here. Care to point out to me which of them constitute "racist pseudoscience"?

"and aggressive Zionist propaganda heralded as the voice of all Jews and Judaism"

Again, you are aware that 97% of the world's Jews are Zionists, right?

"Declaring all Jews to be "Middle Eastern" invalidates and erases both diasporic Jewish identities as well as Middle Eastern Jewish identities."

No, it doesn't. Acknowledging the Middle Eastern ethnic identity of Jews qua Jews does not entail invalidating diaspora identity, or vice versa. Believe it or not, it's possible be multiple things at once. These identities are not in competition with one another.

And the fact that you keep using the term "diasporic" here only proves my point. We are a diaspora. A diaspora = a subset of a population that lives outside of its indigenous homeland. Jews outside of Israel are, without exception, called diaspora Jews for a reason. Why? Because the Jewish diaspora is a Middle Eastern one. Hence, the "Middle Eastern diaspora in North America" category.

"If all Jews are "Middle Eastern", what are Jews from the Middle East? Middle Eastern Middle Eastern Jews?"

"Mizrahi Jews" works just fine. "Middle Eastern Jews" is a redundant and silly term.

"echo the tired old refrain that Jews in the diaspora are essentially foreigners who do not belong (Palestinians who wandered into Europe, to paraphrase that great friend of the Jews, Immanuel Kant)."

All you're doing is proving my point. You're gaslighting Jews who identify first and foremost with their Israelite origins and painting them as "racists" for doing so, all while refusing to acknowledge the reams upon reams of academic and DNA sources that are literally right in front of you, which verify the fact that, yes, we collectively originate in the Middle East. This really shouldn't be controversial.

"As for Ashkenazim being "phony" Jews or whatever, that is absolutely not my perspective."

You repeatedly denied their Middle Eastern identity/origins on this page. And on that Washington DC article too.

"As for the Romani, I would consider branding them as inherently "South Asian" as almost equally farfetched. The Romani are a global diaspora culture that has settled in a huge variety of countries and could be described as "European" just as easily, maybe even more easily, as they could be described as "South Asian." There are Romani of every imaginable skin color, nationality, language, religion, etc. I've met plenty of Roma who identify as white and/or European, for example. There are Arab and MENA Roma, Latino Roma, and so on. I don't want to argue endlessly about Roma identity, but referencing the Roma in regards to Jewish identity isn't very convincing to me. There's no double standard coming from me. I'm sure there are other similar diasporic populations I could point to."

And yet Romani are listed under "South Asian diaspora" on their respective categories, with zero objections from anyone. Jews are the ONLY population whose well-documented, well-supported ethnic origins are the object of bitter dispute. It's absolutely absurd and, frankly, racist.

"One last note: Jews who don't identify as "Middle Eastern" are not "denying Jewish heritage/identity", because being "Middle Eastern" is *not* the heritage or identity of non-MENA Jews who belong to and identify with diasporic cultures. I'm not sure if you are implying that Jews who don't identify as "Middle Eastern" are "bordering on blatant anti-Semitism", but it looks like you are advocating that view or something close to it."

Arguing that Ashkenazim are "inauthentically" Middle Eastern and applying double standards to Jews is antisemitic. That's what I said. You may take from that what you wish.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 01:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Ah, somehow I missed this one.

"Please note that consensus is established on all related categories. Category:People of Jewish descent, which is the parent category of this one, shows no Middle eastern category."

That's because you and your now topic-banned friend kept reverting anyone who tried to add it.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * However that may be, such is the consensus version for many years now. You have to show consensus to change this, and unless you do so (and so far you have not been able to do so), your edits don't abide by the Wikipedia policies and guidelines of WP:BURDEN and WP:CONSENSUS, so I kindly ask you to self-revert, or be reverted with possible sanctions for not complying with those policies and guidelines. Debresser (talk) 17:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * One, this topic has been polarized for many years now. And I'd hardly describe what transpired two years ago "consensus". All it takes is one look at that category's revision history to see how Two, even if it was, WP:CCC still applies here. As it does elsewhere. Please review it.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 19:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore, I've been quite vocal in the past on my belief that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank should be dismantled and evacuated, just like in Gaza. So I'm afraid your claim that I am a "Zionist operative" is misplaced. I'm simply puzzled as to why there is so much obscurantism at work vis a vis the Middle Eastern descent of most (and by "most", I mean upwards of 99%) modern Jews.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 13:18, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Just that I should know, who claims you are a "Zionist operative"? Debresser (talk) 17:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Go back and read Bohemian Baltimore's post.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 19:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * User:The Human Trumpet Solo, Literally no one called anyone a "Zionist operative". This is colorful language of your own invention. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Localising the references (better if this section is archived). Specifying single column since there are lots of long quotes. --Mirokado (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thread has gone off the rails
Sorry, but this thread has become unreadable. @User:CelebrateIsrael, I don't know exactly what is going on but this is not how comments should be replied to on a talk page. This conversation has becoming confusing and impossible to follow. Bohemian Baltimore (talk)
 * Apologies if I have made mistakes in the format. Please respect the integrity of the comments as they are significant.CelebrateIsrael (talk) 23:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I would love to, if I could make head from tails. The thread can't even be read. I'm not disrespecting the "integrity" of the comments, I'm trying to place them in logical order so that human beings can read them. I'm so lost I'm throwing up my hands for the moment. Oy. Bohemian Baltimore (talk)

What has become abundantly clear from the above discussion is that this recent edit has no consensus, and that it is opposed by knowledgeable editors with a plethora of good arguments. User:The Human Trumpet Solo, please comply with the relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and self-revert till such time as you obtain consensus. Debresser (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I also remind editors that this issue was discussed, and rejected, at Category_talk:Jews. Debresser (talk) 10:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * That was 7 years ago. I wasn't even active on this topic back then. Furthermore, adding that particular category under "Asian people" would inconsistent with Wikipedia's wider categorization schema, as no similar categories (e.g. Samaritans, Druze, Yezidis) are included. And it's already under a subcat anyway.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 12:43, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * So? That only shows that the present version has a consensus of 7 years ! Debresser (talk) 17:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I see no such ruling on there. And, again, WP:CCC. The fact that this category/categories have been the subject of countless edit wars and heated discussions since then (with you and the now-topic banned Sir Joseph serving as WP:POLICE) demonstrates that quite clearly. And since there will most likely never be unanimity on this, the only proper course of action is to apply WP:CONSISTENCY via WP:RS. You're not going to browbeat, insult, and threaten me into going against Wikipedia's guidelines, structure and RS. Repeating "Jews are not Middle Eastern" (a claim which, per the copious amount of RS provided here, is demonstrably false) ad nauseum is not good enough. Nor should it be for anyone.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 19:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

how is this even a discussion?
it is a fact that Jews are an ethnoreligious tribal people whose origins are in the middle east. The genetic arguments are pretty much proven that they trace their origin as a people to the Levant. it is a fact that Judaism is the spiritual mode and method of those people and in the modern context there are a small percentage of converts however conversion is discouraged in Judaism. using the entire " there are some jews who aren't actually jewish" is a weak argument. There are people who follow Judaism who are not of Jewish ethnicity but again its a small percentage.

