Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism/Archive 10

Protocols of the Elder of Zion FAC
For those interested, I nominated Protocols of the Elders of Zion for FAC status, for those interested please comment and vote. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Somewhat related: please doublecheck & fix the note I added to King of the Jews. This title is being repeatedly used in the Protocols. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hasidic Judaism
Could someone please help sort out Talk:Hasidic Judaism? The phrase is "The picture of a 'Ba'al Shem' erroneously contributed to Israel ben Eliezer, the founder of Hasidism". - Jmabel | Talk 19:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

New Template:Juddom
Please see the newly-proposed Template:Juddom which strikes me as odd and redundent for now. Please add your views at Template talk:Juddom. Thanks. IZAK 14:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Halacha
Jon513 has created Infobox Halacha to add to pages on halachic topics to summarise the halachic sources. I am not sure what to think of it yet, but thought it should be mentioned here. jnothman talk 00:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It is very useful and interesting innovation and should be commended. A major concern should be about CHECKING the accuracy and correctnes of the information. Also what if there are various opinions in Halakha about the subject, how would that be conveyed? Perhaps with a "warning" in the box -- that "Some observances may be rabbinical, or customs, or from the Torah, this is not meant as a definitive ruling according to Jewish law" ? Sometimes, as in Payot it is NOT a universally observed CUSTOM (Minhag) although Hasidim observe it more rigorously, so how will that be indicated? Essentially, how is the novice reader supposed to know when something is to be observed as a rabbinical (derabannan) or if it is from the Torah (de'oraisa)? These are just some initial questions/reactions. IZAK 21:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Aleinu
Alright, the Qadish article has come a long way, and except for a few tweakings, I'm almost ready to nominate it for FA. Meanwhile, I think it's time to encourage anyone interested (and with requisite knowledge) in working to help brush up the עaleinu article. I've made a couple of observations at Talk:Aleinu to get the process started. Cheers, Tom e rtalk 04:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Desi Jews?
Category:Desi Jews? I've never heard the term, it gets very few Google hits (none from a source I'd normally consider citable) and we certainly don't have an article on the topic. Is there a basis for using this term? Or is this a poorly named category? - Jmabel | Talk 05:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It appears to be a neologism. I've never come across the term before.  It is, however, like you said, a poorly named category.  If categories could be moved, I'd go for that option, but since they can't, I'd say nominate the cat for deletion and put everything in it into Category:Indian Jews which is a much better-fitting name.  My first best guess as to the origin of the name is that it's a misbegotten clipping from Paradesi Jews.  That said, there is an article at Desi that appears to have a great deal of relevance to this topic.  I don't know w/o further research whether that is a neologism as well for "south[-central] Asian peoples", but...  Tom e rtalk  06:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As a matter of fact I had just contacted the source of this situation User talk:Desiphral and this is what I wrote: "Hello Desiphral: Welcome to Wikipedia. You recently created Category:Desi Jews but there is no article or known description about what EXACTLY a "Desi Jew" actually is? I tried searching on Google and could find nothing! "Desi Jews" is not a known or used name and Wikipedia has a very firm rule against "original research" see No original research and no neologisms. Please do not add this "category" or the name "Desi" to articles until you can clarify this matter further. If there is no solid explanation, then Category:Desi Jews will be nominated for deletion. Thanks for your cooperation, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. IZAK 10:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)" In my view Category:Desi is just another way of saying Category:South Asia, see intro to Desi article which says at the top: "This article is about the South Asian people; for other uses, see Desi (disambiguation)" and on the top of Desi (disambiguation) it says: "Desi refers to a South Asian subculture." Regardless of what the "Desis" want to do, they can't just make up names like "Desi Jews" which have not been heard of by anyone, so it's a neologism yes. IZAK 21:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello! I made the article Desi Jews. I see the term is not well known, so I wrote there what I know about this issue. Waiting for comments, Desiphral 00:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Desiphral: Thank you. The article has helped and I have edited it as well. Can you find some online articles about "Desi Jews" and add them as "External links" to the article, please ? Thanks again. IZAK 05:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that Desi is too much of a jargon, I would prefer the term "Indian Jews" as well... Gryffindor  13:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I searched and added some external links related to this subject. It seems that at this time there are few informations on the net, most of them repeating the facts (already on Wikipedia) about the three recognized communities (Cochin Jews, Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews). Only about the Bnei Menashe and Bene Ephraim there is more diversity of informations because of the contemporary debate about their Jewishness.


