Talk:Ariel Toaff

Untitled
how can we have a page about prof toaff that neglects to mention his many previous publications and long academic career? also, how can we discuss the book if noone in america has it or has seen it?

someone wrote that toaff cites kabbalah in his book. how is this possible?


 * I agree that somebody should add to the article; I have just added a few bits. What has America got to do with all of this? --Goochelaar 18:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * About Kabbalah - why not? Kabbalah was known in Italy in the middle ages. DGtal 23:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

i think someone should link to the work of Piero Camporesi, which the current Toaff book is based on. Also to other similar historiographies like Elliot Horowitz and Yisrael Yuval.

Chapter analysis
Since the article is based on simply press reports, and the book is almost inaccessible, I have thought it might be useful to provide a chapter by chapter synopsis of it. This will initially be lengthy but can be, if the idea is acceptable, cut back to the gist of his thesis, at a later date. This will take some time, a week or two.Nishidani 14:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea, but it must be done in a separate article because a discussion of one book must not overwhelm a biography. Beit Or 19:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Beit Perhaps, but in the meantime you have changed your reasons for the edit you made.


 * (1) 'this one is a biogrpahy and must comply with WP:BLP


 * (2) 'a discussion of one book must not overwhelm a biography'.


 * The first reason given is of course wrong, as you perhaps noted in checking WP;BLP. For alone of the posters I say nothing of Toaff's life. I will add that the way you have removed all of the surrounding information that pre-existed my contributions has transformed the English page into a desert, compared to the corresponding Hebrew, German, and Italian pages. In asserting (Wiki rule?) that a discussion of one book must not overwhelm a biography, you appear, secondly, to be unfamiliar with Wiki biographies. See Baruch Spinoza, Maimonides, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud or any other thinker or thesis-writer. Those pages are still in formation, and since the life details are known, most additional material will finesse the expositions of the concepts associated with these respective thinkers. In some pages, Mircea Eliade, a separate page is provided for a concept like 'The Myth of the Eternal Return', but that is a matter of editorial choice. In those biographical pages considerable, indeed in many, most of the, space is devoted to an exposition of the thought or ideas propounded. Therefore, it appears to me that your afterthought, that my exposition might overwhelm the biography, is adventitious. Rather, the page is now underwhelmed by its egregious lack of anything about Toaff, and I suspect that whoever consults it, will not look down and notice the link to the new page where you have posted my initial venture in synthesizing his book. I.e. the whole point of providing something that is not available, anm exposition of his thesis, risks being lost. Toaff has been smeared widely, and compelled to withdraw his book, a deeply academic text, a third of which consists of long footnotes in several languages, and withhold it from the public purview (something which only increases the credibility of the calumnies circulating), and I think a clear NPOV gloss on what he actually argues, rather than what many sources, clearly unfamiliar with the book, assert via hearsay, would honour his biography and, by the way, Wiki as an encyclopedia where you can get information other printed encyclopedia and media have yet to provide.


 * Finally, I have no objection to the distinct page idea in itself, that you suggest. But I think that premature. All wiki pages on him talk exclusively of his one book (not the other excellent studies he has published) via gossip. Using his bio.page to give an initial comprehensive rundown of the book that made him famous, much, it appears, to his grief, so that the synopsis can then be shorn down to a succinct, one or two page resumé by all editors here, and then a section on the critical reception of his book, accords with many other wiki biographies, of persons living and dead. As the edit stands, it does look like an attempt to get the book analysis off Toaff's page, out of sight, though that is my own impression.


 * I'll refrain from posting further chapter resumés until I get feedback from yourself and, hopefully from other editors interested in the project I outlined, if anyone other than yourself has noticed the text. Regards Nishidani 20:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Please keep your arguments succinct. This will save your and other people's time and efforts. Of course, it's against the spirit of WP:BLP that an article is skewed towards one aspect of a person's biography. Remember that this is a biography, a description of a person's life. Your statement that Ariel Toaff is nearly always mentioned in the context of this book is actually an excellent argument for not having his biography at all because if he is only notable for one book, writing his biography would be a violation of WP:BLP. Anyway, it's quite absurd to devote 90% of a biogrpahic entry to a book written by the entry's subject. Beit Or 20:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a tendency to edit pages as if ever edit were the final word. This page has hardly begun, and is contested, and much of it placed elsewhere, and now reason is even given for eliminating it. I have read closely and thoroughly WP:BLP and can find no grounds there for your disagreement. Toaff, to be specific, is known to the wider (nonreading) public for one book. To the world of medieval scholarship he ia very well known indeed, as a major specialist of a very difficult area where few have the range of linguistic gifts he has. He is very well known to scholarship for his various works, from the monograph on Assisi's community, to the recent work. Secondly, the length of my summary is, I repeat, intended to give other editors not familiar with the book some idea of its content and structure. Since, precisely, the book is not widely available, that serves a very concrete purpose. Once the gist in a dozen lines is given to each chapter, one can then par it down to the essential details of his theory. Were I to give a three paragraph summary of his book, given its unavailability, the other editors without a copy at hand would either have to take my word for it,(unwise) or challenge it as my POV on the volume. Therefore I lay it out as briefly as possible, so those who lack the resource to access it can ask for elaboration, eventually suggest the best way to prune it down to a succint neutral gloss on his thesis. I am saving other people more time than I save for myself, having read it already. By all means, if someone who wishes to contribute has also read it, (s)he had start boiling it down to wiki size now, and save me the effort.