I think its a huge red flag that certain users spend so much time editing Jewish and Israeli topics and make the same arguments every time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingryan6966 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The conversation is above, chap. Also remember to add four of these ~ at the end of each comment.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 03:16, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I am new at this. the chat up top was getting to be quite long anyway, it seems like some people have difficulty just saying " ok I was wrong" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingryan6966 (talk • contribs) 05:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No one in this conversation is making the outrageous claim that "there are some jews who aren't actually jewish" and your insinuation that Jewish converts are less Jewish than "ethnic" Jews (or perhaps not Jewish at all) is offensive. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:18, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The discussion is indeed above. In any case, what you perceive as "fact" is something I and other editors, a consensus of a majority of editors for quite a few years as a matter of fact, disagree with for many good reasons. Please join the discussion above. Debresser (talk) 11:03, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, most of the editors present disagreed with you. But you and several others very noisily objected when an admin decided to keep the category, and appealed to another admin to reverse it. That's not consensus, and it certainly isn't "majority support".The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not avoid facts just because they seem controversial. Evolution, abortion, climate change and immigrant and LGBTQ issues are also controversial. That's why wikipedia must state the facts we have historical proof that the Jews are a Levantine people who lived in Israel and were directed into a DIASPORA by the Roman's. Now if you want me to start bringing sources I have several. -Rainbowofpeace (talk) 23:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Nobody is denying that Jews and Judaism originate from the Middle East. It is however not useful to add "Middle Eastern descent" and "Asian descent" to biographical categories about Jewish or Jewish-descent people. Jews have created their own identity and adding this millenium-old "descent" to every single Jewish category is overkill and serves absolutely no purpose. Jews are not the only diaspora group that has migrated in the last few thousand years. Will you add "Mongol descent" to every Native American category? "Central Asian descent" to every Slavic or Turkish people category? "South Asian descent" to every Indo-European category? "East African descent" to every human article in the encyclopedia? (After all, we are all homo sapiens.) This is a disruption of Wikipedia's category system to make a very unclear POINT. This has been discussed extensively on Category talk:People of Jewish descent among others. Oh, and people arguing that most of the editors present disagreed with you, you may notice the number of single-purpose accounts attracted by this topic (see a new one that just reverted me). I wonder which external forum is receiving alarming message about Wikipedia plotting to undermine Jewish or Israeli identity. If this is the case and if you are coming from there, you've been lied to. Place Clichy (talk) 16:52, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Great to hear that you know that Jews are of Middle Eastern descent, but saying that you removed the categories that confirm that because in your eyes it makes little sense to place them there is not really credible considering how you are actively targeting and erasing those categories EVERYWHERE but placing for example Middle Eastern diaspora in Arab diaspora in North America. That is what I call trying to make a point! Also, the fact that Jews are of Middle Eastern descent may be something that you know, but a lot of people are in fact denying and erasing that identity or don't even know that when that is actually very important in current discussions, too. You are actively contributing to that misinformation giving questionable reasons. Categorising Jews in Middle Eastern descent is not wrong and not withholding or hiding that information is very important considering that it is put into question constantly for the sake of certain narratives and arguments. Why such a passion to remove it? (Info Anonym (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC))


 * I agree with Place Clichy that the fact that Jews are mostly (converts excluded) descendants of Jews who lived approximately 2,000 years ago in the Middle East, is hardly reason to call modern Jews being of Middle Eastern descent. Jews went through a lot of countries, but only a few generations are relevant for most people, and likewise for categorization here on Wikipedia. Add to that a few more arguments, mentioned above. In any case, we'll probably make this a Rfc. Debresser (talk) 01:41, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Stop removing a category that is relevant and most of all true! I don’t see how it would bother someone so much to disconnect Jews and the Middle East, knowing there is a connection, to go around and delete the categories unless they have an ulterior motive. Jews descend from the Middle East, DNA tests prove that modern Jews are still overwhelmingly Middle Eastern, Jews rightfully consider themselves and identify as Middle Eastern, Jewish religion and culture originates and is closely tied to the Middle East e.g. religious Jews have always prayed and pray to Jerusalem every day which is and was in the Middle East and now the Jewish state has been reestablished in the Middle East again! Yes, of course, their middle eastern descent is important and valid! And even if you were to take that argument about the last generations into consideration, we can then make the point that by now the majority of Jews have been in the Middle East for generations again + the mizrahi and Sephardi jews who have been there even earlier! This category confirming the connection is important and relevant considering that people regularly deny it and use that denial of Jewish indigeneity and even just presence in the Middle East before the reestablishment of Israel as argument for its annihilation and illegitimacy. You literally bring no better argument forward than the fact that you personally (!) don’t deem it relevant. If you don’t undo it or leave it when I do or someone else does it, that ultimately only proves how you are just trying to make an argument. Possibly the one I mentioned before. (Info Anonym (talk) 03:18, 18 October 2019 (UTC))


 * Please read WP:TRUTH. Also, I hold that the category is not true.
 * No, many, perhaps even most Jews, don't "consider themselves and identify as Middle Eastern". By no means!
 * The fact that "Jewish religion and culture originates and is closely tied to the Middle East" does not establish descent. So much should be obvious.
 * The fact that "people regularly deny it and use that denial of Jewish indigeneity and even just presence in the Middle East before the reestablishment of Israel as argument for its annihilation and illegitimacy" is not a valid argument in this discussion, as it pertains to another issue than the categorization itself.
 * The statement "by now the majority of Jews have been in the Middle East for generations again" is contested. I don't know precisely if and when Jews in Israel became a majority of the Jewish people in the world, but definitely not "generations" ago. Also, the people in the category are only in part related to Jews who live in Israel during the last few generations, and you just can't generalize. Please get used to it that Israel is important to Jews, but not all Jews are Israelis. :)
 * Also please read WP:NPA. Language such as "you personally (!) don’t deem it relevant" are playing on the person, not the argument.
 * In short, this category is contested. For many reasons. Ergo, it can not stay. Both per Wikipedia policies and guidelines like WP:CONSENSUS and also because categorization should be uncontroversial, see WP:CATV. Debresser (talk) 14:25, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

So, first off, WP:TRUTH says that there should be reliable sources for added material. There are many reliable sources that prove that Jews are of middle eastern descent and very, very few contradicting ones, most disproven by now like the Khazar theory. And as I said, which you however ignored, there is scientific evidence through DNA tests that modern day Jews are still overwhelmingly Middle Eastern and the ones who are not - are not actually ethnically Jewish as "Jews" was literally the name given to the people that fled from and were expelled from Judea (hence their name). Unless you argue that (the ancient Jews) Israelites/Judeans are not even Middle Eastern your argument is not consistent.

Moreover WP:TRUTH says that you shouldn’t delete content just because you believe it to be untrue, either. Which is certainly the case with you considering all evidence speaks against the point you’re making that Jews are not Middle Eastern. And in this category talk most people already agreed on that.

"Jewish religion and culture originates and is closely tied to the Middle East“ and "people regularly deny it and use that denial of Jewish indigeneity and even just presence in the Middle East before the reestablishment of Israel as argument for its annihilation and illegitimacy“ - Your criticism towards those statements was that they don’t prove descent. They don’t because that is not what I made them for as nobody had actually been arguing Jewish Middle Eastern descent before you. Place Clichy was talking about how adding it everywhere is an overkill and serves absolutely no purpose. The discussion was about whether that is relevant or not. And as I and Jeffgr9 and others have shown - it is. It is an integral part of Jewish identity. Genetically AND culturally. It has never been lost. But you basically reduced all the points to „2000 years ago so what?“ without actually disproving any of them.

Also me pointing out that you personally don’t deem it relevant is not a case of WP:NPA but me pointing out that it doesn’t seem like a WP:NPOV.

But to make it simple - we are talking about the category „Middle Eastern diaspora in North America“ right? Look at the Wikipedia article for diaspora. It says: „A diaspora is a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale. In particular, diaspora has come to refer to involuntary mass dispersions of a population from its indigenous territories, most notably the expulsion of Jews from the Land of Israel (known as the Jewish diaspora)(…)“. In the article of jewish diaspora it says that it „refers to the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.“. We all know that the Land of Israel, which is described as the ancestral homeland of the Jews, was in the Middle East. Thus, even following the definitions ON WIKIPEDIA, it makes sense to call it a Middle Eastern Diaspora especially considering the goal of categories is to able to navigate through WIKIPEDIA and contradictions within wikipedia are not helpful!

And concerning the last two guidelines you pointed to:

- WP:CONSENSUS says „In deletion discussions, a lack of consensus normally results in the article, page, image, or other content being kept.“ Which is what it started off as!