 * Also there are few primary sources from the Desi Jews themselves (just some forum discussions). In the book I cited as reference it is written that many of them live in moshavim in Israel where they retain some specific rituals and a connection with the Subcontinent. Maybe an on-line research in Hebrew would find more about their contemporary status?


 * Many of the sources include a recurrent non-Desi perspective of the South Asia, presuming it is equal to India and naming indiscriminately Indian, everything related to this region. South Asian or more popular Desi is the politically correct denomination used today to relate to the 7 countries of the Subcontinent. I included also links naming Indian Jews but describing the history of the South Asian Jews. For accuracy, I propose to change the name of "India" to "South Asia" in the article Jewish ethnic divisions, because some of these communities have people and history in more South Asian countries.


 * And Desi is not jargon, it is just not well known by the others. It is fully established in Subcontinental English and much more used than South Asian (which tend to sound a bit artificial). Here in Wikipedia there is the category Desi but not South Asian. Also otherwise it wouldn't catch the relation Desi/Paradesi Jews which is part of their history. Desiphral 00:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Jewish-hist-bio-stub
Are there objections to having Template:Jewish-hist-bio-stub? ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a question to take up at WP:WSS. Cheers, Tom e rtalk  08:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

article for deletion
Have your say, here. ems 13:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Holy Land in Judaism
Help requested at Talk:Holy Land. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

New Babel
It can explain our Yeshivish usage of English. ems 12:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Messianic Judaism
Can we have a greater involvement from everyone here on Messianic Judaism as there are several anonomous editors who are trying to force their pov. --Eliezer | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€  17:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Messianic Judaism can't be a sub-category of Judaism. It is not Jewish at all. It would seem ridiculous to have a Messianic "Judaism" listed as denomination of Judaism. Messianic "Jews" are not accepted as Jews by any Jews. Messianic Judaism is actually Christianity, because they worship Christ. So it would be more appropriate to put it under Christianity. There is no such thing as a Messianic "Judaism", as fundamentals in Judaism prohibit such a thought, by the very principles that Judaism stands for and is built upon. These are boundary issues. Monotheism means no worshipping Christ. Worshipping the son of G-d who sits at his right hand, died, rose from the dead after three days and was resurrected, is actually Mithraism. Therefore, I say NO to any sort of “Messianic Judaism” as a sub-category of Judaism within Wikipedia. Judaism needs to be kept separate from Christianity (and Messianic Judaism). Jews do not worship a messiah, and Judaism is much, much different than a Christ-less Christianity. User talk:BKalesti 03:11, April 26th, 2006 (UTC)

The Merchant of Venice: help sought
The Merchant of Venice is something of a mess (rather POV, etc.). In particular, I am not sure it is accurate in its characterization of Jewish doctrine, especially for the period (let alone what Shakespeare would have known of it). Help would be appreciated. - Jmabel | Talk 02:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Seeking help yet again: Hasidim
Talk:Hasidic_Judaism: An issue about an incomprehensible picture caption has been unresolved for over a week. Can someone please help sort it out? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 03:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Kabbalah practitioners
Do you think this Cat. is viable? If so, should it include people like Isaac Luria rather than teenage idols? ←Humus sapiens ну? 05:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Avoid the Kabbalah Centre trap !

