Talk:Samuel Heilman

Gratuitous commentary on Klinghoffer?
I'm deleting the ba'al teshuva description of Klinghoffer from the criticism section, that seems totally irrelevant, and also the innuendo about his employer. I think it can go back if it's directly tied to Klinghoffer's critique of this particular book. TaraIngrid (talk) 19:02, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Criticism or Agenda?
1. An incident in the mid-90s which did paint Prof. Heilman in a bad light but whose facts are unclear and is largely based on hearsay 2. Criticisms of his books by a small number of individuals in the communities about which he has written 3. Criticism that is either uncited or relies on self-published sources or others that are not reliable secondary sources.
 * - After noting that some controversy has arisen about Samuel Heilman's recent book The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, I checked his wikipedia page to find out more about the author. I was surprised to find that, for an author/professor who is well-known and generally respected in his field, judging by his awards as well as his being often quoted in the media, his wikipedia page seemed to be very heavy on criticism.  Upon close examination I learned that the criticism on his page seems to fall into three categories:

As a result, I made changes to reflect the general balance of praise and criticism of Heilman, removed many of the unreliable sources, and added some extra content. This change has been edited by the same user several times, calling my edits a 'love-in' or 'vandalism'.

It is important to cite the specific violations I found in this article, as documented in the Biographies of Living Persons guidelines. These are sections of the guidelines which I found were violated in the page as I first encountered it:

1. Tone BLPs should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subject, and in some circumstances what the subject has published about himself. BLPs should not have trivia sections.

2. Criticism and praise Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, as long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and look out for biased or malicious content.

3. Sources -- Challenged or likely to be challenged Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Verifiability, says that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not complying with this may be removed. This policy extends that principle, adding that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable, and whether it is in a biography or in some other article.

4. Sources -- Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); that relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see below); or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to comply with Verifiability. // Cnvb (talk) 08:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * - brief explanation // Cnvb (talk) 08:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Why omit half the story?
Here are several other sources that you may wish to consider (re)introducing to the article. These sources meet wiki standards, and, just as importantly, add personality and color to a prominent scholar.

This article implies that Shmuley Boteach is the only individual with misgivings about the Rebbe book, (and even so ignores his second critique published in the Jerusalem Post without which his opinion is incomplete and misrepresented). This is far from the case, and wikipedia readers deserve a balanced, verifiable, and non-partisan perspective. Here is a published review critical of the book, by way of example:. No doubt that there are other out there as well.

One Chaim Rapoport, member of the UK’s Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks’ cabinet where he holds the Jewish medical ethics portfolio, wrote a 45 page critique of the book. This monograph is sourced with some 200 footnotes (!). This was published as an ebook and shared by two academics on their blog:. Interestingly, the the authors of the book have publicly responded in an article of their own:. (This fascinating public dialogue continued for several rounds.) What gives this critique credence and notability--and therefore ought to be shared withe readers of wikipedia--is that the authors of the book chose to respond to this critique (and no others). Further, during the dialogue, the authors concede a number of factual errors in their work.

It is my understanding that these sources meet the Biographies of Living Persons guidelines and should therefore be included.

SeriousScholarship (talk) 17:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Heaping Praise?
Some anon user keeps on removing well-sourced material from the criticism section, and replacing it with hagiographic praise. As I see it, the subject of this article is both an eminent scholar and a controversial figure. (This is well documented in the footnotes.) The wiki article ought represent that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SeriousScholarship (talk • contribs) 18:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC) A strange thing, almost all of those who praise Heilman are liberal academics. Heilman claims to be an expert of the Orthodox world which has almost universal disdain for his so called scholarship. Maybe what we have here is a liberal scholar full of his own bias and hostility towards traditionally observant Jews. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.4.8.64 (talk) 07:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There was a recent and somewhat thorough article on Professor Heilman in Ami magazine. Perhaps someone with the article would be so good as to update the page?--Winchester2313 (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The Thomas Bird Affair
It seems that the current revision does not reflect a NPOV, if anything, it seems as if it could have been written by the subject himself. In a nutshell, Dr. Heilman opposed the appointment of Dr. Bird to chair the Jewish studies department at his university, arguing that Dr. Bird's not being Jewish disqualified him from the post. Heilman threatened to not teach courses in the department if Dr. Bird was appointed. This position was rejected on a number of levels and Dr. Bird did receive the appointment. This issue was raised in numerous outlets in the New York press, and it spilled over onto the national stage, for example, in the Washington Post and NPR. Here is an editorial of the NY Daily News that says plainly: "Heilman should be ashamed of himself". SeriousScholarship (talk) 02:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

This whole page reeks of self-promotion and is clearly biased.
I've tried restoring some balance to the page that might bring it in line with NPOV policy. I also think that if the trolls keep using it to trash Heilman's critics and color up his profile, a checkuser would probably turn up some interesting information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.116.199.241 (talk) 22:49, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:08, 17 July 2013 (UTC)