- WP:CATV says that a category should GENERALLY be uncontroversial which is very important in the judicial meaning of the word. That means that there are exceptions such as if the category is verifiable and defining. Which it is in this case. If you want to delete that category you need to bring forward evidence that speaks against the category being defining for Jews in North America. Otherwise as WP:CONSENSUS says, we leave it. (Info Anonym (talk) 00:43, 19 October 2019 (UTC))


 * What I meant when referring you to WP:TRUTH is that from the first two lines of that essay you may understand that statements like "Stop removing a category that is relevant and most of all true!" are not very relevant on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not about "The Truth".
 * Wikipedia descent categories are not about DNA evidence. They are also about self-identification and relevance. These two conditions are not met in this case. Not to mention that the DNA evidence itself shows that not all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent, and is all about average gene occurrence.
 * The fact that the name "Jew" has a connection to the Middle East is not relevant to this discussion about descent, not names.
 * There is no such thing as "cultural" descent.
 * This is not a deletion discussion, this is a discussion about whether to include a category. Somebody tried to add it recently, and he has to establish consensus, and obviously has not been able to do so.
 * Wikipedia is not a court room, although sometimes I think that it would be a good think for admins to make their decisions based on good arguments like in a court, so let's not assume that this is the exception to the rule.

„What I meant when referring you to WP:TRUTH is that from the first two lines of that essay you may understand that statements like "Stop removing a category that is relevant and most of all true!" are not very relevant on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not about "The Truth“.“ - Okay, but it is also verifiable by reliable sources as it is required by WP:TRUTH.

„Wikipedia descent categories are not about DNA evidence. They are also about self-identification and relevance. These two conditions are not met in this case. Not to mention that the DNA evidence itself shows that not all Jews are of Middle Eastern descent, and is all about average gene occurrence.“ - I started talking about DNA because YOU started talking about it and now you criticise me for giving you counter arguments. I had been mainly talking about relevance up until you started arguing about the descent although everybody already agreed on that. And I and others already proved that it is relevant (they descend from there, religious jews pray to Jerusalem (in the middle east) everyday and have done so forever, they DO identify as middle eastern (barely any jew will tell you he’s white), their reestablished state is in the middle east, their culture is middle eastern, too, their food is etc I won’t repeat everything now, you can go back in the discussion). You can’t keep switching what you deem your main supporting argument for the deletion whenever I disprove it. There is an OBVIOUS unwillingness to identify jews as what they are for ulterior motives thus a case of WP:NPOV.

„The fact that the name "Jew" has a connection to the Middle East is not relevant to this discussion about descent, not names.“ - again I mentioned the name because you were talking about descent and jews are ethnically literally the people expelled from Judea. The ones that don’t are not Jews and thus irrelevant to the discussion of whether Jews are from the Middle East or not (exclusively religious jews or converts are a minority and generally not relevant when talking about the descent of the jews).

„There is no such thing as "cultural" descent.“ - I never said there was. That is what I said: „The discussion was about whether that is relevant or not. And as I and Jeffgr9 and others have shown - it is. It is an integral part of Jewish identity. Genetically AND culturally. It has never been lost.“. I, once again, was talking about how it was RELEVANT because it IS part of their culture. It is actually what their culture IS - a middle eastern one.

„This is not a deletion discussion, this is a discussion about whether to include a category. Somebody tried to add it recently, and he has to establish consensus, and obviously has not been able to do so.“ - not true, look at how the discussion started. So unless you reach consensus on the deletion, the category stays.

„Wikipedia is not a court room, although sometimes I think that it would be a good think for admins to make their decisions based on good arguments like in a court, so let's not assume that this is the exception to the rule.“ - What are you talking about? The word GENERALLY literally implies that there is exceptions. And what do you think is more important? That a category is verifiable and defining (like this one) or uncontroversial? (Info Anonym (talk) 21:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC))

Of course Jews are Middle Eastern
It's telling that Jews never say "next year in Cracow", "next year in Vilna", or "next year in Moscow". Western diaspora Jews (Ashkenazi and Sephardic), are Middle Easterners who were exiled into Europe, but retained their identity. Yes, they have about 35-45% genetic contribution from Europeans, but that doesn't invalidate their Middle Easternness, any more than the fact that African Americans have 15-25% British DNA invalidates their Africanness. Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern group, despite the exile to Europe.

Let's look at the genetics Ashkenazi Jews are 55% Levantine, 35% North Italian, and 10% Central/Eastern European Sephardic Jews are 65% Levantine, 20% North Italian, and 15% Iberian

So the majority of Jewish DNA is from the Levant (Israel), as well as their cultural traditions and identity.