 * Humus: The people who were in Category:Kabbalah practitioners were all pop-celebrities followers (some not Jewish!) of the controversial Kabbalah Centre. I therefore created a more accurate category for them Category:Kabbalah Centre followers and put them into it. Category:Kabbalah practitioners should thus be nominated for deletion because the Kabbalah Centre, its methods and its students are rejected as being a cult by all streams of Judaism! In any case, just what is a "Kabbalah practitioner" exactly speaking? Great rabbis in Judaism like Rabbi Isaac Luria were SCHOLARS of the Kabbalah, they did not "practice it" in the sense of doing one of the 613 mitzvot ("commandments"). Kabbalah is basically a specialized sub-division of the mitzvah of Torah study. It is more like a "theoretical abstract science" (it is kind-of the mystical equivalent akin to the study of the Talmud which is a more rational process) and it does not represent something removed from the practice of Judaism (do we have Category:Judaism practitioners yet, which should come first, right?) The problem today is that the Kabbalah Centre people have taken it upon themselves to "market" Kaballah as if it was a "Coca-Cola" product and so now people think that it is something that is "practiced" differently to regular Judaism. So let's not confuse matters. For now Category:Kabbalah is sufficient for the subject of Kabbalah. IZAK 08:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Good. I noticed that fishy Category but didn't know what to do about it. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Wait, kabbalah isn't a Coke-Cola product? What have all those people been drinking, for all these years? ems 14:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean you didn't know that the Kabbalah Center sells "Kabbalah water" (also tried to sell "Kabbalah soda")? and some have imbibed some of it no doubt...and it no doubt resulted in some (Kabbalah Centre-)burping... IZAK 14:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ha, ha, ha, ha! ems 16:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Jewish Encyclopedia
Hi, I`m not sure if much work is being done on getting JE articles online on wikipedia; the JE page at project Missing Encyc Articles looks really sloppy, and there are only some 500 articles tagged "JewishEncyclopedia", so even if there is one untagged article for every tagged one, no more than a fraction of JE articles can be found on wikipedia. I`m trying to get at least an article a day online, but I obviously can`t tackle this task on my own, help would be appreciated! Maybe a subproject Missing JE Articles would be an idea? --Talmid78 09:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Festival improvement drives
I think some of the articles on festivals are quite poor. None have references sections, and many are poorly written and structured; it would be a good idea to actually get out some books and look at the topic closely rather than working from our heads.

Now, ems suggested to me privately that we improve the Pesach-related. I think in general, we should possibly try in 2006 to have a festival improvement drive in the period leading up to that festival. (Of course, many come all at once and that makes it more difficult.)

Who's up for finally having some of these become featured article quality?

jnothman talk 14:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I am currently working on Haggadah of Pesach. ems 16:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I have notice that many Jewish holiday article don't use the standard holiday template and instead use their own table. Is there a reason for this or should it be changed? Jon513 18:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * They should be fixed. ems 06:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Captilization of Halakha
Is Halakha a proper noun, should it be capitilized? Jon513 18:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems Jewish Encyclopedia does in some circumtances . I would say they use it something along the lines of when referring to Halakha as a whole (even if preceded by "the"; ie "the Law"), it is capitalised, whereas one may refer to "a halakha" (not sure about "the h/Halakha on eating milk after meat"). They use "halakic" with a lowercase h.
 * Personally, I don't particularly mind, as long as it is internally consistent in an article, but I would think that you should see what we do with other legal canons: do we refer to "US Law" or "US law" (I assume the latter); similarly "the Law"; the article on Islamic Sharia seems quite inconsistent here.
 * jnothman talk 02:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I asked this question to The Reference Desk Jon513 16:38, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

