Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yitzchok Kogan


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Cirt (talk) 03:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yitzchok Kogan

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Contested prod. Unsourced BLP on a Russian rabbi. No significant independent coverage found. Michig (talk) 07:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Depends on the definitions. There are plenty of significant biographical reports in media and academic studies clearly associated with Judaism and Zionism and thus not quite independent. The 1999 and 2006 assaults at his synagogue were covered in mainstream media (BBC, The Guardian, TASS) but, taken alone, they are BLP1E; there are also articles were he appears prominently just as a rabbi and a talking head, not "asserting notability" (The Independent). Not sure where Radio Liberty fall in this dichotomy (they featured K. as the "man of the week" ). NVO (talk) 08:56, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Any independent coverage of Kogan would certainly make a difference - the reports of attacks on his synagogue don't make a difference in my view, and neither does the odd quote in news articles. I'm not sure Radio Liberty can be considered a reliable source, but I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise.--Michig (talk) 09:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete I have looked at all the sources mentioned above, and those given in the article. Most of these sources don't even begin to be suitable. Several of the sources mentioned above make only passing mention of Kogan. The only "reference" in the article is described as an "autobiography". (In fact it is nothing of the sort, but just the main web page of the synagogue. I strongly suspect that this is a mistake: the synagogue's web site does also contain an autobiography of Kogan, so I shall replace the existing link with one to that autobiography.) The Radio Liberty piece is a little better, but (1) it is not really substantial and (2) it is not clear to me that this is truly independent, as the Radio service is using Kogan to promote a particular view. The article gives a link to a page on the website of the Federation of Jewish Communities of CIS, but this is a promotional site for an organisation Kogan is a member of, so I don't see it as an independent source. That leaves us with the article from The Independent, which seems to me to be the only source good enough to be seriously considered under Wikipedia's criteria. However, it is essentially an article about the Chabad Lubavitch Synagogue. Certainly Kogan features prominently in that article, but only because of his association with the synagogue, rather than because of noteworthiness in his own right. If we had several sources of this standard it might be reasonable to ask whether several pieces of second-hand notability of this kind added up tot notability for Kogan himself. I am not sure what the answer to that question would be, but I am quite sure that one such example is nowhere near enough for Wikipedia's notability requirement. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions.  —Joe407 (talk) 11:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I too have looked at what I could see in English and Russian. The Synagogue is I think clearly notable as a historic establishment, one of Moscow's first, and I think the 2nd largest. I'm not sure he is quite as notable, and I suppose this could be redirected and altered into an article about the synagogue.  I see JBW has   the same idea.  But I think this can hold on its own. Radio Liberty is of course a political source, but we use such sources. Very little in this area is likely to be truly independent.. I have yet to see a non-politically oriented source about Russia.    DGG ( talk ) 04:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree with DGG about political sources, and obviously the fact that a source is political does not by any means exclude it. However, when there are other reasons for not being satisfied with the quality of sources, the fact that the only reason for a mention in a source is to plug a particular POV does, I think, weaken the value of the source a little more. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ( X! ·  talk )  · @536  · 11:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:Notability and WP:Reliable sources. This article has not been substantially changed since it was put up 3 years ago, when Rabbi Kogan was quoted by journalists reporting on an anti-semitic attacker. Yoninah (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I spent a few minutes on google. This man is notable because 1) he was persecuted by the KGB for keeping kosher, 2) runs a congragation 3) opened the first kosher food store in Moscow since communism and 4) has survived two well-covered bombings and a stabbing by anti-Semites.  There's probably more, news google has a lot of hits, but you do have to use variant spellings and search things like keywords :rabbi kogan moscow without the first name.  The sort out the other rabbis kogan.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.35.50 (talk) 17:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Comment In answer to the last post, none of the reasons given address Wikipedia's notability criteria. "He was persecuted by the KGB" scarcely constitutes notability by any criteria, as millions of people were. Similar remarks apply to the fact that he runs a congregation. The facts that he opened the first kosher food store in Moscow since communism and has survived bombings give him some newsworthiness, but is there substantial coverage of him (not just of the bombings, with brief mentions of him) in reliable independent sources? Number of Google hits is no evidence of notability for several reasons, including the fact that they do not discriminate between substantial coverage and brief mentions, between reliable and unreliable sources, or between independent and non-independent sources. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This rabbi gets into the international news not once, not twice, but three times for surviving violent attacks by anti-Semitic fanatics. I pretty much think that anybody struck by lightening three times is notable.   The second and third attacks were on a synagogue of which he has been the sole and founding rabbi since it was returned ot the Jews by the government.   After the third attack, in which he and his son took down the attacker and turned him over to the police, he is personally awarded a medal for bravery by Vladimir Putin.  He also reestablished the availability of kosher meat in Moscow in the post-Communist era.  There are multiple articles about his role in establishing the synagogue, and wrestling the anti-Semitic skinheaf to the floor together with his son, and providing kosher food in a place where it was previously not available.  Frankly, I fail to understand the basis for your objections.  Also, could you show me how to correct the name of the synagogue?  I improved that article with some sources, but the name is clunky.


 * Weak Delete - Pretty marginal. A few of the sources in the article are dupes -- an AP story about the opening of the Moscow store published in  multiple papers.  The others are principally about the 2006 attack, not about Rabbi Kogan per se.  I don't see significant coverage. --RrburkeekrubrR 21:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. I read the article.  ( I did not trace the sources).  The article does not establish notability.  He sounds like a wonderful person, a rabbi and a community leader but I don't see the notability.  The Refusnik section does not mention anything notable and from what I remember, the is no automatic notability for being the subject of an attack.  The closest I would say could be notability is if there is automatic notability for all recipients of the award Kogan received.  (BTW, He could not have received the Badge of Honor as it has not been given since 1988.  He probably received the Order of Honor)  Given the large number of people who have received this award I don't think there is automatic notability for the award.

One last thought. Should there be automatic notability (or at least a full list) established for all Chabad shlichim? Joe407 (talk) 05:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Joe407: There are 4,000 shluchim out there, including their children. We could put the more notable names in our existing article, Shaliach (Chabad), which is still a stub. Yoninah (talk) 10:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.