PopesTouch (talk) 04:30, 16 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree with PopesTouch, The Human Trumpet Solo , CelebrateIsrael , Rainbowofpeace , and Info Anonym in that Jews are a Diasporic, Semitic, Ethnoreligious, Tribe / "race" / People of Color*, whose tribal origins in the Levant designate B'Nei Y'Israel as being part of a Middle Eastern diaspora. Jews, as a People, did not originate in Europe, but in Canaan/Eretz Y'Israel. Furthermore, diasporas do not have statutes of limitations — one would have to deny the very core of Jewish identity to assert Jews having no connection to their ancestral culture/land.
 * (*even when "white passing" and/or being "mixed with white", neither of which mean European or "white").
 * This entire argument seems pretty basic:
 * • Are Jews a Middle Eastern diaspora? The answer is undoubtedly yes.
 * • Do Jews include new members who do not have a genetic connection to most of Jews' Semitic ancestors? Yes, but those new members are now considered Tribally bound to B'Nei Y'Israel, and are thus considered Tribally Semitic (as is often custom for other Tribal Ethnocultural groups), having adorned themselves with Semitic language, name, cuisine/dietary habits, clothing, core philosophies, politics, etc.
 * • Do Jews have diasporic homes within which they hold valid citizenship, and have done so for generations? Yes, but again, those narratives do not contradict the fact that the core of Jewish culture and most Jews' ancestors originated in the Levant.
 * • Is there a consensus on this matter? Depends on who you ask; some people (like Debresser) want to solely emphasize an importance on acquired identities in diaspora, while others (like The Human Trumpet Solo) want to embrace Jews' Semitic root identity AND the variations Jews have developed over time.
 * Hope to receive logical and productive asnwers to my points. Todah Rabah and Shanah Tovah. Jeffgr9 (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Jews as a people went into a diaspora about 2,000 years ago. Of course I agree that the Jewish diaspora, historically speaking, is a diaspora form the Middle East. That simply does not mean that after 2,000 years there is justification to categorize individual Jews as being of Middle Eastern descent. Those are different questions. For all the reasons that were mentioned above. And there are even more arguments to say that Wikipedia shouldn't categorize them as such based on the relevant policies and guidelines, all as explained above. Debresser (talk) 14:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * People of color??? Despite the fact that many Jews are white, the neologism "people of color" is a contemporary American term that was popularized for purposes of political solidarity to describe non-white peoples. To use it ahistorically and globally is extremely questionable. No, it is flat-out incorrect and incoherent. Identifying as "Middle Eastern" may be at the "very core of Jewish identity" *for you*, but it is not part of Jewish identity for a great many Jews are you should not erase those Jewish identities. You have made the very controversial, "one drop rule"-style claim that people of "mixed" Jewish and gentile heritage cannot be "white" but are instead "white-passing" or mixed with white. Despite the fact that many Jews self-identify as white Jews regardless of whether you approve or not, and regardless of whether many countries legally categorize Jews of European descent as white (including the United States), Wikipedia is not the place to promote Nazi-style scientific racism or blood and soil-style nationalism. I'm aware that there are some people who believe that Jews cannot be "white", including many white-supremacists and neo-Nazis, but I don't believe that Wikipedia should be basing definitions of race and ethnicity of off the racist rantings of racial supremacists and racial pseudo-scientists. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:36, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Referencing extremely dubious "DNA tests" is hardly relevant to this conversation. Scientific racism should not be promoted on Wikipedia, anymore than phrenology or alchemy. Native Americans have ancient roots in North Asia ("Asian DNA"), but it would be an abject absurdity to start slapping Siberian categories on everything Native American. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:30, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Bohemian Baltimore, please see WP:Civility and WP:BULLY. You are entitled to your views, but your views are not WP:Truth.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 14:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: Even if it were universally agreed that the "Middle Eastern" categories are applicable, and it isn't, the category "Middle Eastern diaspora in North America" would not belong here on this category for individual North American Jews. It would belong on the parent category "Jews and Judaism in North America". Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 08:11, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * So I guess we should remove the category "European-American society" from the Pennsylvania Dutch article, since the Pennsylvania Dutch have lived in America for 300 years, none of them living today were born in Europe, nor were any of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents. If you don't agree we should do this, why the double standard for Jews? Why must they alone, out of all diasporic groups, have their original homeland erased? PopesTouch (talk) 05:04, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The Pennsylvania Dutch are a German-American (and German-Canadian at this point too) culture rooted in Germany (especially the Rhineland-Palatinate), Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, and the Netherlands. The Pennsylvania Dutch are not a religious group and in fact belong to various religious groups (contrary to stereotype, not all are Amish). They aren't comparable to Jews. They are not a multicultural global diaspora civilization in the same way that Jews are. I've actually written about Anabaptist–Jewish relations (many but not all PA Dutch are Anabaptist), if you are interested in that subject. Adding "Middle Eastern" categories to Jewish topics might be more akin to slapping Siberian categories on Native Americans, Indian categories for Romani, or Central Asian categories for people from Turkey and Bosnia. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 06:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Except for the fact that the ethnogenesis of Native Americans was America, not Siberia. The ethnogenesis of Jews was in Israel. PopesTouch (talk) 04:57, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, the ethnogenesis of Jews happened in great part during the Babylonian captivity, so you could say probably add Category:People of Iraqi descent to all these categories if you follow the same logic. And ethnogenesis of the Hebrews happened during the sojourn in Egypt, so add Category:People of Egyptian descent to the lot. This protochronism is absurd, giving undue weight to a cherry-picked part of the story, and textbook example of how to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Place Clichy (talk) 06:35, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with The Human Trumpet Solo and Jeffgr9 on the inclusion of Middle Eastern descent. First, to continue the Irish/Celtic analogy used early in this talk, I don't "self-identify" as a Celt on a day-to-day basis, but it is part of the map of Irish descent, and I would expect it to be included in a discussion of Irish origins. Second, this is not comparable to "slapping Siberian categories on Native Americans" as per Bohemian Baltimore, given that the split between Native Americans and Siberians dates to some 25,000 years ago, and Native Americans/First Nations peoples are now considered indigenous to the American continent, where their tribal groupings and customs developed. Jewish indigenous identity as a separate, recognisable ethno-religious people living in the Land of Israel has been documented from around 12OOBCE, for example in the Merneptah Stele. Jewish identity and culture today continues to refer to traditions developed in the Middle East in the period of Rabbinic Judaism, rouoghly 66CE to 200CE. It seems ridiculous not to acknowledge this. 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teresa12345678 (talk • contribs)
 * This looks like WP:MEAT. Debresser (talk) 22:01, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks like she's edited here before, so it's too early to tell.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 04:32, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This looks like WP:DUCK also. User:Hus12345 and User:Wwikix, among others, also had the habit of adding multiple redundant challengeable ethnicity-related categories completely disregarding Wikipedia's norms for categories, and were blocked for such behaviour. In the current case, while the historical link to Ancient Hebrews in the Middle East is an essential part of Jewish identity (and I think that everybody in their right mind recognizes that), this links to the Middle East per se in the Jewish diaspora goes back to as far back as the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the defeat of the last Jewish rebellion in 163 CE. Therefore, as far as People of Jewish descent categories are concerned, this collides with the very principles of both the Wikipedia category system and the very concept of people by descent categories as they exist on Wikipedia. People by descent categories are for people, not ethnic groups at large, and they would apply only for the descent that is WP:DEFINING for that individual, which rarely goes beyond three or four generations. What we are facing here is attempts to add people of Middle Eastern descent, people of South Asian descent and people of Asian descent parent categories to about every single Jewish descent or diaspora category (see or  or ). As has been said many times before, this is like adding Central Asian descent to every Slavic, Turkish or Native American people. The fundamental principles around which our category tree is built, such as WP:CATV and WP:CATDEF, state that A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having. To illustrate, Woody Allen would be commonly and consistently defined as a Jewish New Yorker cinematographer, and Theodor Herzl as a Jewish Austrian intellectual and activist, but they would probably not be commonly defined as being of Asian descent, of Middle Eastern descent or of South Asian descent. To illustrate more:
 * It is OK to place Category:Jewish diaspora in Category:Middle Eastern diaspora because that is defining
 * It is OK to place Category:Jewish culture in Category:Middle Eastern culture because that is defining
 * It is OK to place Category:People of Israeli descent in Category:People of Middle Eastern descent because the link between the two is defining
 * It is OK to place the various Mizrahi Jewish descent categories in Category:People of Middle Eastern descent because the link between the two is defining
 * It is really not OK to place Category:Dutch people of Jewish descent in Category:Dutch people of Asian descent (3 times) because Jewish identity is a lot more defining for these people than millenium-old Judean descent, and by default we cannot really assign them any other "Asian" descent.
 * Oh, and DNA has nothing to do with it. Place Clichy (talk) 05:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Most Jews aren't South Asian at all. South Asian means the Indian subcontinent, so only Indian Jews are South Asian. As for calling Jews "Asian", I don't think we should do that, either, since "Asian" in an ethnoracial sense means East Asians in North America and South Asians in Ireland and Britain. However, Jews are Middle Eastern, Eastern Mediterranean, and Levantine, and all three of those categories should be applied to Jews. And so what if half of Ashkenazi DNA comes from non-Levantine sources? Half of Obama's DNA is from Europe, yet no one thinks twice about calling him a black guy. PopesTouch (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll answer this in the morning. Until then, I have two things to say...


 * Teresa12345678, Please sign your name with four tildes. They look like ~.
 * Bohemian Baltimore, Your posts are increasingly belligerent, aggressive, and insulting. Tone it down. WP:Civility and WP:AGF.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 04:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Not only are Jews a Middle Eastern population, but they are actually the oldest indigenous Middle Eastern group still in existence - with the same identity, same language, same homeland, same holidays, same basic mythology and foundation texts, and same spiritual tradition that they had 3,000 years ago. The fact that Jews were exiled from their land on a number of occasions, persecuted and enslaved -- doesn't take away from their Middle Eastern (specifically Levantine) identity, but rather strengthens this fact because during their wanderings throughout the world, they were mostly rejected as foreigners and persecuted due to their origins. In addition, the fact that Jews kept their identity alive and returned en masse to their homeland is testament to the overwhelmingly powerful nature of this identity, and of the Jewish pull towards their land and region of origin.