JCDS
This appears to verge very closely on advertising... Woohoojew's only contribs are to this article...  Someone with a better-discerning eye than mine might ought should check it out... Tom e rtalk 04:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Both copies of this article (JCDS and Boston's jcds) were made up of content taken directly from and . I have therefore marked it as a copyvio. (And this technically doesn't belong under WP Judaism, but does under WP Jewish Culture, I would think.) jnothman talk 05:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * ... unless Woohoojew is the copyright holder.... ems 08:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Clearly, but the rules on Copyright problems imply that assertion needs to be made before the material is posted. jnothman talk 04:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Midian et. al
I would like the project members' opinion and feedback regarding a discussion I am having with Briangotts about various categories including and. This issue is whether the categories themselves should be subcategories of and, or whether just the articles which actually are about , such as the parent article Edom and Esau, should be tagged. Further explanation and a place to both voice your opinion and vote may be found on the talk page of Category:Midian. Thank you for your time and input. -- Avi 19:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Category_talk:Midian
Please take a look at the discussion and give your opinion. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 21:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Another poll
It looks like there never will be a majority unless more voters join. Please see Talk:Jesus and vote so we can get on with Mitzvot. ems 18:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Calling all mystics!
Please come help out @ mysticism / Talk:Mysticism. Another editor and I have been butting heads over some minor issues, and the article could really use some outside input. Please come lend a hand! Sam Spade 19:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Sabbath
See Talk:Sabbath#Jewish naming of festivals. ems 17:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * perhaps there should be a disambig between the Jewish and the Christian Shabbat/Sabbath? Shlomke 07:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess it's already there Shlomke 21:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Feast of Trumpets
Another Christian article with major problems. (Rabbinic literature, Midrash, and other Judaism-only things) ems 08:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The old "Feast of Trumpets" is now Feast of Trumpets (Christian holiday) and now has an advisory (This article is about a Christian holiday. See Rosh Hashanah also called a "Day [of] teruah" ("Blowing [of the Shofar]/Trumpeting" in the Torah) about Judaism's New Year Jewish holiday) similar to the Passover (Christian holiday) article. So now Feast of Trumpets is a "disambiguation" page which follows the correct chronological and religious order by describing and introducing the relevance of "Feast of Trumpets" (זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה) IZAK 11:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Son of God
There is so many problems with the article, I don't even know where to start. ems 17:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

YHWH
I am about to have a heart attack ch"v. ems 19:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Stay healthy, WikiProject Judaism needs you! IZAK 10:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ein Sof
Why does this article bring in the concept of the Godhead. The disambiguation has nothing related to Judaism. Does anyonone know if this term is actualy used in Judaism? if it is, then there should probably be a Jewish explanation in Godhead. If not then we need to change the link in the article. Shlomke 14:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It was added in by an IP whos edits show it is a christian. I have removed it. ems 15:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, keep up the great work Shlomke 04:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Pulpit
Yet another one... Should this one just start all over again? ems 14:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Malachi
The last navi, and just look at the page! ems 15:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Messianic prophecies
rotfl, Martin at it again. ems 15:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Abraham
Those are some interesting Jewish views with all those Christian references. ems 16:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

First Fruits
A mix is jewish and christian beliefs, needs attention. Jon513 17:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Corban
Primarily based on an Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article that is largely a Christian perspective.--agr 15:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * A Christain perpective of what! I can't tell what it is talking about, but my best guess is Mehelah (stealing from consecrated temple items).  Perhaps it is time to make a Mehelah article.  Jon513 11:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Judaism IRC
After seeing many people of us on the Freenode IRC network. I think it is worthwhile, to have an IRC channel for more interactive communication. So I've opened up #WikiProject-Judaism or #WP-JEW for short.

The network also has some helpful channels like #Wikipedia-Bootcamp, that was really helpful when I joined, which I would recommend to any of our members to the project. Hope to see you along ;)

For how to connect using the IRC protocol, please see IRC clients. ems 20:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Salvador Fernandes Zarco
Oh boy. I found some "questionable scholarship" in Salvador Fernandes Zarco. I've commented it out, but I'm pretty sure the entire thing I commented out should be deleted as [pathetic] OR--possibly sent to WP:BJAODN. I'd appreciate it if some others could take a look... Tom e rtalk 08:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Wow. I agree. Joaquin Murietta 15:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Judaism's view of Jesus
A new editor is making rather bold claims about Judaism's view of Jesus, and also insisting he knows Jesus' Hebrew name. I'd appreciate it if interested parties could look at Talk:Jesus and Talk:Judaism's view of Jesus. Jayjg (talk) 17:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Judean Mountains
Please see Talk:Judean Mountains. User is insisting that "Hills of Judea" is "wrong" and that if I want to include it in the article lead (whence he's removed it twice), I must state that that it's wrong to call them hills (as though that's what I was asserting). Some help would be appreciated. Tom e rtalk 01:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk:First Council of Nicaea
Currently a WP:FAC. Please comment. ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Purim / Book of Esther
Someone from this WikiProject might want to look in on Talk:Purim. Basically, two articles disagree about the degree of historicity of the Book of Esther. I suspect that, like most biblical texts, there are a range of opinions on the matter. But I have no idea of the degree to which this particular Book intersects history. Could someone knowledgable please weigh in? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 02:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * At the moment Book of Esther is unreasonable biased towards the critical historical view. It is perhaps useful to remember that if such an incident happened, it may not have gone down in the Persian royal records. After all, it was only a minor court intrigue involving a small minority. JFW | T@lk  16:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

