User talk:Jehobbs/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Beta Israel Page This article seems very on topic and well researched. There were many different subsections to the article that dealt with both the history of the Beta Israeli people and their current location, culture, and view of themselves. When I saw the section of the Kebra Nagast, I checked it carefully to see if it followed what we had been learning in class. The description was not lacking at all. Though I am not an expert on Beta Israel, I do have some grasp of their history due to the course and this page did not need any updates to me. The article goes on to talk about the genetics of Beta Israelis, which I found could be possibly problematic. Ties between genetics and race always get a little fuzzy and perhaps do not belong in a historical argument. This person is clearly pro-Ethiopians being included in the ethnically Jewish category. I think this claim is well researched and therefore more neutral than biased. As far as views being underrepresented, there is not a lot of discussion about the interaction between the Palestinians and Ethiopian Jews in Israel in the 20th century. However, that discussion could fit better perhaps in a more general discussion of the Isreal-Palestine conflict rather than this article. The citations are linked correctly and the pages themselves support the claims made in the article. I also think that the discussion of the biased ways in which Ethiopian Jews were treated was left thin and needed more of a deeper exploration. The bibliography for this article includes over 129 sources and is thoroughly annotated. It is hard to not have a biased source, but these references seem to be leaning in an unbiased way or are very open about the biases that they may have. Over time, many pieces of this article have been removed or edited for being biased or unfounded in fact. The talk page was heavily populated and I was not alone in finding the genetics section of the article to be problematic. People were also frustrated with the depiction of Ethiopian Jews in the article and the way it glossed over their treatment in society. I think the article approaches the idea of Beta Israelites from many different angles, whereas we have really only discussed them through a historical lense at this point. On the talk page, it does mention that a WikiProject on Beta Isreal has been started. My question is, what value does the discussion of genetics add to this article? - Jehobbs (talk) 23:49, 22 September 2018 (UTC)