Balaganist — Preceding unsigned comment added by Balaganist (talk • contribs) 04:55, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am an infrequent editor here, but I have a degree in Jewish and Islamic Civilisations and a continuing interest in modern and ancient Jewish history, which is how I discovered this page. Apologies for the lack of signature, am still learning. Teresa12345678 (talk) 07:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You are welcome, and we wish to retain you as knowledgeable contributors are always a good asset. I's OK to be a new contributor and editing Wikipedia can be a bit daunting at first, although it's really pretty simple. You can assume other new and not-so-new contributors to always assume good faith on your part even when discussions can unfortunately get bitter. However, their are core principles around which everything that happens on Wikipedia must revolve, and one of them is the Neutral point of view. That's why some contributors are having a hard time understanding why 21st-century European or American people of Jewish descent should deserve the label of being of Asian/South Asian/Middle Eastern descent on the basis of the roots of the Jewish diaspora in the 1st century CE, but why you would not at the same time make this a general principle for every ethnicity tracing their roots to millenium-old fatherlands, let's say Turkish and Slavic people to Central Asian descent, French-Canadian people to Gaul and Celtic descent, Native Americans to Siberian descent, and all of us homo sapiens to Rift African descent. I hope that these examples make you understand why it would be extremely unpractical to have such a general principle, as much as it would be unfair to treat Jews differently from other peoples.
 * That's not a good comparison. A better one is the Pennsylvania Dutch, their page categorizes them as being of European/German descent. None of them have been born in Europe since before the Revolution. I guess we should remove the European category from them, then? PopesTouch (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I am for instance concerned by the rationale expressed among others in by Info Anonym, especially the parts that the fact that Jews are of Middle Eastern descent may be something that you know, but a lot of people are in fact denying and erasing that identity or don't even know that when that is actually very important in current discussions and not withholding or hiding that information is very important considering that it is put into question constantly for the sake of certain narratives and arguments. Indeed, adding this mention of Middle Eastern descent to individual people's categories on Wikipedia to obtain a gain in other 'current discussions' (which I am not sure what they are but I guess are linked to the electoral situation in Israel) is textbook examples of soap-boxing and attempting to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. About the reference to 'certain narratives and arguments' (again unspecified, but which I guess are about perceived challenges to the legitimacy of the State of Israel), it is also very, very wrong to try to distort Wikipedia to balance a perceived distortion in the other direction, an attitude we call Righting Great Wrongs. Lastly, about your mention of your continuing interest in modern and ancient Jewish history, which is how [you] discovered this page: we have indeed seen, in this discussion as well as previous discussions on the topic, an influx of first-time editors bringing from the outside a seemingly coordinated point of view, which is a well-known way to distort the appearance of consensus known as canvassing. I welcome you again as I believe, as any new editor, you can bring value to Wikipedia, but we have to warn you about such tactics. (BTW, which is the forum broadcasting alarming messages about this discussion?)
 * Back on topic, everybody recognizes the roots of the Jewish diaspora in Second Temple Judaism (and the fringe point of views who may not are of no matter to us). This is why I suggest, as a reasonable compromise proposal, to categorize Jewish diaspora categories among Middle Eastern diasporas, and Jewish culture among Middle Eastern culture, and people of Israeli descent among Middle Eastern descent. However, it still brings nothing to the matters discussed above to categorize the likes of Fran Lebowitz, Noam Chomsky and Dany Cohn-Bendit according to their distant Middle-Eastern ancestors. Place Clichy (talk) 09:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Place Clichy Just a quick note: The only reason I mentioned current discussions is because you were talking about how the Middle Eastern descent was irrelevant by now and nobody identified with it anymore. Thus my mention of current discussions - to prove to you that it is still relevant and talked about and it seemed to me like you were deleting it everywhere to make a point (especially because you were adding Middle Eastern diaspora in Arab diaspora in North America at the same time). Don’t put my words into a context they weren’t in, please. I also wasn’t the one adding it to individual people’s categories.
 * Concerning the proposed compromise: What about the people of Jewish descent categories? They should be under Middle Eastern descent. People of Israeli descent already are among People of Middle Eastern descent. And I am okay with the removal of the categories from the individuals.
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 10:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC))
 * No problem, I appreciate the level of discussion we have. I hope I managed to clarify the difference between categories about diasporas (which are about a group) and categories about people (which are not), and also the fact that when a category is added to a page you in principle shouldn't also add its own parents (e.g. adding Middle Eastern, South Asian and Asian parent categories to the same page is overkill). Please also acknowledge the gap between me trying to sort out such categorization mistakes and receiving comments such as a lot of people are in fact denying and erasing that identity [Middle Eastern identity of Jews]. I hope you understand by now that while on one hand Wikipedia was not written by Jews and for Jews and tries to stick to NPOV, there is no conspiration here to "deny and erase that identity". NPOV rules would be applied just the same if someone tried and argue with fringe point of views in the other direction. However people of Jewish descent categories are still categories for individual people, not groups, and it would be undue weight and non-neutral to add them under Middle Eastern descent for Jewish groups which do not have any actual descent since Antiquity. Place Clichy (talk) 14:32, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * @Place Clichy:
 * WP:NPOV is acknowledging that ethnic Jews (or in other words people of Jewish descent) are middle eastern though, it has been proven but not actually disproven many times in this talk, which is why the wish to remove the category made and makes me a little skeptical. The fact that people try to erase the identity was not my reasoning for why the category should be kept but a portrayal of how it is still relevant and talked about. I don’t think that it is a favour towards Jews to leave the category (if that’s what you imply by saying that Wikipedia was written by Jews for Jews) but merely following the guidelines.
 * People of Jewish descent are middle eastern by the very definition of ethnic Jews (ethnicity is implied by the word “descent”). Anybody who’s not Levantine or Middle Eastern is not actually ethnically Jewish - that is where some cleaning up might be appropriate, not the other way around.
 * I understand what you mean by the categories at parent but you are erasing all the categories. At least “Middle Eastern descent” should be kept.
 * Also, please read what The Human Trumpet Solo wrote. He brought up some good points that shouldn’t be ignored for the discussion to keep going.
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 16:54, 24 October 2019 (UTC))
 * please consider indenting your replies. I wouldn't say that it has been "proven" that "ethnic Jews" are of Middle Eastern descent, which is a very debatable shortcut, but rather that it is not the point. The point is to determine if this 2000-year-old descent is WP:DEFINING enough to be the basis for a category inclusion for people categories . And for it to be defining for a person, I would expect at least that they would be able to show a genealogy tree going back to Antiquity. To place this descent category on a people category amounts to say that we can be reasonably sure that everybody in this category (say, "North American people of Jewish descent") can show such a tree. You are making some assumptions here which amount to claims of racial purity: Anybody who’s not Levantine or Middle Eastern is not actually ethnically Jewish... That is of course very debatable. Even putting aside the eventual cases of conversion of an entire group to Judaism, we must consider either that the Jews did not intermix with their neighbours during thousands of years, or that they descend from both Middle Eastern ancestors and many other ancestors: in the case of Askhenazi Jews for instance, Category:People of European descent, Category:People of Slavic descent or Category:People of German descent would be just as legitimate. Here is the key point: singling out the Middle Eastern descent and placating it on every Jewish descent category is cherrypicking the line of descent which suits best your point of view, and giving UNDUE weight to this line over others, both of which are totally against the basis of NPOV.
 * Ashkenazi Jews are about 12% Central/Eastern European genetically, which is less than the amount of Northwest European admixture African-Americans have (20-25%). How about we go to the pages of Kendrick Lamar, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Spike Lee and add "American people of British descent", then? PopesTouch (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Placating endlessly the same point of view (and yes, it is a point of view) is not and will not bring this discussion very far. I am myself reaching TL;DR level in my answers. Thanks for referring me to what The Human Trumpet Solo wrote. All I can say is that the descent of French people from Gauls and Celts is very much a topic of consideration and is at the heart of French 19th-century and 20th-century nationalism, see fr:Nos ancêtres les Gaulois if you read French. In fact, many peoples in the word claim descent from an original remote people (and often claim territory on a certain homeland). Greeks contructed their national identity around that of the ancient Hellenes. Russians make much commotion about the old Kievan Rus' and therefore come to interfere in Ukraine's business. Mormon beliefs assert that they descend from the original Israelites which would have crossed the ocean to America in Pre-Columbian times, and they are not the only ones, see British Israelism. All this is very interesting, but it is not WP:DEFINING for individual people's desecnt and is, again, cherry-picking a specific point of view.
 * Now, again, the link of Jewish diaspora, Judaism and Jewish culture to the Ancient Middle East cannot be denied as a cultural one, and out category structure should reflect and acknowledge that. Place Clichy (talk) 18:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Why "ethnic" Jews? Jews ARE an ethno-religious group and when we are talking about descent, ethnicity is exactly what we are talking about. That doesn’t have anything to do with "racial purity", I am not saying someone is only a jew if they’re 100% ethnically jewish. I am saying that you can’t be ethnically jewish (full or partly) if you’re not middle eastern (full or partly) as jews are a middle eastern ethnicity. I am also not saying that you can’t be a religious Jew if you are not ethnically Jewish (if you’re implying that), but we are talking about the descent hence the ethnicity not the religion right now.
 * Concerning WP:DEFINING: Ethnic jews (which is the same as people of jewish descent) are constantly and by reliable sources defined as the descendants (!) of the Israelites from Israel and Judah, which as you know was in the Middle East and has been reestablished there again. Look „Jews“ up on Wikipedia itself for example, the very first sentence states that or any other definition really. That is what ethnic jews are as a people - why you would need a DNA tests from every single person of those categories to be able to prove that is genuinely more than incomprehensible to me. Do you expect that from other parent categories and their ethnic subcategories too? But the point stands that you can question whether those people are actually ethnically jewish, but if they are, they are automatically middle eastern (at least the jewish part of them).
 * You should however be aware that WP:DEFINING is not Wikipedia’s policy or guideline so I wouldn’t recommend relying on it too heavily even though it’s not really a counter argument anyway.
 * Then you start talking about intermixing and so on - i thought we were already past the genealogy? There are numerous sources and studies that prove that today’s jews are still overwhelmingly Middle Eastern. And again being Middle Eastern COMES with being jewish. Just like being European comes with being slavic. You keep switching your key point and main argument whenever you feel like it has been refuted. That is really no effective way of discussing.  Debresser does it even more so. It really does affect the discussion heavily, as he uses straw-man arguments, reduces numerous arguments to one without refuting any of them, it is honestly unbearable and makes discussing with him pointless. This has to be against some guideline because it only makes us go in circles.
 * And it is not UNDUE weight or a lack of NPOV. It is verifiable and supported by reliable sources (which has already been proven in this talk).
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 01:14, 25 October 2019 (UTC))


