Wikipedia talk:Jewish Encyclopedia topics

Purpose
What are we trying to achieve here? JFW | T@lk  29 June 2005 15:44 (UTC)


 * Hello. These lists have been posted to provide suggestions for Jewish-related topics which Wikipedia may grow to include in the future.  I did not compile these lists with the intention of starting a campaign to dump the text of every article in the JE into the Wikipedia.  Instead, I hope that these lists will help users to identify any gaps that Wikipedia may have in its treatment of Jewish topics.  If users find a subject on the list which is missing from Wikipedia, they may choose to click on the adjacent link to the Jewish Encyclopedia entry as the first step in researching a new article.  The availability of these lists, I believe, will make the task easier.  A user who is browsing for ideas for new articles will be saved the inconvenience of having to scroll through the topics on the JE website (only ten of which can be seen at a time) and to constantly jump back and forth between the JE directory and the search page on Wikipedia to see if the topic has already been covered.--Defrosted 1 July 2005 05:13 (UTC)
 * The article sure looks like this is what you are suggestingMzk1 (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

JewishEncyclopedia.com
I found this website, and it mentions the JE being in the public domain, but its terms of use are a bunch of legal gibberish. I think they restrict the use of this stuff (which includes scanned page images), but why would they do that? It's just stuff copied from a public domain resource, so all they're doing is hampering the flow of information about Jewish history and culture. Any ideas? I'd like to use this, but I'm not sure if I can, so I haven't.

by the way: --Joel7687 30 June 2005 22:52 (UTC)


 * Hello. I believe that you can copy text directly from the Jewish Encyclopedia (hard copy--definitely, electronic transcription--extremely likely) into Wikipedia without committing copyright violations.  See  for a (incomplete) list of almost 100 Wikipedia articles which have incorporated JE text.  So far, I have not seen any notices being circulated to halt or forbid the borrowing of JE text.  Therefore, I presume that the numerous users who engage in such borrowing can freely continue their practice.  Of course, a proper acknowledgment of the original source should always be attached to the newly derived Wikipedia article, using the  template.
 * However, I am uncertain about the copyright situation of the images in the JE. I have so far refrained from importing JE graphics into Wikipedia, for if I remember correctly from the last time I checked, they bear the copyright logo. Hope this helps.--Defrosted 1 July 2005 04:13 (UTC)

Hi, I took a crack at an article, Yiram of Magdiel. Fairly straightforward, however, I will ask anyone working on these article, PLEASE do not just copy and paste. Clean them up. Make them into English. Fix the spellings. Get rid of the 19th century references unless they really move the text along. That said, I believe that this can be a valuable resource. I think I did a decent job cleaning up Yiram, so that, when compared to the original, can be a model of what I mean. Danny 02:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Removing JE references
I don't see why JE references should be removed. I have found that most of them can be found on the web in one format or another, and hence can be useful. -- -- -- 13:18, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Judaica
Is anyone checking this encyclopedia for articles on topics not in the Jewish Encyclopedia? This encyclopedia will still be copyright, so we can't just copy it, but we can identify article topics. RachelBrown 13:44, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Perecentage done?
I'd like to add a percent done number to this page, but to do that, I need a initial number. Defrosted, as you created this page, do you remember how many links were on it originally? If so, please add that # to the page, and I'll come along and create a percentage number, and add it to the Missing articles template. Thanks! JesseW 23:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Alphabetical Listing of Topics?
There are links to each of the alphabetical pages, but some of those page links are still red (i.e. they don't exist). Do those lists exist someplace? Could someone create those pages, please? Womble 01:04, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, the rest of the lists are still waiting to be created. Even though I started this subproject, I have been largely absent, being very busy with other work, and have only recently returned to compile the remainder of C.  You (or anybody else who may be interested) are welcome to pick another letter and influence the direction of this venture.--Defrosted 02:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I have now created lists for all the remaining letters. Wikiolap 07:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem
I noticed User:Dubaduba was copying material from, among other places, the encyclopedia britannica, searching his contribs, he has also been dumping material from the jewish encyclopedia, so i am afraid all blue links wil have to be checked. Martin - The non-blue non-moose 23:39, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notice. The direct importation of material from the JE shouldn't pose a problem in itself (and nor would this violate copyright since the JE has been released into the public domain), but User:Dubaduba has surely left a fair amount of cleanup work for others who have to tidy up the formatting he has neglected to do.  Good luck with straightening out the articles which have been plagiarized from Encyclopedia Britannica (if that is indeed the problem you are describing).--Defrosted 11:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yeah it's dealt with now. Martin - The non-blue non-moose 09:23, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject
Hi, this is a general invite, asking whether anyone might be interested in joining a long term Wikiproject
 * WikiProject Biblical Criticism

(As in Biblical Criticism, rather than about criticising the bible)

Its goal is to increase the amount of information originating from academia in biblical articles, as it is noticably lacking at the moment, this includes
 * Textual criticism
 * Critical theories
 * Mention, and summary, of historical commentaries (i.e. commentaries interpreting the subject from people thousands of years ago)
 * Information concerning change in interpretation, over tim
 * Interpretations from historic groups cast as heretics by the mainstream, including esoteric traditions (such as from groups like those responsible for the Book of Enoch)
 * Interpretations from historic groups who were once the mainstream, but where the interpretation is no longer supported by the mainstream.
 * Apologetics (from academic sources, rather than local religious people)

This also includes transferring the information present in the public domain Jewish Encyclopedia, which is not present in Wikipedia. This work is over 100 years old, and so the information needs updating once copied over, e.g. by taking account of subsequent scholarship (e.g. Martin Noth, Richard Friedman, Israel Finkelstein).

--francis 15:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Pruning
When someone scans one of the project subpages for pruning and follows the bluelinks, one of the following is possible:


 * 1) The page was copied from JE - the link is safe to prune
 * 2) The page is about something which while is mentioned in JE, is not Jewish specific - general subjects such as Life, Wife etc, or geographical locations such as Los Angeles etc - the link is safe to prune
 * 3) The page is about something completely different - the link cannot be pruned, and comment must be made that dab page is needed
 * 4) The page is about the same subject, but information there is incomplete compared to JE - the link cannot be pruned, and the comment must be made that more information needs to be copied from JE

Last two points about leaving comments are important for the future editors.

[The above comment was posted by User:Wikiolap on 00:08, 21 February 2006].


 * Thank you for posting your proposed pruning policy.


 * I endorse the ideas you have mentioned except for No. 2. While the trio of JE articles named "Life", "Wife", and "Los Angeles" may have ordinary-sounding titles, the coverage they receive in the JE is naturally Jewish-specific rather than generalist.  This definitely does not mean that Wikipedia could not benefit from JE's treatment of these topics.  The critical-historical surveys that the JE famously made of the views and relationships Jews have with these subjects could and should be incorporated into Wikipedia where relevant.


 * One method of integration might involve merging the JE material into Wikipedia entries with the same title; for example, transfer the JE information on Vultures into the section of Vulture that deals with the cultural significance of the bird.  For other topics, however, the Jewish content may be so extensive that it deserves a Wikipedia article of its own under a specifically Jewish label rather than being appended to the generic article.  "Los Angeles"  has the third largest Jewish community in the US so there probably needs to be a separate article called Jewish history in Los Angeles, like the other geographical locations pertaining to  the series on Jewish history (e.g., History of the Jews in Tunisia, etc.)  The JE information on "Husband and Wife"  would constitute a subset of Jewish view of marriage and Role of women in Judaism.


 * I regret that these intentions had not been properly outlined on the project page before you put in the hard work of pruning the lists, during which you removed some of the generic-sounding topics. Please do not think that I am accusing you of having done anything wrong.  When you were doing your job, you violated no pruning policy since no such thing ever clearly existed.  I have been thinking about restoring the generic deletions, but the task of reaching agreement on a standard pruning procedure is more urgent. Defrosted 01:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, this makes sense, the modified proposal is


 * 1) The page was copied from JE - the link is safe to prune
 * 2) The page already contains the same information as in JE (even though it wasn't ported from JE) - the link is safe to prune
 * 3) The page is about something which while is mentioned in JE, is not Jewish specific - general subjects such as Life, Wife etc, or geographical locations such as Los Angeles etc - the link cannot be pruned until either the JE information is merged into the article (Vultures example) or special Jewish related page is created (Jewish history in Los Angeles example). The comment must be made requesting either merge or a new article.
 * 4) The page is about something completely different - the link cannot be pruned, and comment must be made that dab page is needed
 * 5) The page is about the same subject, but information there is incomplete compared to JE - the link cannot be pruned, and the comment must be made that more information needs to be copied from JE

