Talk:List of Jewish mathematicians

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Why do we need an article listing Jewish mathematicians? There is no such 'list' for Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Budhists or even atheists. I do note there is a 'list of Muslim mathematicians', but that can be justified on historical grounds - it refers to pre 1500 AD individuals, as there are no well known post-medieval Muslim mathematicians (Abdus Salam excluding). IMHO, most of the people on this so called list would have identified themselves first and foremost as human beings, then (likely) mathematicians, then (possibly) French, Germans, Americans, Russians, etc, and only then as Jewish or whatever. I also note to my amusement that there is a list of American Jewish mathematicians, so, maybe, when I can be bothered I might start an article listing gay, HIV positive, communists or even ginger haired mathematicians, but heck, such an article would obviously get shot down in flames because nobody gives a damn about collecting statistics and publishing works categorising intellectuals in such manners. As per usual, only Zionists seem to.1812ahill (talk) 03:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

if you want to create a list of some category of mathematicians, and that category may be usefull to a reader, then do it. I find this article as a usefull tool, because i am interested as to which mathematicians were jewish. I dont think anyone cares whether thay were ginger haired, but certainly make a list of christian mathematicians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.156.115.144 (talk) 22:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

what about corrado segre and beppo levi — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.66.195.134 (talk) 14:28, 24 December 2011 (UTC) was David Hilbert jewish?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.196.178.211 (talk) 07:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Georg Cantor was Lutheran - check the wikipedia listing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.252.134.225 (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

There is something very funny and something a little obscene about such a list. First, a list of Jewish bankers would be shut down immediately (rightly so). Second, these are people that were educated and worked within national and international mathematical communities, not within a (non-existent) "Jewish mathematical community". (Medieval figures would be an exception.) Third - and this might be crucial if there is a request for deletion - the criteria used for inclusion are (a) unstated, (b) inconsistent both with the title of the page (this is really a list of mathematicians stated by some source to have some Jewish descent), (c) wildly at variance with criteria used for membership in actual Jewish communities (... and most members of the list most likely belonged to no such community). Here everybody who is thought by somebody to descend from Jews in one way or the other gets in, regardless of religion or cultural background.

(No, verifiability does not resolve the issue, since there is no consistency in what is meant by the term "Jew" in the universe of all sources.)

The same goes for percentages. At least here there is no comparison with the percentage of Jews in the world population! (What would really be relevant would be a comparison with the percentage at different times of people in the classes with access to higher education in Nobel-producing countries/cities that have had some Jewish descent.) Feketekave (talk) 11:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of lists of people by ethnicity on Wikipedia, including lists of Jewish actors, architects, athletes, chess players, economists, footballers, film directors, historians, heads of state and government, musicians, Nobel laureates, scientists, etc. The condition that members of the list be "verifiably Jewish or of Jewish descent" is standard and more than sufficient. 2607:FEA8:8420:30D:F03B:593D:A375:DBBC (talk) 18:44, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Again, "verifiably Jewish" means nothing if there are no fixed criteria for what is meant. If we are going to be put anybody with any ancestors who were Jews in this list, then the page is simply misnamed. Of course whatever's said here could also be said for most of those lists; so what? Feketekave (talk) 22:11, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

"This list of Jewish mathematicians includes mathematicians and statisticians who are or were verifiably Jewish or of Jewish descent." Once and for all: which one is it? If someone is not Jewish (by whatever criterion), but is "of Jewish descent" (how much? which side?) then, by definition, that person should not be put in a list called "List of Jewish mathematicians", period.

And what about consent? This is a list that seems to have a clear purpose: the lead paragraph talks about what percentages of winners of various awards are Jewish or supposedly Jewish (by whatever criterion). (Notice the percentages are compared to the proportion of Jews in the general population, meaning, presumably, people who are actually Jewish by religion or are otherwise affiliated.) What about consent? What about living people who either do not identify as Jews, or do identify as Jews *but do not want to be part of this sort of list*?

(Note: I also just followed some of the references given, and they say absolutely nothing about the affiliation of the person being mentioned.) Feketekave (talk) 16:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

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