 * Culture is not the same as descent. Sorry, but while nobody denies the cultural connection, that is no justification for a descent category. Debresser (talk) 22:22, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

There's a lot to answer here. I will do so in depth later. But a few quick notes.

Category:Turkic peoples is not presently under any descent category. However, Category:People of Turkish descent IS presently under Category:People of Turkic descent, which is itself under Category:People of Central Asian descent.

Slavs are NOT of Central Asian descent. There is no evidence that Slavs (save for Russians and a minority of Kazakhs) come from any part of Asia. Those that do come from Asia are already under Asian descent. And while I'm at it, Category:People of Russian descent is under Category:People of European descent and Category:People of Asian descent. Do all Russian people come from Asia? Do all Russian people come from Europe? The answer, in both cases, is "no". That ties back into my original point.

Category:French-Canadians is not under Gauls or Celts because the Gauls and Celts of France (excluding those in Brittany) went extinct long ago. There ARE no more Gauls, and most modern French people do not identify (ethnically or otherwise) with any Celtic people or tribe. So that rules out placing Category:French people, excluding Category:Bretons, under Category:Celts. And it certainly rules out placing them under Category:Gauls, seeing as the Gauls no longer exist. Jews, by contrast, never went extinct, nor did we abandon our previous ethnic identity after entering diaspora. That's pretty much why we're diaspora Jews (a diaspora which you seem to agree is Middle Eastern) everywhere outside of Israel. So it's not comparable.

Likewise, Category:Native American people are not included under Siberian because their tribal identities were born and forged in North America. They do not identify with Siberia, whereas Jews (in a collective national and ethnic sense) do identify with Israel, hence "Am Yisra'el" (the nation of Israel). Again, it's not the same.

The comparison to human origins in Africa honestly doesn't even warrant a response. It is reaching, needless to say.

I don't agree at all with Place Clichy's proposal, and find it absurd on its face. There is no precedent, on this site or anywhere else, for imposing arbitrary cut-off points/expiration dates on descent. I've only seen such proposals put forward on Jewish categories, and that alone tells me that we really shouldn't be doing it. The Jewish people's origins are in the Middle East. The Jewish diaspora is a Middle Eastern diaspora. Jewish identity is, literally, a Middle Eastern identity ("Jew" is a cognate of "Judean"). And, as countless DNA papers and other sources have shown, the overwhelming majority of us are not converts.

I've yet to hear a single convincing reason for removing these categories.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 13:40, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

"Jewish identity is a lot more defining for these people than millenium-old Judean descent, "

Jewish identity IS Judean identity. Literally. That's how the term "Jew" was coined.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 13:44, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

"To illustrate, Woody Allen would be commonly and consistently defined as a Jewish New Yorker cinematographer, and Theodor Herzl as a Jewish Austrian intellectual and activist, but they would probably not be commonly defined as being of Asian descent, of Middle Eastern descent or of South Asian descent."

Those individuals are commonly defined as Jews, and Jews qua Jews are commonly (and academically) defined as Middle Eastern, Levantine, Southwest Asian. Jewish is more specific. Similarly, most sources refer to Murray Abraham as Assyrian. They don't say "Middle Eastern" because that goes without saying.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

" Adding "Middle Eastern" categories to Jewish topics might be more akin to slapping Siberian categories on Native Americans, Indian categories for Romani, or Central Asian categories for people from Turkey and Bosnia."

Romani people are under South Asian, and Turks are under Central Asian as well. Bosnians are not because they're not a Turkic people, nor do they have any descent from Central Asia. Category:Native American people are not included under Siberian because their tribal identities were born and forged in North America. They do not identify with Siberia, whereas Jews (in a collective national and ethnic sense) do identify with Israel, hence "Am Yisra'el" (the nation of Israel). Again, it's not the same.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 14:18, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * You more or less made my point for me. Yes, Jews to a certain degree feel a connection with Israel, but 1. Israel yes, the Middle East no 2. the word "identify" is used incorrectly in your sentence, and whatever it means does not include descent. Debresser (talk) 17:57, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You are repeating arguments that have already been refuted as invalid arguments in connection with adding a descent category on Wikipedia. (Like the argument that the term "Jews" comes from "Judea" which is true, but etymology of a word is by no means sufficient reason to add a descent category. Debresser (talk) 18:02, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Your number two is incorrect. The fact that we call ourselves diaspora Jews outside of Israel is more or less an explicit acknowledgement of descent.


 * My arguments were never refuted. In fact, they were more or less ignored this entire time.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 22:25, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Which is still a generalization. But, and this I must repeat, my point is not to deny that most Jews have some connection to Jews who lived in Israel over 2,000 years ago, but that this is not sufficient reason to apply a Middle East descent category according to Wikipedia rules.
 * Ashkenazi Jews have more DNA from ancient Israel (about 50%) than they do from East/Central Europe (about 12%) PopesTouch (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Please don't mistake disagreeing for ignoring. Debresser (talk) 22:42, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

"Please don't mistake disagreeing for ignoring."

Most of my points were indeed ignored. At least 3/4 of them were never addressed at all. There were attempts to answer the other 1/4, but I addressed each of those counterpoints immediately afterward. Unless there's something I'm missing.

Speaking of which, some more replies...

"I wouldn't say that it has been "proven" that "ethnic Jews" are of Middle Eastern descent."

Except it has been proven. There are no less than 36 reliable sources in this thread proving exactly that.

"The point is to determine if this 2000-year-old descent is WP:DEFINING enough to be the basis for a category inclusion for people categories."