By Wikiolap 06:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Orthodox Judaism
Welcome WikiProject Orthodox Judaism. Please join if you are interested. Thank you. IZAK 08:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"gymnasium": Disambiguation link repair
This is a note to let you know the reason why I removed the link to "gymnasium," and to offer a suggestion. A link to "gymnasium" merely points to the disambiguation page (not any article), which creates a need for Disambiguation link repair - You can help!. Also, on this particular page, "gymnasium" seems to be a list item rather than a topic that is being discussed. I felt that removing the link would not damage the page's contents; plus I wasn't sure which meaning of gymnasium was being referred to. A more specific link will not cause this problem. Examples include: Gymnasium and Gymnasium Thanks for your patience, Ling.Nut 00:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Jewish WIKIVERSITY
NEW: On Wikiversity there is now a "Jewish Studies School." Will it become a "duplication" of many things on Wikipedia? What should it's goals and functions be? Please add your learned views. Thank you. IZAK 09:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Jewish Encyclopedia off line?
I haven't been able to connect to the Jewish Encyclopedia at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp for three days now. Is anyone else having this problem? Does anyone know what's going on? --Rbraunwa 14:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
We've uploaded nearly all of our encyclopedia topics, a list of which is available here. Most are under Judaism category "The Holocaust"--USHMMwestheim 04:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

note
WP:ANI#User:Lopakhin and the Jewish Encyclopedia. —Random832 18:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Changes
I have changed the project page to treat this as an ongoing tracking list of JE articles, rather than a missing articles list.

Essentially JE topics, once they have articles encompassing the JE material, should therefore not be deleted ("pruned") from the list; but, rather, should be retained on the list as blue-links (though marked as passing quality control).

My motivations for this change are twofold: first, that the effort going into annotating the JE articles list are useful in their own right, and should be preserved for others, rather than deleted once we have the material. (I also find it makes it a lot easier to browse the JE than any index on the JE site). Secondly, that it is useful to preserve a tracking list as to how we are using JE content, rather than simply declaring that it has been satisfactorily assimilated. IMO, the 1911 verification project gives a good example as to how this can subsequently be useful -- the 1911 project deleted its working indexes as it went along; and that has made now verifying how well the 1911 material is being used rather harder than it should be.

Triage
If we're not going to remove items from the list any more, that means we instead need a system to mark up how material is being used. Beyond the obvious redlinks, the following annotations seem useful to me, to go before in bold before the JE link. But please treat these as just opening suggestions, to be discussed and refined:
 * DAB - our link goes to a dab page, with no entry for the subject of the JE article. (But if there is a relevant article, use a piped link to link directly to that article instead).
 * + - we have some general coverage of the topic, but it doesn't reference the JE, or use any of its material. The article may not even take into account a Jewish angle.  But the link at least goes somewhere appropriate.
 * JE - the wiki article contains a JewishEncyclopedia link back to releavant article in the JE, and incorporates (at least some?) of its content.
 * EL:JE - the article does not contain JE content directly, but references the JE article as an external link.
 * FR:JE - the article does not contain JE content directly, but references the JE article as "further reading".
 * REF:JE - the article references the JE for at least some points it discusses; but does not contain a JewishEncyclopedia template.
 * S 2009-10-18 - a version of the article as of this date can be "signed off" as containing everything that it would be useful to extract from the JE; and also is up-to-date with more recent scholarship/outlooks (and WP best practice such as NPOV). Typically such articles will in fact be marked JE S, as they will also include a JE template.

This is just some preliminary thinking; let's consider and improve now, before full-on triage gets too far underway.


 * Some additional tags:
 * UNR - WP has an article (the link is blue), but the subject is unrelated.
 * >> - The JE topic title leads to a general article; but WP also has (or should have) an article more specifically related to the JE subject-matter
 * (eg: France >> History of the Jews in France).

To do
Because the intention should now be to keep an entry on the list for every JE topic heading, I have reformatted them into pages of 500 by the original count, moving some entries back a page where necessary. I have also subdivided into sections of 100, to make editing easier. Although there could be a case for making the subsections smaller, I liked dividing the articles into centuries, because this should allow creation of summary statistics totalling articles with coverage, articles marked JE, and articles marked S, on the same scale as percentages for the project as a whole. 100 is quite large, but I hope not too large that people will think it too big a block of articles to take on and tackle.

I have also now gone through the whole topic list, and done my best to clean-up the list for issues like capitalisation, and the upper-casing/lower-casing of characters with diacritics (which was previously a bit odd).

Something which remains to do is to add back list-entries (presumably to be marked S) for topics which have previously been signed off and removed. Unfortunately, though, a clean unedited topic list doesn't seem to be available in the page history for all pages. (Update: done, give or take a few single exceptions)

Other things that I hope to do. With luck, some or all of this should be supportable with scripts.
 * For each item, add links (wp gwp g), for "Search Wikipedia", "Google Search Wikipedia", "Search Google". (Compare eg Catholic Encyclopedia topics).
 * (Update: done)
 * Generate a list of all articles that currently use the JE template, and (as far as possible) get a script to match these to corresponding list entries.
 * (Update: topics that have the same name or redirects are done. But about 700  200 articles still to match to JE topics, by hand)
 * Make sure each article links back to the URL of its JE source, by completing the template fields.
 * Capture and add-in the "see elsewhere" print-edition redirects in the JE, where these so far have been missed.
 * (Update: substantially done; though some of the article xrefs need to be fixed, where these in fact direct to the same entry; and some of the print redirects should have more than one xref).
 * Count current number of topics with bluelinks (less entries flagged UNR or DAB), to give an updated Coverage score. Also count the number of topics tagged JE or S.

(Plus, of course, continuing to bear down on red links.)
 * Run the pages past Red link recovery live on the Toolserver. So far done: B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J.

All this will, I hope, make the "JE topics" pages more useful as a resource, and also more accessible to bring up to speed. I hope, therefore, it is acceptable. Jheald (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment

 * It looks really good. This project hasn't been touched in a while, but there is still a lot of work to do in it. I really like how you've preserved the original list and now we can go through and compare JE's master list against the corresponding article on Wikipedia. There is a lot of value in this. If you want more feedback on this, since this page is rarely watched, I suggest linking this discussion to WT:JEW and perhaps WT:ISRAEL as well. - Epson291 (talk) 23:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I will indeed do that; but I wanted to sound out the views of those who have already been most involved with this list first.  Jheald (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Disagreement about usefulness
I strongly disagree that the advice given here is valid ; the scholarship is outdated, and the point of view is old-fashioned. Almost all topics have received substantial work since, and can be found in the Encyclopedia Judaica, and other more modern sources. There are new aspects to many topics, and reinterpretation of older ones It is much more appropriate  to use Encyclopedia Judaica -- in the second edition of 2006-7. It is not free, but all academic libraries have it, and most medium sized public libraries also. I would only use the old JE d cautiously to supplement modern sources, to indicate the view that was taken by the writers of a particular article at the time it was written. It is no longer a RS, certainly not for interpretation, or views about importance or significance. The best use for it, I think, is a guide to what topics need to be covered.

I think it would be fair to challenge the sourcing of any article based only on this, as equally for any article based only on the old EB.  DGG ( talk ) 21:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * That's just your point of view. Rabbi Joshua L. Segal, for example, states (2003) that it is a remarkable piece of Jewish scholarship, adding

For events prior to 1900, it is considered to offer a level of scholarship superior to either of the more recent Jewish Encyclopedias written in English


 * Jenny Mendelsohn, of University of Toronto Libraries, in an online guide to major sources of information about Jews and Judaism, writes (2006) of this work,

Although published in the early 1900s, this was a work highly regarded for its scholarship. Much of the material is still of value to researchers in Jewish History