hebrew words
I have noticed the Template:Lang-he being used. --Jon513 10:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Should we be using this?
 * 2) Should we be subst'ing this?


 * There is also template:Hebrew (for just the Hebrew word/s alone) and template:Hebrew paragraph (short: template:he p) (for whole paragraphs in Hebrew). -- Olve 22:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't understand why you made these templates that add a span tag to the hebrew. The hebrew shows up fine on my browser and even without a tag.  If there are problems with the display of hebrew shouldn't it be dealt with at the Village pump.  Idealy wikimedia should see that it is hebrew and make the appropiate tags.  Jon513 17:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Showing up and looking decent are two different things... The problem is that the Hebrew display even on the best of browsers/systems defaults to fonts that are ugly and often hard to read &mdash; typically Arial / Arial Unicode MS or the like. Yes, a software level solution would be great, but in the mean time I see no pint in avoiding improvement. -- Olve 22:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * If you are using firefox, goto tools-->options-->Content-->advanced Fonts and Colors and you can change how you want the hebrew to be displayed. Why should we assume that people do not have the setting the way they want and need us to change it for them?  In any event, if you insist on this, an empty   would be better and the css can be put in the main css sheet.  Jon513 12:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow, now I have seen it all.
What a great an accrate article on Shimon haTzadik: Simeon the Righteous -_-. Wow, I can't believe it, they even were even able to fit in a mistranslation of Isaiah. And now with the Book of Isaiah article... I am lost for words. ems 10:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I switched the quote and um did some other stuff...Shimon haTzadik is no longer in the saint category, but I didn't take out the "traditions" and quotes from luke. Now for the book of Yeshaiya(hu)...-Epl18 17:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Leave him in Category:Saints. He's a canonized saint in most of Christendom...  Tom e rtalk  19:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 * They are need to be merged back in. I'll try and do it. ems 06:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I added a dablink to the Jewish Simeon the Righteous: Simeon the Just. Shlomke 08:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Yiddish wikipedia
Hi Yiden (Ashkanazim). Did you know we have our own language? lets build it! Yes the Yiddish Wikipedia

You don't speak Yiddish? No problem! You can make interwiki links to us from many English articles to Yiddish, so we spread the word of our existence.

Thanks.--yidi 19:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * When I last checked the yiddish Wikipedia was not very large at all. Furthermore, there are many terms that may exist under numerous spellings. Would you consider releasing a list of the articles (1538 at this time) so we can see which articles could be linked? JFW | T@lk  19:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If i had the time to make a list, i would have linked it myself. Also please consider for a language so few users like Yiddish this number of articles is huge.--yidi 19:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits by a user
User 71.235.95.87 has been making some strange edits recently including some contradicting ones. Its very likely 71.235.93.130 is the same user. It looks like to me he is pushing a Modern Orthodox POV (mostly from his edits on Role of women in Judaism). If anyone has some free time could they please sort through the user edit (if not I will get to it later this week or early next week) and leave an apporiate notice on the users talk page. Thanks eeemess 10:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Woggly
I would like to bring to your attention that a request for comment on User:Woggly's conduct has been filed. Toda and thanks for your support. Bonnieisrael 18:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

rabbi.bendory.com
Looks like a lot of articles (Tu Bishvat and Purim, for example) have recently been linked to pages at http://rabbi.bendory.com. I won't claim to be qualified to judge the appropriateness of these links, but I figure someone on this project will be. - Jmabel | Talk 04:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

0_o look up. ems (not to be confused with the nonexistant pre-dating account by the same name) 09:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, its just pure self-promotion for the guy, and if it gets out of hand just delete the links. IZAK 06:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)