We are widely defined as a Middle Eastern people and diaspora. For example, I highly doubt Jews in Europe, North America, or any place outside Israel would be widely referred to as "diaspora Jews" if that weren't the case. There are also reams of academic sources demonstrating and reaffirming this descent right here, in this thread. I don't know what else you could possibly want?

But if you have any RS demonstrating that Jews are NOT commonly defined as Middle Eastern, that'd be helpful.

"And for it to be defining for a person, I would expect at least that they would be able to show a genealogy tree going back to Antiquity."

This is an unreasonable request. As shown via countless other examples, no other ethnic or national group is expected, let alone required, to share their own family trees just to have their origins acknowledged. Not the Romani. Not the Turks. Not North African Arabs. Nor anyone else EXCEPT for Jews. Why?

In most cases, we simply take an ethnic group's narrative as given and - with a few reliable sources here and there - list them accordingly. Jews qua Jews meet both of these requirements vis a vis Middle Eastern descent. We've defined ourselves that way for our entire existence, and the reliable sources are all right there. But for some reason, that's not good enough for you.

"To place this descent category on a people category amounts to say that we can be reasonably sure that everybody in this category (say, "North American people of Jewish descent") can show such a tree."

We don't enforce these standards on any other group. Why here? Why the Jews?

Why? No one, not a single person, has even made the slightest attempt at answering these questions. And that is why I remain wholly unconvinced that these longstanding categories should be removed.

"You are making some assumptions here which amount to claims of racial purity:"

No one, to my knowledge, made any such claim. Racial purity is not required to place an ethnic group under a specific descent category.

"Even putting aside the eventual cases of conversion of an entire group to Judaism, we must consider either that the Jews did not intermix with their neighbours during thousands of years, or that they descend from both Middle Eastern ancestors and many other ancestors:"

There is no evidence of entire groups converting to Judaism, outside of the Khazars. And they ceased to exist centuries ago.

There was substantial conversion in some parts of the world (notably Ethiopia and India), but these Jewish groups still have proven Middle Eastern descent. Significantly less than other Jewish groups, but it's still there. And unless one wants to impose genetic/race purity laws on Jews, there's no reason to disqualify or exclude it. For example, it's 100% possible to acknowledge the African descent of Jews who lived in Africa while also acknowledging their Middle Eastern descent. They are not in competition. That's why "People of African-Jewish descent" is under People of African descent AND People of Jewish descent.

Furthermore, the above mentioned groups amount to less than 1% of world Jewry. We're talking maybe a few hundred thousand out of at least 14 million people. 99% of the world's Jews are either Ashkenazi, Sephardi, or Mizrahi (or some combination of the three), and all of these groups are verifiably of Middle Eastern descent. Europeans and Muslims weren't exactly queueing up to convert to Judaism.

But even ignoring all of that, no other ethnic group is required to be accurate 1:1 to be eligible for a descent category. I gave countless examples of the opposite.

"in the case of Askhenazi Jews for instance, Category:People of European descent, Category:People of Slavic descent or Category:People of German descent would be just as legitimate."

People of German-Jewish descent are under people of German descent already. Likewise, people of Czech-Jewish descent are under people of Czech descent. And through there, both are under people of European descent. So their diaspora history, at the very least, is not being erased. The problem is people wanting to erase the pre-diaspora history.

Point being, Ashkenazim can be acknowledged as both European and Middle Eastern. It's not one or the other. Nor should it be.

"Here is the key point: singling out the Middle Eastern descent and placating it on every Jewish descent category is cherrypicking the line of descent which suits best your point of view, and giving UNDUE weight to this line over others, both of which are totally against the basis of NPOV."

No one is doing that.

"All I can say is that the descent of French people from Gauls and Celts is very much a topic of consideration and is at the heart of French 19th-century and 20th-century nationalism, see fr:Nos ancêtres les Gaulois if you read French."

You're still not quite getting it.

Modern French people do NOT identify as Gauls. They don't identify as Celts. The Gallic people and ethnic identity are extinct. The Jewish people and ethnic identity (i.e. Judean) are NOT extinct. It's just not comparable.

"Greeks constructed their national identity around that of the ancient Hellenes."

Hellenes and Greeks are the same people. And I don't know of a single person who challenges the descent of Greeks - broadly speaking - from the Hellenes, although it can be safely assumed that not all present-day Greeks actually descend from ancient ones.

"Russians make much commotion about the old Kievan Rus' and therefore come to interfere in Ukraine's business."

This is basically the same thing as the ancient Hellenes example above.

"Mormon beliefs assert that they descend from the original Israelites which would have crossed the ocean to America in Pre-Columbian times, and they are not the only ones, see British Israelism."

Neither of these groups actually have Israelite descent, though. There is no evidence for it whatsoever.

The same clearly cannot be said of today's Jews. Again, this is reaching.

"WP:DUCK"

This is WP:Conspiracy theory.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 00:14, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Another thing worth noting is that anyone can become Assyrian, or Maronite, or Shawnee, etc. But we still categorize the first two under Middle Eastern people and the third under indigenous peoples/ethnicities of North America.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk)


 * As you so rightfully said "This is an unreasonable request." and that is precisely what proves that Jews are not of Middle Eastern descent, and do not consider themselves to be such. This is precisely my point and the best proof of all. Even you agree that the request is not reasonable. Then why should the descent category be reasonable? Hint, it isn't. Debresser (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Greeks are actually a really good comparison in this case. Ashkenazi Jews and Greeks are both about 1/8 East/Central European. Jews from living amongst Slavs for dozens of generations, and Greeks from Slavic invasions in the early Middle Ages. However, that small amount of Slavic ancestry doesn't negate their indigenous ancestry that traces back to the ancient Hellenic and Israelite civilizations, respectively.


 * Please take more time reading and understanding what you’re replying to Debresser. You are making the conversation extremely ineffective. You give unrelated points, ignore most of what is being said, use straw mans etc (as explained above, too).
 * The point is that other descent categories would not be able to provide that kind of evidence either and they are still there.
 * It doesn’t change the fact though that whoever is actually Jewish ethnically in other words by descent (meaning they are the descendants of the Israelites from ancient Israel and Judah) is by definition middle eastern as well. (Info Anonym (talk) 14:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC))


 * Having read this long thread by chance, judging the issue using objective criteria it is clear that we should support adding categories of "People of Jewish descent" as sub-categories to "People of Middle Eastern descent". (As for the "Southwest Asian Descent", I don't think it should be included in it as well. See Wikipedia:Defining).
 * No additional arguments or sources are needed - Jews, being an ethnoreligious group, have strong, proven historical, hereditarian (yes, around 50% of the DNA is more than enough for that matter) and physical (for a lack of a better term) connection to the Middle East. Shalom11111 (talk) 09:32, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You completely ignore the arguments that 1. not all Jews have 50% Middle Eastern descent. Many have less or none at all. 2. Jews do not self-identify as being of Middle Eastern descent. 3. Descent categories are irrelevant after so many years. 4. Categories should be undisputed. 5. It should be enough that the Jewish Diaspora as a whole is considered a Middle Eastern diaspora, but from there to applying this category to all Jews is not justified by the facts or the relevant policies and guidelines. Debresser (talk) 01:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Debresser You are still ignoring the fact that Jews as an ethnicity, as descent group, is a Middle Eastern one as descendants of the Israelites. That is literally the definition. We’re not talking about converts or religious Jews, this is a Jewish descent/ethnicity question. Anyone who is not of Israelite and thus Middle Eastern descent (at least partly) is NOT a Jew in the ETHNIC and thus DESCENT sense of the word. You can’t be, let’s say of German descent, without being European either.
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 23:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC))


 * I forgot nothing, Just that for all the reasons I mentioned, that is not a reason to add Middle Eastern descent to all Jews! It is not true, and even for those for whom it is true, it is not relevant. So we should not have it on Wikipedia. Really, no Jew would ever think to call themselves as being of Middle Eastern descent. They could call themselves Ashkenazi Jews of Polish descent, or Sephardi Jews of Moroccan descent. That yes. But not Middle Eastern. Debresser (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

