Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jewish history/Archive 5

Category:Reform Jews
Hi, I've created Category:Reform Jews, having noticed that corresponding Categories representing most of the other major movements already seem to exist. Many of the most notable and accomplished Jewish people have affiliated with the Reform movement, and I think it's important to create a Category that shows this. I'm able to find information about which individuals belong in this Category in lists of notable people affiliated with specific Reform synagogues. Does anyone else want to help out with this? To me, this Category seems like important information. -- AFriedman  (talk)  23:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposals for a Jewish state
Hi, letting any interested Wikipedians on this project know that I've placed a move request to move Proposals for a Jewish state to "Proposals to establish a Jewish state outside of Israel". Full rationale can be found on Talk:Proposals for a Jewish state. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 18:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Israel FAR
nominated Israel for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cptnono (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Russian American
User:Andrew Shane has been deleting references to Jews in the article on Russian American. He seems to have done so in other articles as well. In his last edit, he has deleted references to Sergey Brin and Isaac Asimov. Previously, he included Irving Berlin in his deletions. I started a section on the talk page, titled Talk:Russian_American to discuss this issue. I am not Jewish, and am not an expert in this field, but I feel Russian Jews should be considered Russians, just as German Jews are considered Germans. If I am wrong, please tell me. If I am right, please support me or point me to the right discussion page. I would prefer not to get into an edit war on this issue.--Work permit (talk) 05:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

New editor needs assistance from Jewish History project
I am soliciting support from this project for User talk:Mhpjnac whose first article on The North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews has been proposed for deletion. Unfortunately, the name of the article and its content don't mesh up. The article is really written about the planned museum, not the roles and signficance of the Council. I personally do not know about the Council, nor can I judge its nobability at this point. I encouraged Mhpjnac to rewrite the article focused on the Council and to find reliable 3rd party sources to support its notability. Any help from members of this project to improve the article and help new editor Mhpjnac would be appreciated. Thanks--Mike Cline (talk) 21:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Jacob Frank now a mascot for Wikipedia sister project Wikiversity
Hi, I'm developing Jacob Frank (an 18th-century religious leader and follower of Sabbatai Zevi, and a topic within the scope of this WikiProject) as a mascot for Wikipedia's sister project Wikiversity. Wikiversity aims to be an online open school and university, and was also created to host original research. Because of its nature, it's open to educational resources in almost any format. Wikiversity's mascots appear on User talk pages when new Users are welcomed. In my opinion, the Wikiversity mascots could be used more fully as an opportunity to teach. The previously developed Wikiversity mascots lack intrinsic educational value. For example, they include a jack-o-lantern, a goat and twin babies not noticeably tied to anything else. In contrast, Jacob Frank is tied to a chapter of history that is relatively little-known and is probably interesting to some people who might not have heard of him beforehand. I'm also hoping to use his professed ignorance in real life and his doctrine of "purification through transgression" to introduce the Wikiversity policies of "Be bold" and "Ignore all rules" (Wikipedia has very similar policies with the same names). I would appreciate your going over to Wikiversity to provide feedback on the pages about the mascot: v:User:JacobFrank and v:Template:JacobFrank. The Template is left on new Users' talk pages; the Userpage is linked from the template and provides more information about Jacob Frank. Also, any ideas for other Wikiversity mascots? Thanks. -- AFriedman  (talk)  03:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The New York Times and the Holocaust
The administrator helping me on my talk page suggested I seek comments from others on this topic. my article is being trashed by 3 users with no knowledge or interest in the Holocaust. First they tried to delete it entirely and were outvoted five to three. Now they have repeatedly gutted it place, undoing a longer, accurate and well footnoted article and putting an inaccurate two paragraph thing in its place.

I originally posted an article on a tragic, but non-controversial topic in Holocaust studies: the New York Times policy during the period of the Second World War to minimize reports of the Holocaust. I relied on two resources: the New York Time’s apology in 2001, and the work of Dr. Laurel Leff.

The issue is not controversial among knowledgable people because the Times itself acknowledged its guilt fully and publicly in its 150th anniversary issue on November 14, 2001, 56 years after the end of the war. Under the title, “Turning Away from the Holocaust”, retired executive editor Max Frankel wrote that the Times knew the accuracy of the reports on Hitler’s persecution of the Jews and the Final Solution, but that from the beginning to the end, chose never to make it a lead story, or the exclusive topic of an editorial. “… to this day the failure .. to fasten upon Hitler's mad atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors.”

In listing the details of the Time’s policy to ‘bury’ the Holocaust, Frankel cited one outside resource:

“No article about the Jews' plight ever qualified as The Times's leading story of the day, or as a major event of a week or year. The ordinary reader of its pages could hardly be blamed for failing to comprehend the enormity of the Nazis' crime. Laurel Leff...has been the most diligent independent student of The Times's Holocaust coverage and deftly summarized her findings last year in The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.”

Three people who originally tried to delete the entire article and are now ruining it have never made any contributions to an article on the holocaust or world war II, and are not really interested. they came over from the new york times page, where they try to prevent criticism of the Times. when they were voted down re deleting the New York Times and the Holocaust in its entirely, they have proceeded to gut it in place. i don't have any allies on this page. The administrator helping me on my talk page suggested I go to a wikiproject page to say i would welcome comments from others.Cimicifugia (talk) 03:55, 29 May 2010 (UTC)cimicifugia

"The poor" in Judaism and Jewish history
Hello, all. I have recently been digging up a lot of material related to the Ebionites, a little known early Jewish Christian group. Maybe it was a single group, anyway. That question is one of the reasons I've been dredging up material on them. In any event, I have found a substantial article, about 30 pages long, in an encyclopedia relating to the word and concept of "the poor" in the era around the beginning of the Common Era. The term seems to have been used as a self-description of the Qumran Covenanters, for instance. I was wondering if the members of this project knew of any articles which already exist which might be able to hold some of this material which cannot fit in the Ebionites article. Individuals are, of course, free to offer comments on any of the other recent threads as well. The directly relevant discussion can be found at Talk:Ebionites. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Jews in China
History_of_the_Jews_in_China says there is a history of Jews at least in Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou, and Ningxia. Only Kaifeng has a proper page (Kaifeng Jews). Hangzhou has only a brief reference and the other city pages do not make mention of Jews at all. Wakablogger2 (talk) 08:50, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * All of the Jewish communities in other cities died out centuries ago. The reason the Kaifeng Jews have an article is because we know the most about them. They received some holy books from Ningbo in the 15th century (if I remember correct). The Jews originally fled south to Hangzhou when the Jingkang Incident took place. Matteo Ricci made note of a synagogue in Hangzhou, but I think that community was probably dead by then.


 * I imagine the reason that the other articles do not make mention of historical Jewish communities is because most people are unaware of them. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 10:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. Mention should be made so people can become aware of them. Pearl S. Buck's book "Peony" has a map of several more Chinese cities with Jewish settlements, but the city names on it are no readable. There must be other such maps somewhere. Wakablogger2 (talk) 06:06, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussions of proper names for the articles discussing the three Temples of Judaism
The recent move of the articles below has engendered concern on WP:ANI if the consensus reached was representative of the wider wikipedia project. Therefore, three RfCs have been opened to fully discuss the proper names of the articles, so consensus can be reched. Please visit and opine at the sections listed below. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 17:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Talk:First_Temple
 * 2) Talk:Second_Temple
 * 3) Talk:Third_Temple

RfC on Christ myth theory page name
Comments would be appreciated at an RfC about the best title for the Christ myth theory. See the discussion here. The article is about the theory that Jesus of Nazareth did not, or probably did not, exist as an historical being. Should it be moved from Christ myth theory to, for example, Jesus myth theory? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 23:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Footer template needed
I have noticed a need for a "History of the Jews in China" footer with links to relevant articles. This would replace the use of links in see also sections, which can appear bloated. Viriditas (talk) 01:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Dead Sea Scrolls related RfC
There is currently an RfC related to a matter related to the Dead Sea Scrolls at Talk:Ebionites. Any input is more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Hasidic dynasty article names
I'd like to change these--see my post at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism.Prezbo (talk) 02:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal

 * I proposed to merge the article 'Jews and the slave trade' into 'Judaism and slavery' to form a single article, possibly titled 'Jews, Judaism and Slavery'. The overlap between the articles is huge, the articles are not too long, and a unified article covering all facets of the topic would be more useful to the reader. Please voice your opinion at Talk:Judaism_and_slavery. Marokwitz (talk) 06:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Judaism and violence
Hi, I noticed an article which needs your attention - Judaism and violence. I think this article is one sided trying to portray Judaism as a violent religion, and Jewish History as dominated by violence against others, which is clearly not the prevailing scholarly view. Balancing information should be added regarding Judaism's key principles of love of peace and the pursuit of peace. Extremists using Judaism to justify violence are only a tiny minority, and are far from the widespread interpretation of Judaism. I began adding some such material, but your help would be greatly appreciated. Marokwitz (talk) 09:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair-use discussion about a Holocaust image
There's a discussion about whether we can claim fair use for a particular image from the Holocaust. J Milburn began it as a discussion about just one this image, but the same issues apply to most of the others we use too. Fresh eyes would be appreciated. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 14:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Holocaust-related Article nominated for deletion
The following article was nominated for deletion, The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism. Since the article is part of this WikiProject, please feel free to raise your opinions in the AFD debate. Marokwitz (talk) 08:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Jerusalem
There is currently a discussion taking place at Talk:Jerusalem over how the article should word certain issues. Some editors want the word "proclaimed" to be added to the first sentence of the article to describe it as the "proclaimed capital" of Israel as the international community does not recognise it as the capital of Israel, others disagree and think the status quo which has existed for about 3 years should remain (something that has been debated many times over the years but retained), and several compromises have also been suggested. The issue has now also spread to other matters, with some editors wanting it to say "proclaimed flag", "proclaimed mayor", "proclaimed coat of arms" etc, to also highlight the fact the international community does not recognise the status of Jerusalem. This matter could have implications for other articles if changes are made and a similar pattern followed. So input from other editors would be helpful. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 14:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Jewish history-related articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Jewish history-related articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (&diams;) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Saul Isaac
I have just created a stub article on Saul Isaac, the first Jewish person to be elected as a Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom. Only a stub so far, but I suspect that there may be sources somewhere which would allow expansion ... not just in relation to his political career, but becuase of his business partnership with his brother Samuel (who has a DNB entry).

I have searched the archives of The Times newspaper, which doesn't seem to have given him either one of the paper's standard one-para bios of new MPs, nor an obituary. Maybe other editors have access to some appropriate sources? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Mention of Aleppo pogrom in History section of Aleppo
I would have thought that the following paragraph:
 * In December 1947, after the UN vote in favour of the partition of Palestine, an Arab mob attacked and devastated the Jewish quarter. The ancient Great Synagogue was completely gutted by fire. The overall damage to the community was estimated at $2.5 million. Soon after, many of the towns 6,000 Jews emigrated.

would have been acceptable to add the the history section of Aleppo. A certain editor keeps removing it, claiming that the incident is covered in the demographics section. While the page does have its own Jews in Allepo section, I don't see why this occurance needs to be whitewashed in the history section. Also, should the demographics section hold historic infomation? Chesdovi (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)