 * Its thoroughly respected in the academic community as a still highly reliable and respected source for information on anything pre-1900; this includes the Bible, Talmud, Shulkhan Arukh, Maimonides, Eben haEzer, Tanya, etc. which are all pre-1900. Newman Luke (talk) 01:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Please differentiate between the Shulchan Aruch and Eben HaEzer (and why the Spanish spelling)? Do you mean the Tur?Mzk1 (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Its history coverage, and biographical coverage of historical Jewish figures, is actually pretty solid. The overwhelming material on those topics is factual, and by and large the facts haven't changed - classical Jewish sources, plus all the work done by the C19 Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, still account for the main points of reference.  Jheald (talk) 10:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Why does this have a Wikipedia prefix?
If this is a Project, why the prefix? People will think this is something official. Am I missing something?Mzk1 (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Because it's a management/maintenance area, not a set of articles. Compare all the other WikiProjects, that all also have a 'WP:' prefix. Jheald (talk) 10:36, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Notability
The project appears to assume that every JE article should have a corresponding WP article, but some seem low on notability for WP. For example, JE has an article for each of 12 Palestinian Amoraim named "Yizhaq," all of whom are red links. JE also has dozens and dozens of 19th-century personalities that have little content and are red links on WP. Is JE coverage enough for WP:NOTE? &mdash;Ra&#64257; 01:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm hoping to resurrect this question, as it's something I've been wondering also. HaViro (talk) 20:06, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I used to be more active here (in this project; in Wikipedia in general...). Now I'm much more involved with Wikisource, wikidata, and, in general with the linking of the the wikis. Therefore, from my experience, i actually think that an important first step would be to put the Jewish Encyclopedia on Wikisource. then, to link/refer appropriate Wikipedia articles to the relevant such entries of the Jewish Encyclopedia, which would now be on Wikisource.
 * All Jewish Encyclopedia entries should be on Wikisource. and, in turn, all such entries should have a link to something on Wikipedia.
 * see: Jewish Encyclopedia, Wikisource:WikiProject Bible dictionaries#Jewish Encyclopedia. Shilonite (talk) 22:22, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Palestinian rabbis
Please see The Arizal was a Palestinian with various disscussions at User talk:Chesdovi, User talk:Debresser (with next 8 talkback sections), User talk:Supreme Deliciousness, Assesing regional identity. Chesdovi (talk) 15:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates
I have altered Jewish Encyclopedia to take far more parameters the most significant of which is "wstitle=" which will link to an Jewish Encyclopedia on Wikisource: see Jewish Encyclopedia. There are two other templates:
 * Jewish Encyclopedia poster which produces an information box to the right of other text and is usually placed in the ==external links== sectiion.
 * Cite Jewish Encyclopedia is very similar to Jewish Encyclopedia but without the attribution string.

Both Cite Jewish Encyclopedia and Jewish Encyclopedia take the same parameters with one or two exceptions: Jewish Encyclopedia is a wrapper around Cite Jewish Encyclopedia which is a wrapper around Cite encyclopedia, so have the same layout as Cite encyclopedia with Jewish Encyclopedia having a leading attribution string. Not all of the parameters used in Cite encyclopedia but most of the common ones are. It is easy to add any of the additional Cite encyclopedia parameters if they are needed.
 * Jewish Encyclopedia has two additional parameters. inline=1changes the attrition string slightly and no-prescript=1 which removes the attribution string. It also set the standard parameter ref= to ref=harv, which is useful if Jewish Encyclopedia is to be used as a general reference with short citations (see WP:CITE)

I would like to add some more pre-filled in parameters, but do not know what values they should have. It would be nice to include the publisher, and based on the volume number, the date of publication of a specific volume. -- PBS (talk) 03:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Judaism on Simple English Wikipedia
Hi to everybody who sees this, we really need your help! Please help creating all the red-shaded terms... Thanks! click here Shalom11111 (talk) 04:16, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

This project page needs a defining categorization
First, thanks for all your hard work!

And now... What are you? Looking at the project page (not this talk page, which has many categories as opposed to just the one), I couldn't figure out if you are:
 * 1) a WikiProject,
 * 2) a Wikipedia Portal,
 * 3) a list-type article,
 * 4) a maintenance collaboration (obviously not a maintenance category),
 * 5) a sub-project of one or various WikiProjects, or
 * 6) something I haven't thought of yet.

Eep! I've got to go reboot my browser. I have yet to verify the above wikilinks and finish my thoughts, so please consider this a rough draft if you reply before I get back! Thanks, --Geekdiva (talk) 05:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Jewish Women's History Online Editathon
(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list)