 * YOu write: 'Anyway, it's quite absurd to devote 90% of a biogrpahic entry to a book written by the entry's subject.'


 * Not true. We know nothing of Homer, and little of Aeschylus, for example. Wiki pages on them deal predominantly with their work (adding to the many other examples I gave earlier). When a man's life is in his work, we look at the work predominantly. Toaff is alive, and his life is his own business. His work is in the public domain, and that is what is fascinating, as with all serious scholarship Nishidani 20:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

p.s. I have just seen the bad revert you did on the 1929 Hebron page to support a notoriously incompetent editor's version. This tends to alter my perspective.Nishidani 21:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean by "[t]This tends to alter my perspective", and I'd rather refrain from guessing. Beit Or 20:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The text you reverted to is notoriously bad. One improves, ideally, pages one takes partial exception to, rather than just reverting to an equally poor prior version.Nishidani 20:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I am providing a synthesis for others. It would be far easier personally to simply write a page or two of high synthesis from a book many cannot consult, and put it on this page, where no one familiar with it or able to access it would be constrained to take my word for it, and the correctness of the footnotes. What I am doing, hopefully within the next few weeks, is to give an extended coverage, and then, hopefully with others, boil it down to the minimum allowable on a page. A little patience, and then, once we have a decent text, one can open the question of a secondary page. To remove it precipitously from here, when the page itself lacks collaborators would hinder collective editorial work. In any case, I eventually wish to do the same with his book on the Assisi Jewish community, to give a more comprehensive survey of Toaff's scholarship. Pazienza, per cortesia Nishidani 08:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Jewish Imaginary
I have written this for 'Hebrew imagery' in the original translation because, though 'imaginary' as substantive looks awkward at first glance, it reflects standard recent usage, inspired as it is by the use of such phrases as l’imaginaire réel, and the medieval imaginary, in works that take inspiration from the great medievalist Jacques le Goff's pioneering studies. Toaff is working in that tradition, and 'immaginario' is distinct from 'immagine', referring as it does to a collective picturing mode, a visual representation of elements in a Weltanschauung, following the Annales school's interest in 'mentalité'. Nishidani 09:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Pasque di Sangue sighting
A new edition of "Pasque di Sangue" is out. Actually I saw it yesterday prominently displayed in a bookshop. L&#39;omo del batocio (talk) 17:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, thanks indeed for that notice. I have the original edition, so it will be of help to see the editorial changes Toaff has made by close comparison. But the joy this news brings is not so much that of a reader, but for its author. The book has its moments, but it was an impressively bold attempt to rethink the subject unfettered of constraints, and honours the noble plurimillenial tradition of Italy Jewry. Thanks. With this second ed. in hand, perhaps we can work to finish the article Nishidani (talk) 17:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I saw an interview with Toaff on Rai 2 (which has a quite distinctive political and cultural identity) a few months ago. While I admire his courage, some of the involved players' agendas have little to do with historical accuracy. This topic is a minefield and will stay such for a long time. Anyways, here is a good article (in Italian) about the new version. L&#39;omo del batocio (talk) 18:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Pressure
I readded a paragraph, earlier created by somebody other and added sources. It seems that heavy pressure by peers and Israeli public opinion was a factor without which mr. Toaff would not have pulled the book. --Magabund (talk) 18:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

'Second Edition (2008) A revised, second edition of his work appeared in February, 2008. Toaff now concedes that the accusations of ritual murder, as a common Jewish practice, were entirely Christian fabrications.' - Should the word 'concedes' be replaced by 'states', in the interest of objectivity? Jeffgwatts (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC).
 * No because in order for both arguments to be shown both must be supported by historical and factual evidence. In this case, only the argument against blood libel is valid due to its history so balance is not needed. 129.219.159.248 (talk) 16:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It is obvious that blood libel accusations were endemically and almost universally fantasies by Christian anti-Semites. That is not Toaff's point. What he is arguing is that while the Jews as a people were victims of blood libel, this does not allow us to exclude the possibility that there might have been small groups of fanatic fundamentalist Ashkenazis in Germany who on occasion stooped to ritual murder to obtain blood. To taint Jews generically for some execrable behavior possibly undertaken by an extremely exiguous sect or rare tradition of desultory practitioners is typical of anti-Semites, of course, but Toaff, the son of one of the greatest of modern rabbis, and a fearless historian, makes the obvious distinction that anti-Semites ignore. There is no historical evidence for what he  suggests: there is only inference, inference based on evidence extracted under torture, combined with evidence for blood use in pharmaceutical texts. What is inference is not history, but speculation. The book has nothing to do with 'Jews'. Its reception tells you more about both anti-Semites who slavered over it uncomprehendingly and, unfortunately, the danger of suppressing open argument even on abstruse moments in history for fear of possible consequences. Nishidani (talk) 21:09, 22 August 2015 (UTC)