 * Debresser The last part is just not true. Only EXCLUSIVELY religious Jews (in other words converts) would call themselves “Jews of polish descent”. Most Jews know that being Jewish is an ethnicity and descent, too. If they are polish as well they might say “I’m of Jewish and polish descent”.
 * But whatever, I’m ready for a compromise that I think is fair, the only way to regard both sides and probably even the most correct way to categorize all the Jewish categories. My suggestion is; we add Middle Eastern descent on all Jewish DESCENT categories, as there’s no way to deny that. Jewish descent IS Middle Eastern as it is the descent group from the Israelites/Judea. If your roots are from elsewhere you are not Jewish by DESCENT.
 * However, if you want to, in return, I’d be ready to remove Middle Eastern descent from all general “Jews in *whatever place*” categories but those categories have to include separately the categories “*whatever people* by religion|Jews” as well as “*whatever people* by ethnic or national origin” (which in turn would include the Jewish descent categories).
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC))
 * The above suggestion makes a lot of sense. 'Debresser', you're incorrect in stating that not all arguments were taken into account. You may speak for yourself as an individual and self-identify as whatever you wish, but simply cannot do so the rest of world Jewry and ignore their ethnic background, as %99.9 are as of today NOT converts and DO and have strong ME lineage. (Obviously, if that were to change clearly in the future, for instance if Judaism welcomed some 5 million new converts, we would definitely have to reevaluate the inclusion these categories.) It is the empirical reality. And the fact that a category is disputed is not a justification to ignore it. Shalom11111 (talk) 11:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that Jews are still overwhelmingly Middle Eastern. But even if we welcomed 5 million more Jews into Judaism, we still wouldn’t have to argue the Jewish descent categories because those additional 5 million people would just not be Jewish by descent but by religion. How much middle eastern descent the people labeling themselves as jewish actually have might if anything only be relevant in the discussion about the categories “Jews in *where ever*” (which I and I guess you already agreed to remove the middle eastern descent categories from anyway).
 * Jewish descent on the other hand is undeniably and by definition middle eastern. You cannot be Jewish by descent without being middle eastern. Only Jewish by religion.
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 12:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC))
 * I know people who have two parents who converted or whose grandparents were all converts. Going by this racist standard of "Jewish descent", these people of Jewish descent would not count. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 17:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Those people aren't ethnic Jews, any more than someone with four grandparents who converted to Mennonitism is ethnically Pennsylvania Dutch. PopesTouch (talk) 05:45, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bohemian Baltimore Well, yes, these people obviously don’t count as people of Jewish descent because they are not. I never said they’re not Jews. They are, by religion though. But not by descent obviously how are you supposed to change your descent? Racism accusations are more than ridiculous when talking about descent. What do you expect? It implies DNA, biology, a common ancestor. Descent is not something you can change. Google what it means, your prior argument is invalid when talking about it. (Info Anonym (talk) 18:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC))


 * That second suggestion seems reasonable. Would you mind giving an example or two? Debresser (talk) 18:58, 4 November 2019 (UTC)


 * So, for example American Jews as subcategory for American people by religion as well as American people by ethnic or national origin which in turn would hold the subcategory American people of Jewish descent, which would be a subcategory of American people of Middle Eastern descent. I would also put American Jews as subcategory of people of Jewish descent because that category is only a subcategory of American people by ethnic or national origin, not a parent category, so it’s not arbitrary.
 * Second example: Mexican Jews as subcategory of Mexican people by ethnic or national origin, Mexican people by religion and Mexican people of Jewish descent (which would be a subcategory of Mexican people of Middle Eastern descent).
 * (Info Anonym (talk) 19:41, 4 November 2019 (UTC))
 * I can agree with everything you said, apart from the Middle Eastern category. I doesn't belong anywhere near Jewish categories (except for the Jewish Diaspora category). Debresser (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)


 * ”Agree with everything you said” except for the only compromise you would have to agree to. I agree to removing the Middle Eastern Descent category from general *whatever place* Jews categories (like North American Jews). You would have to agree to the Middle Eastern descent category merely as parent category on the Jewish DESCENT category. That is not even a question about how Middle Eastern the people labeling themselves as Jews today truly are, that is a question of what Jewish descent in and of itself is.
 * And as Jewish descent is the descent from the Israelites/from Judea it is by definition middle eastern. There’s literally no way of arguing that. (Info Anonym (talk) 03:39, 6 November 2019 (UTC))
 * I have replied to that non-argument many times already. And yo continue to edit war about this. Let me place an official warning template on your talkpage. Debresser (talk) 09:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No you haven’t. You have only been talking about Jews in general. So please answer this: how is jewish descent in and of itself NOT middle eastern? There is absolutely no argument against this. Descent encompasses common ancestry, DNA, biology. You are simply not Jewish by descent anymore if you don’t have Levantine DNA. You can still be a Jew by religion and culturally. But you are not Jewish by descent, in your DNA if you are not partly middle eastern.
 * And stop threatening me everywhere, whenever I edit something you just don’t like. (Info Anonym (talk) 13:21, 6 November 2019 (UTC))
 * I have replied to it. Many times. With many arguments. You seem to be a bit WP:NOTHERE.
 * I will very well threaten you with sanctions if you are a disruptive edit warrior. Do not edit against or without consensus, and you will be fine. Otherwise, you risk being blocked. It is as simple as that. Debresser (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No you haven’t. Your main argument was “too long ago”. But that doesn’t even apply here. That is an argument that can be brought up in discussions about general “*Some place* Jews” categories (just like all the other things you wrote), but not in Jewish descent discussions. Give or even just LINK to one argument of yours that would apply here and dispute that. Jewish descent in and of itself being Middle Eastern is an indisputable fact. You recognize that, that’s why you start threatening me more and more instead of engaging in the discussion. By the way - your reason as to why you removed my edit warring warning was not even a policy or guideline for me to be able to “violate it”.
 * Stop engaging in edit warring, you’re editing without consensus. Discuss before editing or I’m reporting you. Your behavior on here is disruptive, proves a total lack of WP:NPOV and you’re trying to intimidate me as a new editor, using your advantage of obviously knowing more about policies and guidelines, just to get your unjustified point across. Thanks for teaching me those policies though, as they all apply to you and will be used against you if you don’t stop that behavior immediately. (Info Anonym (talk) 02:03, 7 November 2019 (UTC))
 * You are now back to the type of behavior that 1. negates anything I say (yes-no-war) 2. repeat to me the warnings I serve you (Tu quoque-behavior). Not interested. Debresser (talk) 18:22, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Look I am not negating anything you say. I genuinely want to hear an argument of yours how Jewish descent in and of itself is not middle eastern. I already said that for the sake of ending this discussion at some point I am willing not to have those categories on general “jews” categories, because I can somehow see your arguments in that context.
 * But please, give me one argument against the fact that Jewish descent, the descent group from Judea, is middle eastern. Keep in mind that this is not about individuals anymore, this is about Jewish descent in general.(Info Anonym (talk) 20:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC))
 * There is no such thing as Jewish descent of a group. Only of individuals. The group has an origin, not a descent. Debresser (talk) 21:26, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don’t know what you mean by Jewish descent of a group. I said jews (in the ethnic sense) are the descent group from Judea. Descent means common ancestry. On Wikipedia Jews are defined as originating from Judea from the ISRAELITES (= common middle eastern ancestry making Jews the descendants). It is also implied by the fact that jews are an ethnicity as well not just a religion.
 * If the group only had an origin, not a descent, like you say, “Jewish descent” in general would be no thing (as well as Jewish ethnicity), but it obviously is. And that descent in itself is middle eastern like German descent is European. Next argument please? And in your reply please don’t start ignoring half the arguments again. Also revert yourself please and stop the edit warring. You are reverting in midst of a discussion without consensus. (Info Anonym (talk) 23:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC))