Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism/Archive 15

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Claimed Messianic prophecies of Jesus
Articles for deletion/Claimed Messianic prophecies of Jesus

Isaiah 53
Would members of this project mind glancing at Isaiah 53? I just want to make sure that the Jews and Christian POVs are being accurately represented, and that we aren't giving any undue weight. Thanks for your help.-Andrew c 15:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks OK. Do the JFJ articles have any sources that we could quote directly? JFW | T@lk  20:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Dov Ber Pinson
I was going to nominate this for speedy deletion until I found that he actually has authored several books. I'm not sure what should be done with it now. --DLand TALK 16:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Many people have written books. That does not equal notability, especially if the books are in Hebrew/Aramaic and the readership is a rather select group. JFW | T@lk  20:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

FAC on a Jewish topic
Hello, the article Trembling Before G-d is currently a featured article candidate. Anyone who's interested is welcome to cast an eye over the article and discuss its FA candidacy. Thanks! —Angr 18:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Surprisingly balanced article. Naturally makes uncomfortable reading for many. I wonder how Dubowski's film about muslims will fare. People have been fatwa'ed for less. JFW | T@lk  20:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

help needed with Nudity in Judaism
Help is needed for the Nudity in Judaism article, as it is, it's an exact copy of the christian nudity article, and is full of incorrect information - or I should say information that has no jewish source, even though (some) christians might believe it (naked prophets for example).

I'm leaning toward just asking to have it deleted, but perhaps it can be fixed, or made to be a counter to the christian article. It does list a bunch of sources but I have a feeling they are being mistranslated, or that the commentary explanations are being ignored - which is fine for a christian article but not for a jewish one. 71.206.197.105 02:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Nominated for AfD. --Shirahadasha 07:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

here's a strange article
Commentaries on the Bible: Jewish. Don't really know what to do with that one, so I'm passing it on here. — coe l acan — 13:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems to have been created to be a counterpart to the Commentaries on the Bible: Christian article. I say delete, as we already have pages about Jewish exegesis of the TaNaKh.-- Ķĩřβȳ ♥  Ťįɱé  Ø  08:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Redirected to Rabbinic literature. JFW | T@lk  22:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've moved the Commentaries on the Bible:Christian article, because the first section is oxymoronically entitled Jewish Commentaries. --User talk:FDuffy 00:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Sons of Jacob
IMHO, this template should be renamed Template:Children of Jacob, since Dina is clearly not a "son", and is mentioned in the header as well as the body of the template. Thoughts? Tom e rtalk 05:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I support either a move to children of Jacob, or just removing her from the list. -- Ķĩřβȳ ♥  ♥  ♥  Ťįɱé  Ø  18:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I moved it...if someone has the time or interest (or a bot) to by pass the redirects, have at it. :-) Tom e rtalk  23:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Heeeellp fellow Jewish Wikipedians!
I have no idea how to to file the right kind of request for comment or mediation or arbitration, or whatever. I have a determined troll following me around "proceduring" me to death. He has been following me around through a series of articles that I have been working on, constantly editing things while I am in the process of editing them too, demending changes, moving things around.


 * Jewish reactions to intelligent design
 * Jewish opposition to evolution
 * Natan Slifkin

One of the big problems, frankly, is that the topics I am working on require some knowledge of Hebrew and a lot of knowledge of Jewish philosophy and theology. This editor, who knows nothing about these matters, is simply creating one stumbling block after another, always citing some wikipedia procedure. He appears to be going to my contributions file to see what I am working on, and then going there to mess something up. He appears to try to be in the article at the same time that I am there.

I frankly don't want to know all the Wikipedia policies and procedures. I want to write. I've been doing so for about a year, and so far, I've been very happy with it. I've asked him to back away. I asked him to come back and edit the article later in the day, or in the evening. I've offered for both of us to leave and come back in a week, to allow some other writer a chance to work.

Wikipedia needs contributors who are writers, who know a subject well, who do careful research work in the subject and write well balanced and thoroughly sourced articles. I am such a person. I don't claim authority in any field, like an advanced degree. (I do have a degree, I just don't claim that it matters here on Wikipedia.)

What I can do is easy to see from what I have done. I have started dozens of articles, and never had one deleted, working some of them through to completion. Many of them are on serious scholarly topics. I enjoy writing. I don't claim to "own" these articles. If I wanted that, I would write somewhere under my own name.

What happened to me over the last few days was an incident of procedural harassment. I have never experienced anything like it. User:ZayZayEM has been following me around through a group of articles that I have been working on, creating a long series of procedural problems. Each time, he cites some Wikipedia policy for why he is right.

I'm not interested in arguing about Wikipedia policy X or Y. I am interested in writing. I am not interested in going thourgh some kind of elaborate Wikipedia arbitration determination procedure, in which we somehow determine who was right.

It's very simple. There are 1,697,300 articles on Wikipedia that this person could be working on, and most of them do need work. User:ZayZayEM could be working on any one of them, but instead, he chooses to harass me.

Looking at his recent logs, his last RfC was a few days ago. I've never had one. I didn't even know what an RfC was until a few days ago. This user is simply looking for fights.

If I'm supposed to go to some kind of arbitration panel and write some kind of elaborate defense or request, I'm outta here. I'm not interested in spending time doing that. I've never bothered to figure out how to cite logs, and I don't want to. User:ZayZayEM has presented an endless series of procedural hurdles, and such a process would be more of the same, and a complete waste of time. I'm sure that once the process was finished, he would be back to more of the same.

He knows nothing about the topics that I am trying to write about. I would welcome a collaborator or two who does, but this fellow isn't that collaborator. He simply creates endless headaches. Each time, he cites the wikipedia policy under which he is of course "right," but if I then try the same thing back, or try to suggest something else, there is some other Wikipedia policy under which he is also right.

I've read that Wikipedia is interested in the product, not the process. Well this user is obsessed with the process, and presents endless hurdles to improving the product.

If your answer is that I'm supposed to file wiki-dot-colon-xxxcite-procedure and wait for a wiki-xxxxarb-med-committee to volunteer to handle the case, my answer is no. That's his game, not mine. I'm sure he is good at it too. --Metzenberg 05:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Calm down. You're taking Wikipedia way too seriously at the moment. Sit back, take a deep breath, and relax. If you actually read their messages to you, he makes a lot of sense. Yes, Wikipedia is about writing, but it is also about policy. If you want to write and disregard policy, you should discontinue editing and create your own website. That user is simply trying to help you do both at once by giving you policies that will help you with your writing.


 * You have taken all of his messages way too seriously and have gotten to the point where you said he was a stalker who was harassing you, which is a stretch at best. I've taken a look at his contributions and he's editing everywhere, not just on these pages and he's been an established editor, not administrator, for several years. This user now feels like they are being harassed and personally attacked by you. I hope you understand that he was just trying to help you to get it right the first time. I know from your talk page you said you would disappear, but hopefully you still read this message and maybe gain something from it. --pIrish 17:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Israel?
Project Judaism is now a part of Project Israel? Really? Daniel C/T+ 18:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed it. Seemed ridiculous, but I thought I was the only one who felt that way. -- Ķĩřβȳ ♥  ♥  ♥  Ťįɱé  Ø  18:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Holy Land and Holy Land (Biblical)
Please comment here on a proposed merger or restructuring of these two articles. They currently contain a large amount of common content. Best, --Shirahadasha 21:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Totally agree. Identical premise. JFW | T@lk  22:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century
I've never heard of this book before, but it would seem from the content of the article, and of the talk page, that the article's editors are heavily weighed towards an anti-Semitic view. The article says that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are an "allegedly" false document, and attempts to prove the validity of a global Jewish conspiracy, stating that the Racial Program is widely believed because "these documents accurately describe collective Jewish behavior that Jews work very hard to either conceal or deny attention to through their ownership of much of the white world's mass media."

Admittedly, the article is categorized under forgeries, and contains some other portions that are quite neutral and objective in their phrasing. Nevertheless, I think it would be a good idea if someone knowledgeable and/or interested in the subject would take a look at the article, see what can be changed and fixed, and keep an eye on it for a bit. Thanks. LordAmeth 09:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

House ARI needs help
- NYC JD (interrogatories) 19:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I made a couple of spelling corrections then realized that the whole text looks like it has been copied and pasted. It's now located at Ari Synagogue. I just noticed that the editor who created it, User talk:Ashpaa was warned and blocked once for copyright violations. While doing my best to AGF, I will admit that this aroused my suspicions. I don't have much experience with this issue and am not sure what to do next. I thought it best to leave the text alone until someone asks him where he got it. --Steven J. Anderson 00:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, compare this:
 * The Isaac Kaplan Old Yishuv Court Museum is located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, “between the walls.” The building apparently dates from the 15th or 16th century, and all signs point to it having been built over the ruins of a previous, more ancient structure. We regret that archaeologists have never excavated the site, nor has there been any research study of the building.The entryway is very narrow and dark, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. One door leads out to the inner courtyard, the second to an additional yard, and the third leads into a typical room where one family used to live. Opposite the entranceway is a stairwell to the upper floor. As soon as one enters the building, it is possible to feel a mysterious sense of encounter with a different universe.

from the article, to this:
 * The Isaac Kaplan Old Yishuv Court Museum is located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, “between the walls.” The entryway is very narrow and dark, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. One door leads out to the inner courtyard, the second to an additional yard, and the third leads into a typical room where one family used to live. Opposite the entranceway is a stairwell to the upper floor. As soon as one enters the building, it is possible to feel a mysterious sense of encounter with a different universe. The building apparently dates from the 15th or 16th century, and all signs point to it having been built over the ruins of a previous, more ancient structure. We regret that archaeologists have never excavated the site, norhas there been any research study of the building.

from. --Steven J. Anderson 02:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Jerusalem
Some input from members of WikiProject Judaism is requested in regards to a peer review for the Jerusalem article:

Please see the deletion discussion for List of people who went to heaven alive
This article's name isn't the best (replacement suggestions are welcome), but the concept of ascension into heaven is important in a number of religions. But the article is inadequate without a better, fuller description of Jewish scholarship on this. Several editors in the deletion discussion apparently think the idea of ascension into heaven is "a joke." It seems to me that the best response to that is to improve the article and show the concept is not treated as a joke by those who take religious questions seriously. Please take a look at the article and the deletion discussion and consider contributing to both.

Articles for deletion/List of people who went to heaven alive

Noroton 19:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Racism in Talmud
Could someone take a look at Talk:Criticism of Judaism? Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 19:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions for Vital articles
Copying the message below from my talk page, please add your suggestions. Thanks ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Do you notice to WP:VA. This page does have a problem with being Eurocentric. I proposed some notable persons and other things. But I'm not knowledgeable in the case of Judaism. Also there is a debate about religious leaders and scholars in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles. Please participate in the discussions or invite other knowledgeable wikipedians in this case.-- Sa.vakilian(t-c) 15:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Question on NPOV in an article describing Halachah
I am planning on expanding the article on chametz, maybe translating the Hebrew version or writing my own from scratch. I have a question about NPOV: it seems that Wikipedia articles on Jewish tradition tend to qualify with "Observant Jews traditionally do such-and-such." This seems cumbersome in an article where every practice mentioned is only maintained by observant Jews. It's much more comfortable for me to write "Chametz should be destroyed..." and it will be obvious to readers that I'm describing the Halachah's POV, which is the topic of the article. Another possibility I have considered is "Chametz is destroyed," which sounds more objective. Any suggestions? —Rafi Neal 17:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * As long as the intro makes it clear that the article describes a traditional Jewish practice as codified by Halacha no further weasel words are necessary. JFW | T@lk  18:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There are a number of notable variations within observant Jewish practice, for example on the status of kitniyot; Ashkenazic Jews don't eat them but Sephardic Jews do. I would suggest starting out by identifying the practices of Orthodox Judaism including variants, then presenting any varying views by Conservative Judaism. I'm not sure if they have any official differences but can research. Perhaps they may have decided to permit kitniyot or some such. My understanding is that the view of Reform Judaism is that all these practices are optional but some of them might be of spiritual benefit. --Shirahadasha 19:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The phrase "Chametz should be destroyed..." sounds like something from a how-to guide which is unencyclopedic. It's not necessarily wrong, just something to watch out for. Also, please use the spellings "halakhic" and "halakha", both uncapitalized. They are, I believe, the common spellings on Wikipedia (see below). --Steven J. Anderson 01:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right, it does sound like a how-to guide. However, Halakhah basically is a how-to guide. I stand by my wording "Chametz found during Chol HaMoed should be burned immediately," for example, because that's what the halakhah is. In fact, from the Halakhah's POV, "should" is almost too soft and "must" is a better word, which I use in the article as well. But your point "something to watch out for" is well taken. (I'm sure you notice that I disagree on spelling "Halakhah"; I added my input below. I also happen to think "Halachah" looks cleaner, but I won't disrupt the consensus on "kh" and will henceforth conform.) &mdash;Rafi Neal | T / C 04:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry if parts of this response come off strong, I do appreciate your feedback. If you have feedback on specific examples of the article's style, I would appreciate that too. Also, this discussion should have a link to the article in question for the sake of convenience, so here it is: Chametz. But when I posed my question I was wondering about NPOV in general, hence the discussion is here not at Talk:Chametz. Happy editing to you, too. &mdash;Rafi Neal | T / C 04:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Jerusalem on WP:FAC
Jerusalem is currently undergoing a featured article candidacy. The FAC page is transcluded below (feel free to remove it from this page if the FAC gets too long):


 * Featured article candidates/Jerusalem/archive1

, 05:20, 2 April 2007

Please avoid transclusion. These pages can snowball, especially with topics that are potentially political. JFW | T@lk  07:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

First section header
I discovered today, not for the first time, the extensive damage caused by the single user. I suspect the main problem is that most members of this WikiProject are not familiar with either this user's agenda, the poverty of his sources, the untenability of his POV, and the Jewish sources necessary to debunk his waffle.

Many users have had difficulty with Francis Duffy. It started with Sons of Noah, which was moved back and forth to Table of Nations at Duffy's insistence. spent a lot of time working this out. Months later, the article still has tags on it.

I ran into the same Duffy on Ten Commandments. He unilaterally changed it into a disambiguation page to the Ritual and the Ethical Decalogue, reflecting his POV that Ex 34 contains the "real, original" Ten Commandments - something only Bible critics believe and has not gained popular acceptance. Duffy spawned Wife-sister narratives in Genesis (not originally titled that way). This is part of a long series of articles with unencyclopedic titles retelling the Book of Genesis according to his God-King, Richard Elliott Friedman.

Shirahadasha has done battle with Duffy too. I'm unsure of the particulars, but it must have been bad.

I need some help from other users going through Francis Duffy's contributions and making highly necessary improvements. A lot of it can go to AFD, cleanup, NPOV, NOR and fact. JFW | T@lk  12:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm currently dealing with FDuffy's edits to the various tithes -- Maaser Rishon, Maaser Sheni, etc. A good deal of the material he added was properly sourced to the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia and will eventually be restored. However, he simply wiped out all the material on current Jewish practice, halachic decisions, made in the 20th century regarding the status of obligations with respect to them, etc., creating an article that gave an impression this was a biblical thing with no modern counterpart. He also presented as fact an opinion by the JE editors that tithing was folklore as distinct from a mainstream part of the religion. I don't mind the biblical criticism parts that he added (principally to the effect that there was only one tithe and the different tithes we know today represent different claims about "the" tithe by different sources) as long as they are properly sourced, don't go beyond what these sources say, are put in an appropriately designated section, and are not presented as fact. Best, --Shirahadasha 15:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think JE should be officially deprecated as a reliable source. Actually, it is just an encyclopedia. And it's as biased as hell towards the so-called scholarship. In Francis Duffy's case, it prevents the really important sources from being presented.

I'm also not opposed to a mention of biblical criticism, but it should be mentioned in context, in parallel with the traditional views, and with problems clearly outlined. JFW | T@lk  16:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just a comment on the JE. I have not found any source as complete as the JE on a wide variety of Jewish topics.  It is old, true, but since when do we "deprecate" sources for that reason?  Also, I have no problem with articles such as   "wife-sister parallels" or whatever.  This sounds like it might prove to be an interesting resource to people, though possibly it should fall under a broader heading, such as "parallel stories in the Bible" or something like that.  (Which could then be accompanied by an [huge] article called "parallel aggadah in the Midrash and Talmud".  That would be a fun one to write!)  My own perspective is that a JE article which is brought up-to-date and de-biased is about a million times more valuable than what 99.999% of Wikipedians could ever compose given infinite time.  (And I include myself in the first 1%).  —Dfass 14:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Shirahadasha, please read this article in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Then please read the dates that Maaser Rishon and Levite Tithe were created. Now that this has rendered you more informed, please consider whether you are so certain where the article came from, and which one is the POV fork (I was rather bemused when I found out who had created the Maaser Rishon article).

The only objection to the Jewish Encyclopedia that I can see you having is that it sometimes goes presents evidence against your beliefs. Asking for a document to be 100% true is statistically unrealistic, it is far more likely that not all of it is (try checking the odds down at a bookmakers for a non-zero number of things in it being wrong). And as for calling the Jewish Encyclopedia just an encyclopedia, and therefore unreliable, this is just an encyclopedia too, so are Easton's, Catholic Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica, all of which already form the basis of a very large number of wikipedia articles; to discount one of the most respected of these for just being an encyclopedia, means that you also need to discount the rest, and that you must scrap the huge chunk of wikipedia which is based on them. It throws your bias into sharp contrast for some of you to call the Jewish Encyclopedia biased as hell against Judaism; has it escaped you that the people writing it were Jewish?

And calling my edits extensive damage, when all I am doing is adding in content concerning the views of respected and notable Biblical scholars, archaeologists, historians, and classical rabbinical sources, is really quite suggestive that you want to keep out any view that deviates in any substantive way from your own views. I suspect the main problem is that some members of this WikiProject are not familiar with WP:NPOV, WP:AGF, and WP:OWN. And of course, pointing out WP:STALK goes without saying. --User talk:FDuffy 22:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't really know what the argument is about since I haven't been following it at all. All I've gotten from what little I've read seems to be that you think an encyclopedia is a reliable source. You might want to read the section about primary, secondary, and tertiary sources here. It specifically talks about why encyclopedias are not reliable and then goes on to say exactly why certain ones are reliable so long as they meet certain criteria (such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica). --pIrish 00:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It says articles signed by experts in Encyclopaedia Britannica and encyclopedias of similar quality can be regarded as reliable secondary sources (emphasis added). The Jewish Encyclopedia article states Jenny Mendelsohn, of University of Toronto Libraries, in an online guide to major sources of information about Jews and Judaism says of this work, "Although published in the early 1900s, this was a work highly regarded for its scholarship. Putting these two together .... --User talk:FDuffy 00:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You're reading what you want to, but not what you need to. The Encyclopedia Britannica is updated every year to reflect changes that have happened during that time, that's what makes it so valuable and high quality. Even then, the day it is published, it is already out of date. Information does not stay the same in the span of year, let alone the span of an entire century, thus, encyclopedias must be updated to reflect that. The Jewish Encyclopedia was a work highly regarded for its scholarship. The very Wikipedia page for the encyclopedia also has quotes that say "Much of the material is still of value to researchers in Jewish History" (not all) and "For events prior to 1900, it is considered to offer a level of scholarship superior..." (not events or discoveries of new information after that time, and there have been a lot). It's a great source for general information and events that occurred before it was published, but it cannot be relied upon heavily due to the simple fact that it hasn't been updated in a century and time does not stand still. Even the page you quoted says that. --pIrish 17:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I also consider FDuffy a chronic problem, with edits like this: . JE is one of important historic resources, let's keep in mind that it was published in 1906. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Unless you can evidence from Reliable sources that the academic position has changed since it was published, and in which details and directions it has changed, then it really doesn't matter whether it was published in 2007 or 1702. Oh, and that's an edit to a talk page, not to an article, and its about whether the bible says that all Canaanites should be killed, and their culture destroyed, or not, if it does, that's clearly advocating genocide (but whether it does or not isn't a matter that really merits discussion on this talk page). --User talk:FDuffy 00:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You are not citing academic sources. You are using a 100-year old Encyclopedia as a reference without even providing access to the lemmas you are citing. This is bad practice, continuously unacceptable, and repeated exhortations have not made you change your habits. I feel it is my duty to alert others, and I will not enter into direct discussions with you anymore. Your agenda is blinding you, and your bias is showing. JFW | T@lk  21:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This user behaves very arrogantly without any edit comment or discussion he removed large amount of information from Levite and replaced the page with his own version . Forbear 21:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me be clearer about the difficulties with the Jewish Encyclopedia in this area. A critical difficulty is simply that it's a century out of date. One area of Jewish religious law that has developed extensively since it was written involves religious obligations related to the Land of Israel, and particularly those involved in agriculture. Jewish religious law developed extensively in these areas during the 20th century as large numbers of religious Jews became involved in agriculture in the Holy Land and responsa by rabbinic authorities were developed to address questions regarding the applicability of ancient Jewish agricultural laws to modern situations. One example is the Maaser Rishon. The Jewish Encyclopedia article discusses only the Bible and ancient times, but subsequent to its publication views on the applicability of these obligations in modern times, and how to satisfy them, were published and became notable. Thus, relying on the Jewish Encyclopedia here would be a bit like deleting all references to the United States and insisting on referring to Massachusetts as a colony based on an article in a 1750 encyclopedia. Problems of anachronism are inevitable in a source this old. A second problem is that the Jewish encyclopedia takes a particular editorial position -- one User:FDuffy appears to share, as he is entitled to do, but only one position among others. Classical Reform Judaism generally took the view that much of religious ritual is nothing more than unmitigated superstition to be denigrated and done away with. The Jewish Encyclopedia editors shared and wrote from this view. In the subsequent century, however, Reform Judaism backed away from its former virulent anti-ritual stance and adopted a more tolerant view of ritual, as a legitimate option to consider and a source of potential spiritual benefit. Thus, the Encyclopedia's characterization of belief in tithing as "Jewish folklore" does not represent a current Jewish position, and should not be presented as fact in any event. That said, much of the Jewish Encyclopedia material is legitimate and can be incorporated in the article, as long as existing content isn't simply erased and written over with content wholly derived from that source, and as long as Jewish encyclopedia content is properly attributed, and when editorial views are presented, they are presented as its editors' views and not as fact. --Shirahadasha 18:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It may be a century old, but that doesn't mean that scholarship has done a volte face in the intervening century, and very often its just as up to date as more modern sources. I appreciate that Jewish religious law may have changed, but classical rabbinical literature has not, and that's because it was already over 1000 years since it was written by 1903, and it won't suddenly stop having been written and become something else, because without a time machine you can't change what was written in the first millenium. Relying on the Jewish Encyclopedia here to say what classical rabbinical sources thought would be entirely appropriate; some sects of Judaism may very well have changed their minds, but others have not, and the view of classical rabbinical sources is still what it was before, because they aren't alive anymore to change them. Representing modern views is fine, if they are sourced (I don't see any citations for the modern views, though I usually retain them in re-arranged articles, often being careful to attribute the particular sect which has the view). Modern Orthodox views are fine, but they aren't the views of all of Judaism, and they don't get to be the default view presented like "this is the view, but some Reform Jews disagree". The Jewish encyclopedia doesn't take a particular editorial position, it presents the views of academic scholarship - that is, the views of those who approach the Bible as a historic document, without religious assumptions (even if the scholars who do so actually do have pro-religious views) - as well as the views of classical rabbinical literature, and classical islamic literature. This has nothing to do with Reform Judaism or otherwise, classical literature are historic documents, and do not change, and scholars approaching the bible as a historic document, a method known as Historical Criticism (Criticism is an unfortunate term as it has since come to be viewed as a negative thing, but that isn't how its meant in historical criticism), are performing a secular activity, rather than approaching it from one form of Judaism or another. The Jewish Encyclopedia editors may have all been from a particular sect (and I'm not sure they are), but they didn't write about their own religious views, they wrote about what academics thought, and what classical sources thought. The Encyclopedia's characterisation of belief in tithing as Jewish folklore (if it does make such a claim, I don't recollect it) is the opinion of the leading academics in Historical Criticism, and generally not that of the encyclopedia editors (you'll find similar views in more recent encyclopedias/commentaries that present the scholarship of Historical Criticism. --User talk:FDuffy 07:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Your reply does not address various problems. (1) You often don't cite the actual lemma of the JE, making it nigh-impossible for anyone to verify what you've written. (2) The JE is an encyclopedia and is therefore based on other primary sources. Why can't we quote the primary sources in question? (3) "Classical" Jewish scholarship is alive and well. Since JE has appeared, 100s of works have appeared that interpret the Bible according to the Orthodox POV, and most of those sources would disagree vehemently with the DH. I need only mention Epsteins' Torah Temimah, David Zwi Hoffmann's commentary (which expressly aims to disprove DH claims), Umberto Cassuto's work, and so on. To suggest that JE is an impartial source of Jewish scholarship is misguided. JFW | T@lk  16:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Edits to Levite

 * I agree that the rewrite to Levite by FDuffy happened without discussion and for no good reason. JFW | T@lk  22:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Other pages that have received the same treatment recently are Tribe of Reuben, Tribe of Simeon, Tribe of Naphtali, Tribe of Zebulun, etc. While there is nothing wrong with that in principle, it seems these rewrites are being prepared offline and then copied & pasted into existing namespace content. Surely that will make collaborating a lot harder. Naturally, all articles listed simply refer to JE and Friedman's book without citing the lemma or page number. How is one meant to verify the content, let alone have a reasonable discussion about the suitability of the source in question? JFW | T@lk  23:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we are going to have to insist on footnote-style sourcing for these articles given the need to present different views and to attribute each view. In my view, if a user simply erases existing content and rewrites an article to present only one view in a way that prevents sourcing the multiple views separately, a revert is warranted. However, if a user adds new content to an existing article without erasing the existing content, sourcing problems can be addressed by adding tags to each contested sentence or paragraph added to represent a request for footnote-style sourcing where needed. I believe this would address the sourcing issues and a revert would not be appropriate. --Shirahadasha 19:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

They mainly come from the Jewish Encyclopedia. The choice of some editors to just copy and paste the Jewish Encyclopedia article into the bottom of articles, isn't something I view as sensible (you'd just get headings again, cover similar material separately, etc. ). I prefer to wikify the JE articles offline, and work out how to combine them with the current article offline (because the process of putting the two together isn't quick, and the intermediate stages are extremely messy, with bits of articles all over the place), and since that already means constructing an article offline, that's when I choose to add relevant details from other sources (Friedman etc.). Its necessary, it seems, to point out that I'm not "erasing existing content", I'm just rearranging it, adding details from other sources, and merging it with JE articles, some of which are often much larger (and so it may appear - which is an illusion - as if the earlier content has been removed, simply because there is a "sea" of other content around and through it) --User talk:FDuffy 07:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In the past Wikipedia Judaism content was based on wikified JE articles. There is still some of that fossilised content around, but it is really not acceptable anymore, for reasons stated above.
 * If you feel that your "complete rewrites" are NPOV despite the alterations I would strongly recommend making the changes piecemeal, and perhaps discussing your plans on the talkpage before going ahead. Clearly, your approach has not gone down well with a number of editors. Even if you think you are right, you need to take that into account.
 * As I have stated on numerous occasions, no editors of this WikiProject want to bar "critical" content from articles. The dispute is obviously is about the relative weight lent to "classical"/Orthodox views and the scholarly counterpart. While each side may be convinced of its case, Wikipedia is not the arbiter here. JFW | T@lk  16:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Alternate text of the haggadah
I would appreciate community input at Talk:Haggadah of Pesach in regards to a dispute I am having with user:Rickyrab whether the text of the traditional haggadah should be presented as the text with modern alternate versions presented as a minority view, or that the traditional should be presented as one of many alternate versions. Jon513 17:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

new wikiproject and template
Heads up Wikipedia:WikiProject Kabbalah, Template:Kabbalah --Shuki 19:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * To misconstrue the entire Kabbalah as "occult" is more than just slightly radical. Unfortunately, Kabbalah means a lot of things to different people. JFW | T@lk  23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Would hope we would have some Kabbalah experts who could join and keep an eye on the project -- there appears to be some danger of the project being taken over by occult/popularization/Kabbala lite types not grounded in serious scholarship. --Shirahadasha 03:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the aims of that WikiProject are quite genuine, e.g. they want to write about the Chasidei Ashkenaz. Do we actually have any "Kabbalah experts" on Wikipedia? JFW | T@lk  06:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Tongue inextricably stuck to the interior of my cheek... "SJ maybe?" Too soon?  Tom e rtalk  11:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Move of Matzo to Matzah
The article has been put up on WP:RM and a new discussion has been started on the Talk:Matzo page. Anyone who has anything to contribute is welcome to participate; I'm looking for some consensus this time around, one way or the other. Kari Hazzard ( T  |  C ) 21:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

oh lord
A new template that formats the words "LORD" has been created and is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity. Jon513 17:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Help needed creating cats for Jewish articles
The deletion of Category:Jewish Encyclopedia (see CFD) left many articles uncategorized. Those of us who are working on this list could use help on those articles that were previously categorized with Jewish Encyclopedia. As there's quite a backlog, thanks in advance to anyone who can chip in on this task by recategorizing these articles.--Fisherjs 18:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Speedy everything that has been pasted from JE and not updated or copyedited. COI: see above. JFW | T@lk  13:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The template's what links here page should be of some help. --Eliyak T · C 00:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Jewish music, redux...
For those who missed my comments above, I'd like to point out a coupla things, and say mazal tov to a couple of editors who have done an excellent job on the following articles (and template): JewishMusic, Contemporary Jewish religious music, and Miami Boys Choir. שבת שלום and don't forget to count the `omer! Tom e rtalk 08:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Animals that are Kosher: category? list? series?
I had an idea I thought I would run by y'all. In the spirit of this Shabbos being Parashat Shemini, It would be nice to have some way of identifying Kosher Animals on wikipedia. I want to gauge your interest in whether or not I should go ahead with this and, if so, which method I should use, namely those found on Categories, lists, and series boxes. Should I categorize specific animal articles as "Kosher", should I just create an article which lists kosher animals ("List of Kosher Animals"), or should I add to the Animal series template "Kosher: [yes|no|mixed opinions]". I'm thinking the last one would add too much to the clutter, but what does everyone else think? --  Valley   2   city   ₪‽ 18:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I say List of kosher animals only. It would be nice to eventually have a complete list, at least for meat and fowl.  Such a list can include a note about the few kosher locusts and cover, briefly, the reasons why there isn't an exhaustive list of fish species.  That said, a partial list of fish species that covers the types commonly sold, scaled, in supermarkets, might be useful for people who aren't particular about purchasing fish w/ a hekhsher.  I guess.  Tom e rtalk  20:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * But how would this list deal with animals whose kosher status is debatable (among Jewish scholars)?-- Ķĩřβȳ ♥  ♥  ♥  Ťįɱé  Ø  23:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * With notes. Tom e rtalk  23:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I have to support the category idea for meat and fowl animals, although not for fishes, except for those widely consumed as food, salmon, cod, smelt, etc. That said, I want to throw whatever weight I have (which is more than the CDC says I should) behind the idea of a "list" as well, since within the context of a list you can actually attach notes to "questionable" species, something you can't do with an appreciable level of clarity in the context of a Category. Tom e rtalk 11:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I created the article. Feel free to contribute.--Kirby♥time 01:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Shomer Shabbat Wikipedians
I was also thinking of creating a template/userbox similar to that on WP:Break that Shomer Shabbat wikipedians can put at the top of their talk pages so that they can indicate that as Shomer Shabbat people they will take a weekly wikibreak from Friday afternoon to Saturday Nightfall and will not respond to anything during that time. Are there any coding experts who can figure out how to incorporate timezone into this template?

My current temporary prototype is at User:Valley2city/Userboxes/Shabbat, and appears as such: as modified and extended from that of User:Olve/Userboxes/Shabbat. A potential category is also included in the userbox code. --  Valley   2   city   ₪‽ 18:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Won't do that, buddy. Firstly there's timezones. Secondly, it's an invitation for trolls to modify a shomer Shabbat editor's contributions when they are certain he/she isn't looking. JFW | T@lk  07:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Most recently, afaik, assumption that Jewish editors wouldn't be looking played a rôle here (albeit during Pesach, rather than "simply" Shabath). Followed, of course, by several assumptions of bad faith when people happened to find out about it.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  08:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * As an addendum...don't get me wrong...I have nothing against having such a userbox, I just think it's probably not best to say, essentially "attention trolls, I won't be around to counter you 25+ hours of the week beginning ... NOW!" Drop the category idea too...if editors go around specifically seeking out people who are shomrei shabath, they're probably not worth their salt as WP editors, which makes it just a good basket for the aforementioned trolls to figure out whom to sabotage.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  11:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking at histories, I have noticed that there have been an increased number of controversial debates launched on late Friday afternoons into Shabbos, particularly relating to Israel articles. There is something inherently unfair about this. I have no idea how possibly to incorporate this but I feel that the fact that a sizable portion of the Religious/"Zionist" side of the debates are technologically-incapacitated for 25+ hours (and many more hours in terms of coordination with people in other timezones) and this should somehow be taken into account during discussions which seem unusually tipped to one end of the scales for such a heated debate. I'm rambling, but it's frustrating the changes that are made during the times that us religious folk are removed from the picture. --  Valley   2   city   ₪‽ 21:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There is User Shabbat. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal - Remove Bob Dylan from Category:Converts to Christianity
Please see these sections of the current Talk: Dylan & His Judaism and I dreamed I saw St. Augustine. I propose that we remove Bob Dylan from that category, because his period of gospel singing appears to have been a temporary one, from more than two decades in the past. He has clearly identified with Judaism in more recent years. Please comment at Talk:Bob Dylan. --Metzenberg 21:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Isru Chag
OK, I've done all I have time for for today...someone in the know, please check over my changes to Isru Chag and fix as necessary. שבת שלום! Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 23:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Gotthard Deutsch
I wikified the above bio article as part of the wikification wikiproject but it could still do with more attention and you probably want to add it to the project. Seems that he was an important scholar (and also a very nice person). Itsmejudith 15:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jewish musicians
Category:Jewish musicians and a few of its subcategories have been nominated for deletion. This is part of a larger set of nominations related to Category:Musicians by religion. You may comment at Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 16. Dr. Submillimeter 09:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

UK Youth Movements
I'd like to confirm the natability of UK Jewish Youth Movements. I have been I member of a group and wanted to see if they had an article. Looking further it can be seen that several groups do have pages such as Reform Synagogue Youth, LJY-Netzer and Federation of Zionist Youth. These articles seem to have been written by members of the group with little discussion - apart from by people who feel they should be deleted. Even if the organizations are notable there re definate problems with the articles which currently amount to little more than vanity projects and have in general a quite unencylopaedic tone with several NPOV issues. For example from Federation of Zionist Youth.

"In the summer of 2001 FZY set an example to the whole world by leading nine tours to Israel despite the reluctance of Jews all over the world to go there in the time of the Al Aqsa Intifada; our Israel tours and Year Course programmes continue to grow with record numbers of participants."

". FZY prides itself on creating an environment where people of differing beliefs can strive together towards common goals and learn from one another."

Reform Synagogue Youth is probably a better article however it contains sentences like "Each camp has two roshim and a senior tzevet (team) containing a rosh toran a rosh tabach and other important bogrim" - this would not be comprehensible to your typical English language reader (This is English Wikipedia).

LJY-Netzer was the group I was a member of and I'm not convinced that they meet notability criteria - although I haven't gone through all the policy.

Additionally the only references given in any of the three articles are to the web pages of the movements they refer to - to me this suggests that maybe the articles are not actually neccessary and maybe a list page with brief descriptions and links to the websites would be made. Essentially all the pages are doing is advertising the Youth Movements - ableit in a slightly encyclopaedic way.

I think most of the problems can be summed up in a a quote from one of the discussion pages.

"'fantastic' is ... NPOV, there is no other way of describing RSY tour"

Sorry for the long post, especially if this does not come under your remit, or if the topic has been gone over before. Guest9999 12:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)]]

TfD nomination of Template:ORBCOTW
Template:ORBCOTW has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — YechielMan 17:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Orthodox Jews and Judaism in New York City
Category:Orthodox Jews and Judaism in New York City has no pages and one subcategory Category:Orthodox Judaism in New York City. It appears to serve no useful purpose and should be deleted.--Redaktor 14:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Redaktor: There is nothing factually wrong with these categories. Since NYC has the largest concentration of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox/Haredi Judaism-based communities anywhere in the world outside of Jerusalem, these categories have been created and are usefull first steps to serve as the foundations for all the articles relating to them. Let's fill them in, it shouldn't be that difficult. Thank you, 10:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Halakhic - cap?
I'm trying to determine if the adjective "Halakhic" should be capitalized when not at the beginning of a sentence. Both the Jew and Halakha articles are internally inconsistent on this point.--Steven J. Anderson 23:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * "Halakhic" as a concept is capital. a single halakha is not.  Halakhic refers to the concept so it should be captial.  Jon513 19:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Not exactly. "Halakhah" as a formal body of law may be capitalized. Anywhere else it is not in formal or academic writing, not even as an adjective ("halakhic"). Dovi 19:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I would argue that neither halakhic nor halakha need be capitalized. Were there a book entitled Halakhah, that, of course, would be a separate issue, but just as minhag or mishna as concepts should not be capitalized, so neither should be halakha, any more than should be the terms, whereëver they might appear, "tradition"/"practice" "repetition"/"exposition", or "path"/"doctrine".  It's just a word...that it happens to be a Hebrew term that embodies a great deal more than can be "simply" expressed by a single English word does not accord it the status of "proper noun" (which would necessitate capitalization).  This is quite analogous to the situation of how brith mila captures a far more specific concept than simple circumcision.  Neither of these should be capitalized, nor should be halakha.  TIA.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  10:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. No need to use a capital unless the word is a proper noun.--Redaktor 16:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The book "Halacha" by Yechiel Galas (ISBN 0-910818-13-4) consistently uses a small h.--Newport 19:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This is also an issue for articles relating to Sharia, should we invite editors from WikiProject Islam to help the discussion? Jon513 10:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Be bold. :-)  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  03:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I downcased "halakhic" in both the Jew and Halakha articles, but haven't made any other changes as yet. --Steven J. Anderson 20:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dovi on this one. In my opinion the " H alakhah" as Judaism's body of normative law is a proper noun, while an individual " h alakhah" is not. This is similar to the difference between the M ishnah compiled circa 200 C.E. and a  m ishnah that was stated by Tannaim. I don't know why "halakhic" is lowercase while "Mishnaic" and "Talmudic" aren't. How about an analogy to the U.S. Constitution (lehavdil)? Is "constitutional" ever capitalized? &mdash;Rafi Neal | <tt>T</tt> / <tt>C</tt> 03:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Here's what I did and here's what I think. I went to Jew and Halakha and did a search for the word "halakhic". I found that a clear majority of the time halakhic was uncapitalized (when not at the beginning of a sentence or capitalized for some other reason). I put that together with the comments here and made a decision to downcase it throughout both articles. I also looked at a few other articles where I thought I could expect to find the word. I don't recall finding it capped anywhere else. Anyone who's interested can check my edits to verify this; I'm not 100 percent certain.


 * I agree with Tomer that "halakha" is probably not a proper noun referring to a specific work in the way that "Mishnah" and "Talmud" are, but more of an abstract concept, like "law" or "ethics". The U.S. Constitution is a single document with a proper name. However, "constitutional" is an abstract concept. "Mishnaic" and "Talmudic" are adjectives that are capitalized for the same reason that "Jewish" and "American" are (I think).


 * Perhaps we should start a formal process to find a consensus on this.


 * Perhaps we should start a section in WikiProject Judaism/Manual Of Style on this issue.


 * What's most important to me is that the inconsistency within the articles makes them look dumb, dumb, dumb. This would never happen in a professionally edited encyclopedia and I want to leave the articles I work on in the best shape I can. It's a change that's easily made once a decision is made about what's to be regarded as conventional.


 * There are a few additional comments from other users about this on my talk page.


 * Oh, I also just did a search on the "Talmud" article. I found eighteen "Talmudic"s and one "talmudic". I'm about to upcase that right now. --Steven J. Anderson 04:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Two things...nay three&mdash;first, I moved WikiProject Judaism/Manual Of Style to WikiProject Judaism/Manual of Style, for case consistency with WP:MOS itself. I also created a redirect thereto, from WP:JEW/MOS...I could be convinced to go just with WP:JEWMOS or even WP:JMOS if people care that much about it.  I do think that if this discussion continues much further, it should really be moved to the talkpage there...
 * Second, I'm not opposed to upcasing Halakhic, but I think eventually doing so is going to create serious issues when we start butting heads with people who are opposed to upcasing Biblical, which for far better reasons, should be upcased...but is not. For this reason, especially in conjunction with what I agree is far too much inconsistency, Talmudic should actually have been downcased 18 times rather than one of them being upcased.
 * Third, I strongly disagree with Dovi and Rafi's assertion that halakha, as the body of Judaism's normative religious law makes it a proper noun any more than "morality" or "conscience" are. Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  05:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify: I only said that as a body of law halakhah may be capitalized, i.e. it's not clear, not that it must be. I've seen both. I've also seen "talmudic" and "mishnaic" in lower-case the vast majority of times. I'm not pushing the upper-case, just trying to say that lower-case is certainly justified.Dovi 06:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess the question's answer we should be trying to reach consensus on is whether or not "halakha" is/n't a proper noun. Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  06:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I've come late to this, and know nothing about Jewish law, but I do care about consistency within Wikipedia. My current bugbears are common nouns that originate outside English and have not been completely integrated within it; they are often erratically capitalised, and often not italicised. Where is the proper place to take this up? BrainyBabe 13:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

"Jewish descent" versus Jew
Recently, a new trend has appeared whereby notable people classified as Jews are being reclassified and put into new lists and categories under the label and nomenclature as being of "Jewish descent" which is not in itself a recognized academic or Halachik term. The discussions have unfolded at Talk:List of Polish Jews where Polish editors have questioned the definition of "Jew" and have created a new List of people of Polish Jewish descent (by User:LeszekB). Problem: How far does the "Polish Jewish" identity keep on going for? So far there is no known answer. Another recent manifestation of this trend is the creation of Category:People of Jewish descent and sub-categories Category:Canadians of Jewish descent and Category:Canadians of Israeli descent (by User:Mayumashu). Problem: Does Wikipedia need categories for both Category:Canadians of Jewish descent AND Canadian Jews, and which is the true parent category? This is the kind of chaos and cofusion that awaits if this trend continues. Thus the greatest problem that this new "system" and "terminology" creates is that it runs the very clear danger of creating parallel and redundant lists and categories and cause chaos and confusion regarding where and how to listify or categorize Jews. This entire subject touches upon the core issues of Who is a Jew? and there are already a number of methods that have been devised in order to clarify who and what a Jew is in all Lists of Jews for example, such as Jew list which advises: "This page is a list of Jews. For more on who is considered Jewish, see Who is a Jew?. This List of Jews contains individuals who, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability and no original research policies, have been identified as Jews by reliable sources." Before nominating these new lists and categories for redirects, renaming and/or deletion, this trend is now brought to the attention of a wider number of serious and long-standing editors familiar with the issues. See the following proposal, thank you. IZAK 09:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC):

PROPOSAL: The term "Jewish descent" should not be used in the headings of Wikipedia articles, lists, or categories, the word/s "Jew" or "Jewish" is enough.


 * Agreed for above reasons. IZAK 09:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree - even if this was conceived with best intentions, what's next: skull measuring? ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Wholehearted agreement, and a hearty commendation to the nominator for agreeing with his having made this nomination. :-p  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  10:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree, sensible points as to lack boundary of how far this might stretch back to include people and, both more importantly and easier to argue, for the classification entanglement it risks causing here in an encyclopaedia. David Ruben Talk 11:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree Judaism is not a race. If it really matters for the biography of the person, the father, grandfather or paternal grandmother can be described as being Jewish. gidonb 11:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Judaism is not a race, but it is an ethnicity and a cultural tradition outside of pure religious observance or belief. In any case, halakha says that Jewish identity is passed down through the mother, so your example of naming the father or paternal grandparent is flawed. LordAmeth 12:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * These examples are relevant because they illustrate that the phrase "of Jewish descent" is often used for persons who are not Jewish by (any) halakha, but the author nevertheless wants to link to Judaism or Jewishness. gidonb 17:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Minor point, but Judaism is a race for the purposes of UK law. Dan Beale  21:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * In official use and daily language, the concepts of race and ethnicity are often mixed up. gidonb 14:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The List of people of Polish Jewish descent is a red herring. It is a list of Jews of Polish Jewish descent and was created because LeszekB objected to the presence in the List of Polish Jews of people who were undoubtedly Jewish and of Polish-Jewish parentage but born elsewhere.  Would it be better to rename it to "List of Jews of Polish Jewish descent"?--Runcorn 13:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Using the phrase "of xxxx descent" usually indicates that the individual has previously lived in another country but is now in some intermediate stage of acculturation. Jews, however, by default are living in "another" country, and so the line between "Jewish" and "of Jewish descent" is much more blurry. Since we can't go around asking everyone how Jewish they feel, I think we should stick with just calling these fellows "Jewish" as has been done until now. --Eliyak T · C 13:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. People should be in charge of their own labelling, and I'd be against adding more categories whose assignment criteria are debatable. Is the child of a convert considered to be of Jewish descent? It could get murky. EdJohnston 13:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Disagree with proposal as a whole. As per comment of User:LordAmeth, Judaism is passed down maternally and that Jewishness is commonly viewed as a standard ethnicity (which is non-controversial).  I created the page Category:Canadians of Jewish descent for listing people (where verifiable) who are of partial Jewish ethnicity (that is who have a Jewish father or grandfather and who are not practicing Jewish faith - someone like Mark Steyn, in fact the only person listed thus far), just as I ve created lists for Canadians of other partial ethnicities.  Any posposal needs to include "forbidding" "people of fooian descent", not just singling out this particular ethnicity.  This is entirely different matter than that of the list of Polish Jews born outside Poland, who are Jewish/Jews.  Mark Steyn isn t Jewish but is of partial Jewish ancestry/ethnicity/descent.  As for Category:Canadians of Israeli descent, it is not a duplicate of Category:Canadians of Jewish descent, as not all Israelis are Jewish. Mayumashu 15:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Parentage can be mentioned in the article, if relevant, for non-Jews who have Jewish ancestry. --Shirahadasha 15:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree, but the person in question needs to be either self-identified as a Jew (which may even be the case if they are not halachically Jewish) or widely known as us. JFW | T@lk  15:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. This entire problem could be avoided by forbidding people from categorizing or listing people based on their skin_tone/quantity_of_moles_and_other_skin_blemishes/hair_color/ear_shape/race/ethnicity/ancestry/etc.  There are much better ways to spend time editing a reputable encyclopedia than in the pursuit of what, in many cases, consist primarily of little more than idle gossip and worthless speculation.  The whole lot of this sort of pigeonholing should be excised from Wikipedia on the simple basis that it is irrelevant twaddle.  This prolly isn't the place to gripe about this, but this sort of piffle really gets my goat, especially since the subject seems to come up again and again, over and over, repeatedly, ad nauseum, etc.  Anyhoo, hope you enjoy the easter egg links.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  16:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree this looks like another example of the creation of multiple almost synonymous categories with new oportunities for confusion.--Redaktor 16:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree with reservations I would not wish to create or be involved with something called "List of people of Jewish descent", but I'm not sure that we can ban people from creating such lists. I must strongly disagree with TShilo12; every name I add to lists of Jews is supported by a reliable source and there is far less "idle gossip and worthless speculation" than in many Wikipedia articles.  Would he care to review my contributions and then withdraw his comment?--Newport 18:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, but he'll be happy to not include you in his List of list-making Wikipedians who waste a lot of everyone else's time with idle gossip and worthless speculation when he makes it. Cheers, Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  19:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, you waste time with idle gossip and worthless speculation; I'll get on with making an encyclopaedia, creating and expanding articles. Deal?--Newport 20:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * As I have little interest in making lists to pigeonhole people, your terms are unacceptable. We will have to renegotiate before moving forward.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  22:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree, grouping or labeling people this way in a category or list is far too ambiguous and of no utility. The only place it might be appropriate to mention such detail would be within the text of an article where the person self-identifies as a Jew and/or where one's (verifiable) Jewish ancestry is relevant. -- M P er el ( talk 19:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree, "Jewish descent" is a meanlingless and unnecessary additional classification. Kari Hazzard  ( T  |  C ) 20:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. Wikipedia does not need a one-drop rule. These lists have no place in this encyclopaedia anyway. They are all original research and are bound to attract tension and fighting because of that. Grace Note 01:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree per IZAK and Grace Note. Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 01:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions.   IZAK 09:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - So people of Jewish descent will be called Jewish? I do agree that we should not have categories or lists of people of Jewish descent because of the difficulty they inconter. Poland is the most tricky because if you lived in Poland in the day, you were either Catholic or Jewish, but alot of folks did not self identify and there should be solid evidence either way before labeling a person as either it seems. Anyways, good luck with this! --Tom 12:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree per Izak et al. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:29, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Disagree Someone who's father is jewish isn't jewish so they shouldn't be classified as such they do have jewish ancestry and should be classified as jewish ancestry also if a person who's mother is jewish embraced religion z they aren't jewish and should be classified under jewish ancestry --Java7837 01:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Why are these people being "classified" in this way to begin with? Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  03:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree but only if what User:Jfdwolff said is followed. A person should only be identified as Jewish if it is "well-known" that that person is Jewish or if that person identifies as Jewish in a personal statement. Meaning, a website that decides to call someone Jewish simply because they have a Jewish ancestor should not be held alone as a valid enough reason to qualify the person as Jewish if there is not anything more thorough to back it up. People who are only partly of a certain ethnicity should always have this information made present and viewable at all times. Otherwise, I disagree. This is different for nationality, of course. LeszekB 15:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Disagree – While I sympathize with the intent, I’m afraid I have deprecate the proposal, as presented, on the grounds of NPOV and NOR; essentially, it renders a decision on the question of “Who is a Jew?” in favor of the Orthodox/Conservative POV. If the most sagacious minds in Judaism have not resolved this issue, then Wikipedia is not in a position to do so either.  On the other hand, I don’t see the need for such a list, not just because of the vagueness of the term, but also since we need to be sensitive to the historical evil uses made of such lists with “Jewishness” defined by outsiders (e.g., the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws).  The term “Jewish descent” appears to cover so-called “ethnic Jews” (excluding any persons whose Jewishness is incontrovertible according to the most consensual – i.e., conservative – interpretation of Halakha).  As such, it would seem to include those who are agnostic, converts to other faiths, of “illegitimate” (i.e., patrilineal) lineage, or non-observant – all of which have negative connotations to most people “assigned” to this group.  With respect to WP:NOR, WP:BLP and respect for individuals’ privacy, Wikipedia should include in any list of people only those who self-identify or who are widely identified by reliable sources (and without formal denial) as being in said group.  IMHO, this is the reason to deprecate Wikipedia’s having any list of people of “Jewish descent”, since the very term calls into question the individual’s “Jewishness.”  Askari Mark (Talk) 18:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Question - as an outsider, I realize I may have no place in this discussion, and appreciate that. You are all free to either criticize or ignore the question I am about to ask. However, I personally can see having lists of people of what is apparently Jewish descent as being at least potentially useful in some cases. It would at least resolve controversial cases when it isn't clear whether someone is being tagged as either an ethnic or religious Jew. While I can wholeheartedly agree with not having an "ethnic Jew" listing, for the very valid reasons above, I'm wondering whether it might not be possible to create instead a grouping of "observant Jews" within the larger "Jews" grouping for those individuals who observe the Jewish faith in its various forms, and by so doing making the "ethnic Jew" the basic entry in the "Jew" groupings. I realize that this might not solve many of the problems cited above, and may in fact (unfortunately) perhaps down the line cause others, because to a certain degree such problems are unavoidable when dealing with matters of ethnicity. I do however think it might be useful to separate the two groups somehow, so that we don't wind up having someone with a Jewish mother and no other connection to Judaism at all placed in the same grouping as Hillel the Elder. John Carter 18:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree per proposal Notmyrealname 18:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm shocked that the classification and categorization-fetish crowd hasn't yet put Tommy Mandel into Category:Jewish American musicians... Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  08:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Let there be any specific reference to the article to his being a Jew, and I think you'd see him categorized as a Jew within a month of that info being added. Some of the categorization "nuts" (I'm one of them, by the way), find these categories as being an easy way of making unreferenced lists, and in many cases, including my own, we have trouble knowing when to stop. John Carter 14:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongly disagree One of Robert Browning's ancestors was a Hanseatic merchant; probably Jewish. Does this make him a Jew? This has the potentiality of ending up in the same silliness as the helpful soul who wanted to cat Robert E. Lee as Scottish-American, because, while the Lees are an English family, they claim descent from Robert the Bruce. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I heard Robert the Bruce was Jewish. Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  01:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree Too ambiguous and vague, per MPerel and Kari Hazzard's reasoning. Epson291 05:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jews and Judaism in FOO
I find the entire category scheme unhelpful. Something is either related to Category:Jews or Category:Judaism. In the event it is relevant to both to Category:Jews and Category:Judaism, it can be tagged with both categories. So Category:Jews and Judaism doesn't look useful in any sense. -- Cat chi? 16:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a huge can of worms... Where to draw the line between Jews and Judaism is a very hairy topic, and depends a lot more sometimes on whom you're talking to, than it does on what you're talking about...  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  18:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, and think about trying to put Category:Jews into Category:Judaism or vice versa. Should be enough to give you nightmares. --Eliyak T · C 05:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 03:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Remember, this is a category we are talking about here and not an article. The purpose of categories is to connect subjects on a higher level. The purpose of Category:Jews and Judaism is to serve as a parent category for the two separate yet connected sub-categories of Category:Jews (rooted in its lead article of Jew) and Category:Judaism (rooted in its lead article of Judaism), and the two articles do explain the differences (which a category cannot and should not do!), but in the absolute religious, historic, practical and logical sense Jews and Judaism cannot be separated, no matter what "reasons" anyone could possibly concoct, and User:Cool Cat cannot simply and glibly say, oh well, these categories are "unhelpful" and "doesn't look useful." Why and what are they "unhelpful" to and what's the meaning of "deesn't look useful"?? One could say about a lot of things that one is ignorant about that they are "unhelpful" or that they "don't look useful" while they may actually be invaluable to those who are more educated about a subject or to those who sincerely want to learn about a subject they may know little about. So since he does not even bother to give actual in-depth reasons based on either the subject of Jews or Judaism, he cannot be taken seriously, especially in light of the fact that the great category he is so flippant about has been around for almost three years (could it be that for almost three years no-one found it "useful"?) I agree with what Tomer and Eliyak are basically saying, that Jews and Judaism go together like a horse and carriage (exactly like "Love and Marriage") IZAK 06:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Rif
Please look at my question at Template talk:Judaism re. Rif. I can't tell who this is supposed to be, yet there's a link in the template. Is it Abba Arika, known as Rav in the Talmud? --Steven J. Anderson 20:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I correct it. it now points correctly to Isaac Alfasi.  Jon513 20:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

RFC: Bob Dylan on List of converts to Christianity
There has been an ongoing discussion on the talk pages of both articles referenced above about whether the sources cited for the subject's conversion to Christianity are sufficient to describe and/or categorize him as a Christian convert. The previous discussions are at Talk:Bob Dylan and Talk:List of converts to Christianity. The centralized discussion for RFC purposes is on the latter page here. Thank you for your attention in this matter. John Carter 00:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yetzia bish'eila
Could someone who knows more about this than I do please take a look at this article? The editor who created it says that he initially translated it from יציאה בשאלה. I find the claims about Sholom Aleichem and Mendele Mocher Sforim surprising at best. Perhaps it's a good candidate for deletion. In a year and a half, it's never been anything more than a stub. --Steven J. Anderson 22:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * the Hebrew article is featured. And, while wikipedia is not a source, it is an accurate translation.   Sholom Aleichem and Mendele Mocher Sforim were both secular Jews with a religious upbringing so they would fit the term.  Even though the article doesn't cite any source and will likely never move past a stub, I still don't see that as a reason to delete.  As it is talking about a phenomena not a term it is should be renamed. Jon513 20:18, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Spelling -h for silent final letter ה
Wikipedia is horribly inconsistent about this issue. Searching with one spelling for any particular Hebrew word will unpredictably redirect to the other spelling. In my opinion, "Halakhah," "Mishnah," "matzah," et al. should be spelled with an h at the end. Can we discuss this? I've done some searching, and am surprised that I can't find a previous discussion on it. I suppose this discussion belongs at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew), so let's start it there. Thanks. &mdash;Rafi Neal | <tt>T</tt> / <tt>C</tt> 03:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good place to start. Frankly, the whole world is horribly inconsistent about this issue... JFW | T@lk  05:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The current standard in transliteration is not to use an h to denote a silent ה. There are some words for which the older spelling has stuck, such as Torah and mitzvah (just off the top of my head). Halakha, on the other hand, is most commonly spelled without an h. It should not be thought of as inconsistent, but rather as consistently following the most common current practice. --DLand<sup style="color:green;"> TALK 05:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Capon on List of kosher animals
Question here. Knowledgeable citable input requested. Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 06:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Wasserman
The editorial behavior of has been getting stranger and more controversial by the day. He seems to be obssessed with categories and lists of Jews and with queer edits, such as to the Death of Adolf Hitler article where he adds "NOTE: Hitler's eyes were actually blue, not brown" and this doozy: "Fairly definitive quote from Hitler on the "Final solution to the Jewish Question," stating that if another war occurred Nazi Germany would 'annihilate' European Jewry.", not quite clear if it's meant to be gloating or mourning over the Jews? (so which is it, "Wassermann"???) Since he officially assumed a user name in February 2007, he openly espouses an anti-Admin outlook, see User:Wassermann, has already been blocked for attacks, see User talk:Wassermann, has been reprimanded for linking to attack sites, see User talk:Wassermann, has attacked well-established editors and admins, see User talk:Wassermann and User talk:Wassermann as examples, created and reposted crazy articles about Jews, see User talk:Wassermann, and persists in adding new and old categories relating to Jews and Judaism in  a random fashion  on a wholesale basis without any reason, see Contributions/Wassermann. Beyond that it seems he simply seems to enjoy "targeting" Jews' topics for attention. Someone who is so hostile to Wikipedia and its goals should be watched more closely when making edits and comments on pages, articles, categories or lists that about Jews and Judaism. I am worried. IZAK 12:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There is nothing to be worried about, and I wish that so many people around here would stop being so paranoid. That being said, I'm not denying that some of my editing behavior has been non-PC (others might say "controversial"), but you make quite a few baseless, wild, and ridiculous assumptions here which I will try to address one by one. As far as being "obssessed [sic] with categories and lists of Jews," the same could be said about yourself (judging by your edit history) and all of the editors you are close with (after looking at their edit histories). Now on to your accusations:


 * Regarding the Death of Adolf Hitler article, I merely wrote that Hitler's eyes were blue and not brown, thus pointing out a glaring historical inaccuracy on the TIME magazine cover that readers should be made aware of; is there something "strange" or "controversial" about pointing out a historical inaccuracy? I'll soon try to find the quote(s) from one of the books that I own to prove this, but anyone that has done some actual reading/research on the subject knows this to be the case.


 * The Hitler quote that I added on the Final solution page is a definitive quote on the reality of the Holocaust in the sense that Hitler clearly says in that quote that if another world war occurred Nazi Germany would "annihilate" European Jews (apparently, the Hitler quote which I added is reiterated further down on that page by Goebbels when he says: "He [Hitler] warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world war has come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary consequence" .) I may have inadvertently added an awkwardly written edit summary (what you call a "doozy"), but the quote was meant to definitively prove that Hitler and the upper-echelons of the Nazi Party made pre-Holocaust statements that foretold the impending destruction of European Jewry; thus I added that quote in the hopes of proving that Hitler and Nazi Germany did indeed target the Jews for "annihilation" during WWII (thus debunking the Holocaust deniers). Of course I'm not "gloating" about the Holocaust, so please don't accuse me of something as horrendous as that because it is pure slander (please see WP:No personal attacks). I find that assertion of yours to be DEEPLY OFFENSIVE because I am myself a Jew. I'm not here to "gloat," and I'm not here to "mourn"...I'm here to state the facts and retain a NPOV.


 * I'm not anti-admin., but I am indeed anti-POV-pushing admin. The problem is that MUCH hypocrisy and censorship occurs here on Wikipedia when it comes to certain articles, and I've done my best to try and be a counterweight to that type of behavior. I am obviously not anti-Semitic, and I am not blatantly philo-Semitic either (unlike many of the POV editors around here...the philo-Semitism of these biased editors skews/slants their edits/deletions in a highly POV way). In short, I try to remain as neutral as possible regarding ALL topics here on Wikipedia, and hope to provide room for ALL points of view however controversial or non-PC they may be. I was indeed blocked for a little while, but I feel that the words that caused me to be blocked had to be said (I'd also like to point out that I'm certainly not the only user that has major problems with the inexcusable and irrational behavior of certain editors around here).


 * I wasn't aware that The Wikipedia Review was/is considered an attack site when I linked to it a little while back, and by linking to it I simply wanted to point out to User:Shii that it's not nice to stalk users, vandalize their user page, and slander them behind their back. Also, I don't see you jumping all over Shii for actually USING that website, even though he is an admin. and a 'high ranking' official here on Wikipedia (by the way: isn't it 'illegal' for users/admins to use that website?). I'll have to mention that to him here in a moment.


 * "..created and reposted crazy articles about Jews, see User talk:Wassermann" -- The "Jewdar" phenomenon is a documented one, and Wikipedia's failure to allow the article to stay in reeks of POV and censorship. I'm not sure why you all don't like this article, as it is perfectly innocent and is very well sourced. The Jewish Heeb Magazine even has a 'Jewdar' section regarding Jewish society, and it has been noted in reputable publications like the Washington Post and the Weekly Standard (among others); there are also numerous pop-culture references found in many sources on the topic. It is a part of the whole "Yiddishkeit" culture of NYC and other Jewish population centers, and it's no big deal; it just doesn't make sense to me why you all dislike that article so much. Wikipedia has MANY articles on the most obscure rabbis and topics imaginable, but for whatever reason when it comes to the "Jewdar" phenomenon many editors are vehemently opposed to it (and here you even call it a "crazy article").  It makes absolutely no sense...


 * "...persists in adding new and old categories relating to Jews and Judaism in a random fashion  on a wholesale basis without any reason, see Contributions/Wassermann. Beyond that it seems he simply seems to enjoy "targeting" Jews' topics for attention." On Wikipedia one my favorite things to do is to add categories to articles, mostly because categorization is by far the best way to lump together related information, thus saving said articles from wallowing in the huge sea of Wiki-disorganization...is there something wrong with that?  My additions are constructive and accurate, and I don't vandalize or insert personal POV in to articles. The reason I add categories and build lists is to improve articles and the project as a whole by making it more comprehensive and organized, and because I am interested in the topic(s). As for the randomness that you accuse me of, that is only because I add categories as I come across the articles (which is rather randomly). Is categorizing people and adding people to lists now considered "targeting" by you all? I see that you have been adding "Category:Yeshiva University rosh yeshivas" to many articles recently...why is what you are doing not considered "targeting" while the categories I am adding is considered "targeting"?  Well over 85% of your edits are on Jewish articles/topics (and it's the same with many of the people that you sent this message about me to), so why are you all not thought to be " 'targeting' Jewish topics for attention" as you accuse me of doing? Also, I will not even begin to explain the numerous examples of methodical (and unconscionable) censorship used by some editors here to erase the good progress and constructive additions I have made in many articles/lists/categories; I'll just leave it at that brief mention and what I have said before on that subject.


 * If I was "hostile to Wikipedia," why would I be here? I am hostile to hypocrisy and POV however, and these are the traits that I seek to expose and which I do my best to remedy. Since Wikipedia now shows up as #1 in the search results on Google, it is more important that ever that accurate and NPOV information is found on Wikipedia in regards to ALL topics. I've done my best to tone down my rhetoric around here lately (because I do admit that some [not all] of my words in the past were a bit too harsh for some to handle), but it's difficult not to over-react when ones sees valid, relevant, helpful, and good edits being censored/erased, with nearly every edit being questioned, scrutinized, and finally reverted for no apparent reason. I hope that you and the others can begin to understand this, and that you all will eventually cease being so paranoid and hyperprotective when it comes to articles/categories about Jews and Judaism and the people that edit them.


 * Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." --Wassermann 05:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Boruch of Medzhibozh
A resolution is needed on a disagreement over whether Boruch of Medzhibozh should be considered a disciple of his grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, or of Pinchas of Koritz, who was his tutor. Klezmer will not hear of anything but that Boruch should be under Pinchas, and denies that Boruch had any Medzhibozh dynasty or that it existed, and I hold that this makes no sense.

Klezmer says that Boruch was a student of Pinchas of Koritz and followed his spiritual legacy. I can't understand this, since Boruch was clearly a favorite of his own grandfather, the Besht, who he worshipped and studied with and wanted to continue his own grandfather's legacy NOT that of Pinchas of Koritz, which is why he went to Medzhibozh and not Koritz to become Rebbe. According to the article itself on Boruch it says "As recorded in the early Hasidic work Mekor Boruch (first published in 1880 from handwritten manuscripts), at the time of the Baal Shem Tov's death, Rabbi Pinchas of Korets and Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonoye, two of the Baal Shem Tov's closest disciples, reported to the Hasidim that the Baal Shem Tov had designated Reb Boruch as his successor, and instructed Reb Pinchos to take responsibility to carry out those wishes." That clearly would say that Boruch belongs under the Besht not under Pinchas who was just following the Besht's wishes. and not that Boruch left his grandfather to become a follower of Pinchas's spiritual legacy. Almost all the Rebbes have teachers and tutors other than their own father or grandfather, it doesn't make them disciples of the teacher or tutor instead of their own ancestors.

Klezmer quotes Wiesel "Souls on Fire", but Wiesel's "Four Hasidic Masters" says that Boruch rejected the approach of Pinchas, "was eager to resemble" the Besht and declared that "he, Reb Boruch, was his (the Besht's)successor", so how would that put him under Pinchas spiritual legacy instead of under his own grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov.

However Klezmer just keeps reverting to his own opinion. This affects mainly two pages: Israel Baal Shem Tov (the "Spiritual Legacy" section at the end), and List of Hasidic dynasties (also the "Spiritual Legacy section at the end) -- you can see what has been going on by looking at the history of the article.

From two other articles it appears that this is part of a larger agenda or opinion to unvalidate Medzhibozh as a dynasty and strengthen Apta and the Bick family as the true continuation of Medzhibozh. This is reflected in the comment inserted in the begining of the article on Medzhibozh dynasty that "Other unrelated rabbinic dynasties that claim Mezhbizh as their geographic root include the Apta (Hasidic dynasty) and Rapoport-Bick (rabbinic dynasty))"

It was already pointed out by others that the Bicks weren't Hasidic and didn't belong in the Medzhibozh hasidic dynasty article, so the long section on the Bicks was removed and a separate article started (but still referenced there anyway), but the other serious error in my opinion is that in the Apta article Klezmer insists on including the Apter as Rebbe, when it is widely known that it was always the Apter Rov, and not Rebbe. (you can also see this dispute in the history of that article).

Finally, in the Mezhbizh hasidic dynasty article, Klezmer tries to eliminate the existence of a continuation of Medzhibozh from the Baal Shem Tov and Baruch by claiming that because Yaakov Yisroel (son of Mordechai of Medzhibozh, son of Yekhiel Mikl of Medzhibozh, etc., etc. back to Baruch) married the daughter of the Zviler Rebbe that makes him no longer Medzhibozh but Zvil, (even though his grandson is the Zvil-Medzhibozh rebbe, descended from Medzhibozh, and continues the line through Medzhibozh -- I didn't see it myself but someone told me the sign on the Bais Midrash actually says only "Medzhibozh" and not Zvil).

Again, this appears to be just a way of unvalidating Baruch and his descendants, and is not accurate or true. You can also see this dispute in the history of the Mezhbizh hasidic dynasty article, and also in the talk page for the Medzhibozh hasidic dynasty article, where Klezmer starts a section on "Messed up the Medzhibozh Rabbinic Lineage bigtime", and continues after that one with "Facts wrong about Rabbi Boruch's descendants in Medzhibozh" but makes several errors like confusing Mordechai of Zvil with Mordechai of Mezbuz, relies on his own research and recent books but gives no credence to Alfasi's master work on hasidic dynasties and so reverts everything to only his own version instead of at least, as Redaktor suggests, putting in both approaches.

Any input from other editors who are knowledgeable and familiar with hasidic dynasties and families would be helpful. --ChosidFrumBirth 14:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * To clarify, ChosidFrumBirth is referring to who needs to modify his intolerant attitude to Chosid's obvious expertise in this area. Klezmer needs to adopt a more co-operatve attitude because the study of Hasidic Judaism is not a "black-and-white" or "open-and-shut-case" based only on books often written by secular authors, since as well all know it's very much a "Torah-she-be'al peh" phenomenon as well. So let's give co-operation a big try here. Thank you, IZAK 15:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Please join centralized discussion at Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-29 Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty)

Mediation Cabal
I have initiated a request at Mediation Cabal see Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-29 Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty). Hopefully this will add outside input and help to create some balance in the discussions between and. Thank you, IZAK 15:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Please join centralized discussion at Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-29 Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty)

Jewish Collaboration of the Week
Zealotry has been the Jewish Collaboration of the "Week" for many months so I have replaced it with the current top vote-getter ("current" meaning "as of January"). Therefore, the new collaboration is on Tikkun olam. Now fix the world and fix the Wikipedia article! Shalom, y'all, --  Valley   2   city   ₪‽ 15:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Jews and Judaism in Europe and the European Union
OK...here's what's happening...I took some text in European Union and tried to turn it into something a bit more respectable:
 * 16:56, May 1, 2007 TShilo12 (Talk | contribs | block) (78,471 bytes) (→Religion - rm weaselish whitewash)

Another editor thought my edit needed some work:
 * 12:17, May 2, 2007 {{Boson (Talk | contribs | block) (78,371 bytes) (→Religion - I think several genocide attempts" needs references. Relevance to EU (which has existed since 1957 at most) needs establishing. Belongs in Religion in Europe ?)

I commented on the user's talkpage indicating why I'd left the word "genocide" in the article, as well as made a few related comments, here.

The user replied on my talkpage, responding to what I'd said, as well as making some additional remarks, here.

Believing this subject might be of interest to members and lurkers of this WikiProject, I figured I'd bring it up here. Cheers, Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 23:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Update: Boson has changed the article now, thus. Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  03:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject Judaism articles
Should i subcategorize the articles into smaller categories such as Category:WikiProject Judaism-synagogues articles, Category:WikiProject Judaism-numbers articles, Category:WikiProject Judaism-rabbis articles, Category:WikiProject Judaism-jewish texts articles --Java7837 03:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think there are not enough subpages of this project to make such an elaborate categorisation. Note that main namespace articles should not be in the WikiProject category! It is meant only for the WikiProject collaborative pages. JFW | T@lk  17:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I fully agree with JFW, these kind of major changes will not help the project at this time, as there are too few really active editors. IZAK 00:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for comments - collage image at Ashkenazi Jews
A controversy currently exists at the page Ashkenazi Jews concerning the selection of a collage image with a sampling of famous Ashkenazi Jewish individuals. The collage appears in the Infobox for the article. Please visit Talk:Ashkenazi_Jews to offer your opinion. --Metzenberg 09:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Similar (related?) controversies at Jew and American Jews. Also please consider watchlisting Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jewish history. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move for Tabernacle (Judaism)
See Talk:Tabernacle_%28Judaism%29. Also, is there a place for listing proposed moves, akin to the deletion sorting lists? Daniel C/T+ 10:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Saint
There is a discussion on Talk:Saint about what the word's primary meaning is, and about whether or not the word is properly applied to non-Christian persons of exceptional holiness. Some guidence from other POV's would be quite helpful. Thanks,  Pastor David † 15:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Jewish-American organized crime
Please take a look at Jewish-American organized crime. The problem with the title is that it is ambiguous, it appears to link Jewish Americans with the notion of "organized crime" implying guilt by association. I tried changing it to American Jews and organized crime (perhaps someone can come up with a bettter title) but I was reverted, see Talk:Jewish-American organized crime. (Similarly, African-American organized crime could be changed to African Americans and organized crime or some other more neutral heading.) Only three articles in Category:Organized crime groups have this kind of "title": African-American organized crime; Greek-American organized crime and Jewish-American organized crime. So will there be 134 articles in the future about "Foo organized crime" for all 134 categories in Category:American people by ethnic or national origin and indeed for every class of human on Earth without hypocrisy??? Note how there is no article for Italian American organized crime as it's simply and correctly called Mafia. African Americans and Jewish Americans are not connected with organized crime as "representatives" or "symbols" of their race or religion. Every group has its criminals. So what else is new. Sure there are "gangs" just as there are Category:Mafia gangs in Category:Mafia groups (and by the way, if there are such African American or Jewish American gangs or groups then name them, but let's not leave it as if "guilt" is being laid at the door of all African Americans or Jewish Americans etc), but the titles African-American organized crime or Jewish-American organized crime makes it sound, way, way bigger than it is in reality, and could easily slip into racism and antisemitism if not handled in a scrupulously WP:NPOV manner 100% of the time! The job of Wikipedia should not be to magnify the problem which is called POV editing, but to depict things accurately as they are. Please add your views. Thank you, IZAK 00:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Fake messianic image
I found this image on Template:Jewish Christianity on the Early Christianity article. It's been up about a month. I put some remarks of my own on the image page. If you look, you'll see that it purports to be a photograph of some ancient pottery with a purported symbol of early Christianity incorporating the Magen David, a menorah, and the Jesus fish. This is a ridiculous fake. Among the many obvious reasons for this are the fact that the Magen David didn't exist as a symbol of Judaism until the Medieval period. Certainly, Wikipedia should not display photographs of faked archeological artifacts unless they're clearly labeled as such. I don't know much about images and the rules that pertain to them, but I can't tell from looking at the image page what the copyright status of the image is. Recommendations? --Steven J. Anderson 04:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Correct. I've listed it at WP:PUI - feel free to chime in there. Also I've notified the uploader. ←Humus sapiens ну? 05:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Creating a guideline that applies to all religous articles
Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

"Matrilineal descent" - part 2
A few months ago, I had submitted a comment in reference to an apparent "bias" toward Orthodox Judaism's stance on who is and who is not considered "Jewish." Understandably, it was mistaken as a reference to all Judaism-related articles, which wasn't my intention. It was actually a complaint in regard to secular articles where halakha was assumed to be solely determinant of Jewishness (e.g., actor-related pages or actor-related categories which some feel should be edited based on whether the person(s) of relevance are Jewish by the Orthodox standard on its own, without concern for others [Reform Judaism, ethnicity, etc.]). I apologize if this wasn't the appropriate place for such discussion. Thanks. 72.144.192.8 01:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion review
Discussion moved here from WikiProject Deletion sorting/Judaism:


 * Category:Jewish mathematicians
 * Deletion of this category left all of this category's former members being simply categorized as Category:Jews, and resulted in a huge loss of data (no mathematician category in many cases either!). List of Jewish American mathematicians exists, so why not this category as well? --Wassermann 06:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It has been undeleted and relisted: --Runcorn 08:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:Jewish economists
 * Ditto; all recategorized in Category:Jews, huge loss of data. List of Jewish economists exists, so why not this category as well? --Wassermann 06:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:Jewish-American businesspeople
 * Ditto, except in this case they were simply merged in to Category:American businesspeople, and most of the individuals lost their ethnic/religious heritage as a result. List of Jewish American businesspeople exists, so why not this category? Highly disputed and contentious category deletion...see history of deletions here. --Wassermann 06:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wasserman: The categories you mention were deleted fair and square after much deliberation. See Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 10 and Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 10. Let them stay deleted. See my views at User:IZAK/Deleting lists and categories of Jews. Thank you, IZAK 10:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * IZAK...why do you continue this campaign of Wiki-decimation? Many of these categories were carefully worked on by many people, yet they kept (and keep) being nominated for deletion OVER AND OVER AGAIN until they are finally deleted, even though your censorious scheme of "deleting ALL categories and lists of Jews" (you essentially want to make Wikipedia "Judenrein"  just like the Nazis wanted to do with Europe) was long ago rejected by the Wikipedia community.  --Wassermann 21:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * OH YEAH, Cat:J-A Businesspeople and the others were deleted "fair and square after much deliberation" all right, with a whole 2 people voting to wipe out (i.e. "merge") months of good data collection just because no one was paying attention to these categories at the time and noticed that they were all about to be wiped out. Lying isn't very nice IZAK; Hashem no doubt disapproves of your behavior and is taking note of it right now.  --Wassermann 11:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Adding dozens of unsourced claims and useless cats to Wikipedia articles cannot be counted as as "months of good data collection". And please stop violating WP:CIVIL by calling people liars; it's bad enough you continually violate it with your false claims of "censorship" and "vandalism". Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 12:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you deny that your behavior on the List of Jewish American businesspeople, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Ben Bernanke, and MANY other articles has not been censorious Jayjg? I'd say that methodically removing fully appropriate and factual categories along with valid, sourced, and relevant article information OVER AND OVER AGAIN qualifies as censorship to me...  --Wassermann 21:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Claiming that YKBH is on one's side is also a pretty poor argument. He takes note of everything, not just IZAK's edits. JFW | T@lk  21:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

PaRDeS
At long last, I've gone ahead and moved my article idea from userspace to articlespace. Please discuss move or redirect proposals either here or on the talkpage rather than simply taking unilateral action. Thanks. The article is at Pardes (Jewish exegesis). Cheers, Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 07:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

New project proposal
There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at WikiProject Council/Proposals that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessment?
This project seems to be one of the few larger religion projects which does not yet engage in assessments. Would you all want assessment criteria added to the banner? I could set up the assessment subpage as well, if such was desired, explaining the meaning of the various grades. Please let me know. John Carter 18:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I say go for it. Its important to rate articles so they can be tracked and improved. Yamaka122 17:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Orthodox Judaism template
It looks like on the Eruv article and a number of others, the Judaism template was replaced with a new Orthodox Judaism template. I would recommend that before replacing templates in this manner, please place a notice on both WikiProject Judaism and WikiProject Orthodox Judaism and give the community an opportunity to discuss it. Best, --Shirahadasha 19:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have just added an Orthodox Judaism template. I think this is necessary because otherwise you have the absurd situation where the template links an article that's about Orthodox Judaism with other things that according to Orthodox Judaism have no connection at all with Orthodox Judaism. Yehoishophot Oliver 23:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yehoishophot Oliver, it's important to recognize that topics like Halakhah and Eruv are not about Orthodox Judaism, per se, no matter how strongly we feel that Orthodoxy is more invested in such topics. Orthodoxy did not exist prior to (let's say) the year 1750. Halakhah, eruv, etc go back at least 1700 years earlier. It would be a strong POV to claim that all prior Judaism or halakhah was Orthodox and, in any case, anachronistic. It's good to be bold in editing Wikipedia, but this particular suggestion is not suitable for a neutral encyclopedia. HG | Talk 01:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? Orthodox Judaism is a recent term, granted, but it's a term used to describe something that existed for millenia--the adherence to the Oral Torah as divine. The only reason the term arose was as a way of contrasting it with the new, deviant movements that were arising. Eruv, etc., are all terms that arise from the adherence to the rabbinic tradition, which is the simple meaning of the modern English term Orthodox Judaism. As such it merits a separate section, and should not be lumped together with completely unrelated ideas that have nothing to do with it. Yehoishophot Oliver 04:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest dissociating the question at hand from such difficult issues as Orthodoxy's history, who is right, etc. Let me ask this question: Does Conservative Judaism (etc.) prohibit carrying on Shabbat without an Eruv? That is, is the concept of Eruv relevant to contemporary Conservative Judaism etc. (whether one thinks its views correct or not)? And I'd ask the same question about the various other articles. If the subject of an article is only relevant to or done in Orthodox Judaism, perhaps changing the template for that article isn't such a bad idea. Best, --Shirahadasha 04:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * According to Isaac Klein's book, widely regarded as the foremost handbook for halakha by the Conservative laity (at least inasmuch as that laity is "Conservative" in more than just convenient affiliation), an `eruv is absolutely required. I'd hafta go dig it out and dust it off to get the exact citation...but I'm not still not sure how the question you've asked is of particular relevance to the issue at hand...  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  17:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a considerably distance between Conservative halakha and majority practice, but many — probably most — of the practices traditionally prohibited on Shabbat are still prohibitted in Conservative Judaism. Yes, an eruv is required, but 8 out of 10 Conservative Jews might not know what an eruv is. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 18:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The relevance is that replacing the "Judaism" template with an "Orthodox Judaim" template at Eruv implies that it is an exclusively Orthodox concept, which it isn't. It would be like removing the "Judaism" template at Bible and leaving only the "Christianity" template, suggesting exclusive Christian "ownership" of the Bible. Whether it's intentional or not, the template adds a POV to the article. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 18:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Orthodox Judaism
Template:Orthodox Judaism has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. IZAK 08:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Khmelnytsky Uprising
This article is having a heated debate about the issue of Jewish casualties, recently showing signs of revert warring. Neutral comments and attempt to create a compromise version are very much needed before further escalation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 07:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Community-specific holy days
Sigd and Maimouna he: articlemore info come to mind. Any others? How to include in JewishHolidays? Thoughts? Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 04:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeshivish culture
Can someone work on fixing up this article: Yeshivish (culture)? רח"ק | Talk | Contribs 01:18, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's completely hopeless. Who can possibly find a WP:RS for that? Has the phenomenon ever been studied objectively by some academic? JFW | T@lk  14:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * We might have a problem finding such a literature by American academics, but I'd be very surprised if Israeli academics haven't produced something on the subject. After all, it's the culture of a substantial part of the Israeli public education system. Best, --Shirahadasha 17:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Forgive my cynicism, but why would an Israeli academic study haredi culture? And which "public education system" educates haredi/yeshivish children? JFW | T@lk  20:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Antisemitism in the New Age
I have been trying to include some information about the antisemitism of Alice Bailey in the article about her. One problem is that I can not find enough good information to use for sources. In the end I wrote something comparing some of her statements to commonly held held antisemetic stereotypes, but I got called on that for original research and I removed it. Does anyone have some ideas how this can be handled, or it better to write it off as hopeless? Kwork 20:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Article in need of some TLC - or maybe deleting Isaac Bitton
Isaac Bitton - there's been a complaint about a covert agenda behind the editing of this. There's blog sourcing and various worrying things. But, rather than me jump in with the BLP blowtorch, I wonder whether this project could look at it - if you think it is worth keeping at all. Please remove anything no immaculately sourced that might represent POV pushing, particularly in regard to the legal claims. If there's no indication that someone can do this, I'll need to wade in myself, but not my field. --Docg 22:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I share your unease, but it looks reasonably stable. The big problem will be how to prove more outrageous claims (e.g. that he was regarded as one of the top three drummers in Europe - I've heard this claim with minor variations about various Chabad-affiliated artists). If the kashrut supervision incident didn't make headlines (only bloglines), one wonders if it really needs to be in Wikipedia. JFW | T@lk  05:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Why should the whole article be deleted just because of these quibbles? Yehoishophot Oliver 14:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, there is no article about his band in France. I doubt that he is notable just because of the hashgacha incident. JFW | T@lk  05:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Inter-Religion task force
Please see WikiProject Religion/Inter-religious content task force. Do people who actually edit religion articles want such a task force? If so or if not, speak out. Best, --Shirahadasha 16:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hasidic Mediation Cabal case needs serious help
You may perhaps be able to help solve the logjam at Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-29 Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty) between and. An additional question being raised is if Wikipedia should define a "Hasidic dynasty," see Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-29 Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty). Any attention and help you may wish to render would be greatly appreciated. Wikipedia has gained many diverse articles about Hasidic Judaism that can be found nowhere else on the web, and this case may help to resolve and establish some important precedants and guidelines. But right now, the matter is stalled and needs outside help before it heads for more serious mediation. Thank you, IZAK 12:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The Awareness Center
Can members of the project please look at. This article has in the past been used to promote an agenda against the group, prompting OTRS complaints from the group itself. I will unprotect the article on request (my talk is the best place, or WP:RFPP) as and when you think there are sufficient eyes, or we are ready to document such controversies as may exist in a fair and neutral manner. I apologise in advance that I will probably not get to look by the talk page very often, feel free to prod me on my talk page any time. Guy (Help!) 10:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Renaming of articles in Category:Jewish history by country
I am proposing to the community a renaming of the articles of countries in Category:Jewish history by country, which all begin with a title such as "History of the Jews in X" (see for example History of the Jews in Argentina). This is necessary to more accurately show the intention of the article and thus make finding these articles easier. These articles do not solely tell relevant Jewish history of a country, but describe the respective present situation and future trends.

Possible alternative titles are:
 * Jews and Judaism in X e.g. (Jews and Judaism in Argentina)
 * Judaism in X e.g. (Judaism in Argentina)

I suggest the former, 'Jews and Judaism in Argentina' for example. Then all such articles can be placed in Category:Jews and Judaism by country. - Gilliam 19:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This is actually IZAK's pet more than anyone else's. I'm not sure, but I think the original motivation was a result of the fact that the majority of such articles were dumps from Jewish Encyclopedia which appears to assert (through no fault of its own that it's 100 years old) that Jewish history just mysteriously ended in 1908.  In the time since then, some of the articles have been expanded to include modern times, although most have really languished, which is unfortunate...nevertheless, almost all the articles have now taken on the "History of" names in an effort to bring some consistency to their names.  That said, I don't like either your proposal or IZAK's patch job.  I would prefer instead that the main articles be simply Jews in X , and the articles kept at History of the Jews in X  where there is sufficient information for the article in question to be split off as its own separate article.  Jews and Judaism are of necessity inseparable, so the "Jews and Judaism" thing is a non-starter for me...I see the only useful purpose of addressing "Judaism in X" to be to discuss the interaction between the Sefardim (incl. Spanish and Portuguese Jews) and Ashkenazim, for example, in Holland, England, colonial India, etc., but this discussion should definitely be part of "History" and is not generally useful in articles that appear to discuss the religious aspect of Jewishness in the anachronistic context of modern nation states.  Tom e r<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk  02:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ritual washing in Judaism
This article was recently completely rewritten. The material representing a traditional/halakhicic perspective was removed and replaced by User:David Adam Lewis with material from the Jewish Encyclopedia, Peake's Commentary on the Bible, etc. I likely won't have time to address this article until the weekend. In the meanwhile if any one wants to make an attempt at a more balanced approach, it would be appreciated. Some of the material is simply out of date (As but one example, the Jewish Encyclopedia made the claim that full immersion by men had all but dissappeared; today daily tevilah is common in Hassidic Judaism). Much of the new material can probably end up staying. However, the "inside" perspectives (How Judaism traditionally views these things) need to be restored and perhaps expanded, the critical/academic perspectives need to be separated and labeled as such rather than presented as fact, and the article needs to take a more neutral tone and approach between the traditional and critical perspectices. Will try to get to this, but would appreciate help. Best, --Shirahadasha 17:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Inter-Religion task force
Please see WikiProject Religion/Inter-religious content task force. Do people who actually edit religion articles want such a task force? If so or if not, speak out. Best, --Shirahadasha 16:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Editing articles from the Orthodox POV
Some editors have been editing articles about Jewish subjects to represent the Orthodox point of view. Sometimes this has included denigrating other Jewish movements, such as referring to them as "deviations from true Judaism", "offshoots", or "inferior", without attributing that opinion to Orthodox Judaism. In other cases, it has involved the deletion of sections of articles that describe practices among non-Orthodox Jews, such as the participation of women in services. (I'm not referring to sections of articles that discuss Orthodox Judaism's criticism of other movements.)

I would like to remind editors that editing articles to speak exclusively from the point of view of one Jewish movement is a violation of WP:NPOV. I understand that some editors believe that Orthodox Judaism is the only true Judaism and that other Jewish movements are inferior, that Orthodox Judaism is the only legitimate successor to rabbinic Judaism and that the others aren't. That's not a fact, it's your POV. Some of the other Jewish movements, particularly the Conservative movement, make exactly the same claims (although I've never heard a Conservative Jew refer to Orthodox Judaism as inferior or to Orthodox Jews as epikorsim, as an editor recently referred to non-Orthodox Jews).

In any event, Wikipedia articles aren't the appropriate place for passing judgment or using perjorative language. If you can't edit articles about Judaism from a NPOV, maybe you shouldn't be editing them. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 20:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Can you give some examples of articles where this has taken place? I'll be happy to add them to my watch list to be sure that the full spectrum of movements are properly represented, as I'm sure many here will. :) Daniel C/T+ 20:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Malik Shabazz, please provide links and diffs to the articles/edits that have aroused your concern. Some terms are unacceptable ("deviations") while others are completely legitimate in their context ("offshoots"). I think it is generally unconstructive to lecture an entire WikiProject, and I suspect you are dealing with an incident rather than a more systemic phenomenon. JFW | T@lk  10:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I was away. Some examples include Jewish denominations 1 2, Jewish services 3, and Reconstructionist Judaism 4. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 16:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * These diffs seem to reflect a relatively standard mix of editors offering POV edits plus some out-and-out vandalism edits (the massive deletions by anonymous IPs). I'm afraid all these things are pretty standard fare for Wikipedia, particularly on controversial articles (See List of controversial issues). WARN provides some standard warning templates available for these things. I tend to use the template warnings myself for out-and-out vandals, but prefer a more personal/educational approach for people who are attempting to contribute to the encyclopedia and are simply being opinionated and/or unaware of policies, particularly on articles I work on myself. Like many other problems, we can't make this one go away. All we can do is manage it. You're welcome to join Recent changes patrol and check articles for inappropriate edits and/or maintain your own Watchlist. Best, --Shirahadasha 21:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Jews-stub/deletion
Could somebody check these [], [], Stub types for deletion/Log/2007/June/13 --Bohater 14:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * We already have a ton of stub templates relating to Judaism and the Israeli people, so this one was just a recently-created duplicate / mix of Judaism-bio-stub and Israel-bio-stub. We already have Judaism-stub, Judaism-bio-stub, Jewish-hist-stub, Tanakh-stub, Israel-stub, Israel-bio-stub etc. so I don't need a strong need for any more templates. In particular if they're named inconsistently with the similar material. If anybody does feel that we need additional templates, feel free to take the matter up on WP:WSS/P. Valentinian T / C 00:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry who decide that? I think the members should give their opinion about the change. --Bohater 02:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:WSS does this, as is described on the relevant category talk pages. We used to have a ton of templates named without any form of order and it was driving everybody absolutely nuts. This was why WP:WSS was formed in the first place. WP:WSS operates a ton of stub templates (more than 1,000 to be more exact) that are named according to a very strict naming system. Why? Because it is otherwise impossible to guess the names of related templates. We also have a very strict policy against duplicate templates, since it screws up the entire system completely. Rather than having editors guess if a template for "Danish people" is named "Dane-stub, Danish person-stub, Danes-stub, Dansker-stub, Danskere-stub, Denmark-people-stub, Danish-ppl-stub etc etc. we have only one of these templates: it is named Denmark-bio-stub. This means that stub sorters can be certain that the similar template for Germans is Germany-bio-stub, the one for Mexicans is Mexico-bio-stub etc. Same system for geographical templates: they are all named " -geo-stub" or for historical templates: they are all named -hist-stub. This is the reason why the WPSS-cat template is worded the way it is, and why this template is located on all category pages maintained by WP:WSS. We have no need for any *duplicate* templates. If you wish the entire naming system to be changed fundamentally, take it up with WP:WSS but please don't disrupt the only thing that has even made it physically possible for our 300+ members to sort around 400,000 stub articles. Valentinian T / C 20:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Galil's Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah
If anyone here has access to Gershon Galil's The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah, please look at Talk:Gershon Galil and check the (overlapping) dates currently included in the articles for the kings. The original editor doesn't recall what source he used. Fayenatic london (talk) 22:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Temple Mount: somebody changing "God" to "YHWH"
Please see Temple Mount. keeps changing "God" to other terms, after I have thrice asked him not to do so. I am on 3RR. Cannot revert even one more time. Perhaps other can talk some sense into him and convince him that he is really wrong. --Rabbeinu 10:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A wall relief in Bucharest
I've just uploaded Commons:Image:Bucharest - old synagogue relief.jpg. Does anyone know more about this building near Piaţa Amzei? I'm guessing (but only guessing, from this relief) that it is a former synagogue; I'd appreciate knowing whether I'm right, but also anything else about the building (or the inscription: I don't read Hebrew. Is it the Ten Commandments?).

I'm not currently using a watchlist, so if someone answers me and it's not in the next couple of days, please ping my user talk page. - Jmabel | Talk 22:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's the Ten Commandments. --Redaktor 23:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. & I've also found out now that it is a functioning synagogue; I'm surprised that there was one I didn't know about in Bucharest, especially blocks away from a place I worked for 6 months. - Jmabel | Talk 22:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

stub rename
proposal here to rename to  may be of interest  &rArr; bsnowball  18:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Jewish history in Medina and the Constitution of Medina
helpme

i don't quite know how to register this, but i think we should put some focus into placing some "historical medina" perspective into the current articles of Medina and Constitution of Medina. Jaakobou 17:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

i could use some guidance to how thie wikiproject thing\talk page notices work and where people see that the article should be inspected etc. etc. Jaakobou 16:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Try discussing this on their respective talk pages. Smokizzy (talk) 21:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Knanaya
I don't know many people on Wikipedia but thought someone here might know what to do about the massive Christian POV bias on the Knanaya page. Knanaya are an ethnicity, but there seems to be a massive effort to evangelise and tie the ethnicity to Nasrani christianity, which although practiced by most of the Knanaya ethnicity until the Portuguese arrived, has been decreasing in popularity among them since that time due to the changes imposed upon their religious practice by the west. Also the Christian missionaries currently working on that page are mixing קינן and קנאי and even כנען leading to all sorts of nonsensical sentences. Finally there are several Hindu Nationalists who seem to be trying to stir up trouble there by hurling insults around. Anyway I thought that because some of the Knanaya are now attempting to rediscover what it means to be Jewish under diaspora retrieval projects in Israel, someone here might know enough to be able to stop the Christian POV bias on that page, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knanaya#This_article_needs_complete_correction.3F_Added_POV_tag_.3F for discussion. Many thanks 82.6.114.172 10:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to help, but I can't.. --The source of the cosmos... 13:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC
 * This is a general discussion topic which doesn't require a helpme.  Mi r a n da   13:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

merge List of yeshivas and List of rosh yeshivas
please add comments here. --Shuki 20:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Perspectives of Judaism
Hi. I would like to know how come the articles on Judaism are authored and edited from a leftist perspective. I know why they happen to be, and that is because the large majority of members to this project are from the left, but if NPOV is everyone's objective, as is both mandated by WP:NPOV as well as professed by many, many users on their user pages, how can it be that Judaism articles are written and maintained in a leftist slant?

I have been involved in a considerable head-to-head with one user in particular, who, in articles such as Conservative Judaism and Jewish services, has consistently reverted my edits and asserted such things as:


 * "My source is every-day reality of Jewish-gentile relations."

and


 * "Huh? I work with ten Jews, and none of them wear yarmules all day...Huh? When I was invited to my friend's bar mitzvah I was told I had to wear a yarmulke. You mean I really didn't have to?"

These are both violations of WP:OR as well as blatant irrelevancies. Jewish law is defined by the law, not by the practice of that law, and certainly not by the individuals who choose not to practice the law. There are certain entites in this world that are governed by reality, and others that are governed by ideality. The governmental oversight of Gaza is a good example. While Abbas may make statements about the legalities of the Hamas takeover, his rhetoric may represent de jure rule over the territory, but it does not reflect de facto rule over the territory. If an individual gets run over while crossing the street, whether he's dead right or dead wrong, he's still dead. Because de facto takes precedence with tangible entities.

Religion is intangible. If someone doesn't want to keep the sabbath, someone else may not be able to force him to do so, but the former individual cannot make it so that he is not in violation. He doesn't have to believe, but his belief in reality does not concern the ideality of sabbath observance and transgression.

So, if between Orthodoxy and Conservitism, it cannot be discerned to a point of agreement who is right and who is wrong, there must at least be a process by which facts which everyone agrees with are esatblished as a basis for the work that is done for this project. Do Conservative Jews question the authority of the Shulchan Aruch and the Yad Hachazakah? These are fundamentals of Jewish Law, and, because the Reform movement rejects these as binding, they are considered to reject Torah. If Conservative similarly rejects these as binding, they too must be considered to reject the Torah. Conservative Judaism cannot have it both ways; they cannot claim to honor and obey the Torah, yet at the same time reject the fundamentals of Torah and formulate their own guide to Torah observance, claiming that they are merely upholding what always was the proper approach. Mandates such as kashrus, mikvah and Shabbos must be upheld or, by defition, they are defamed. Similarly, rabbinic right of explanation and elucidation must be accepted, or else the very fabric of Jewish law is undermined. The Shulchan Aruch is not Wikipedia, to be edited by any editor as long as he's acting in good faith and eith civility.

In essence, I ask for an explanation why articles are drafted as though Conservative Judaism is mainstream. Even if Conservatives claim that it is, that is merely their POV. Even though Conservatives deem wearing a yarmulka unimportant for the full length of the day, the sentence in the kippah article properly states that A kippah (Hebrew: כִּפָּה, plural kippot; Yiddish: יאַרמלקע, sometimes called a yarmulka or a kepel) is a thin, slightly-rounded skullcap traditionally worn by observant Jewish men. ...and I didn't even edit this.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 22:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If you would like to quote my comments, please do so in context, or at a minimum refer the reader to the original site to she/he can see can read them in context. As you know, I wrote about your edits to Jewish services, which replaced
 * In most synagogues or temples, it is considered a sign of respect for all male attendees to wear a head covering, either a dress hat or a kippa (skull cap, plural kipot). Head covering practice applies to both Jews and non-Jews who attend a synagogue. ... Many Orthodox men wear a head covering throughout their day, even when not attending religious services.
 * with
 * As Jewish men are charged with covering their heads at all times, prayer time is no exception. It is a common misconception that non-Jews are expected to cover their head, but this has no source. ...
 * When you asked my source for the idea that all men, regardless of religion, cover their heads in synagogue, I wrote that "My source is every-day reality of Jewish-gentile relations. As a sign of respect, men of all faiths generally put on kippot when they enter a synagogue. It may not be written in the Shulchan Aruch, but that's the way it works. If you don't believe me, here are a few sites that say the same thing." And I provided five independent sources that indicated that it is considered respectful, when a non-Jew visits a synagogue, to put on a kippah.
 * Read the paragraphs following the one you edited, and you will see that the article is written for somebody who doesn't know and wants to learn about Jewish services — the article describes who wears a tallit in an Orthodox or Conservative shul, how to dress to attend services, and etiquette for visitors. This section of the article isn't a guide to what the Shulchan Aruch says about wearing a kippah.
 * By the way, before I saw that you wrote this message, I suggested at Talk:Jewish services that we ask this Wikiproject to settle our disagreement by consensus, because I don't think that you and I will ever see eye-to-eye about this issue. I think Wikipedia articles about Judaism generally should be written for the average (i.e., non-Jewish) reader who wishes to learn about Judaism and Jewish issues, not for the well-educated Jew who wishes to learn more details about Jewish law.
 * Finally, it was clear from the context that the comments of mine that you quoted, which begin with "Huh", were written from the point of view of the non-Jewish reader to whom I referred in my original comments. As I wrote above, I would appreciate if you wouldn't pull my comments out of context. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 04:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I watchlisted the articles. BTW, while I find the first half of your comment sensible, but I think you start veering away in the middle towards the Orthodox POV. We have to make sure all articles contain both the Orthodox and conservative viewpoints (as well as any other large religious movement for which there are reliable, 3rd party sources that say it's Jewish. Perhaps even messianics) nadav (talk) 05:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It is wideknown that internet sources are not reliable enough for them to trump the shulchan aruch. I found 251 google results for "alendonate," which is a misspelling of alendronate, the chemical name for the popular Fosamax brand of bisphosphonate; yet "alendonate" does not exist and is not a recognized entity on this planet.  Does this mean I can utilize these as exhibit A, B and C to support a drive to include "alendonate" as a permissible variation for the name of this drug?  Websites such as the ones you quoted are neither peer-reviewed nor edited by competant halachic authorites.  The first source you quoted is currently unavailable.  The second contained many errors, such as stating that a shofar is "made from the horn of a ram or other kosher animal."  This is incorrect, as the horn of a cow is invalid (Rosh HaShanah 26a).  It also states that "Ten adults (aged 13 years plus a day) constitute a minyan."  This is in direct opposition to the Code of Jewish Law (15:1) which explicitely stated that 10 adult males are required.  Such rules are similarly laid out by the Chayei Adam and the Mishna Brurah.  Non compliance with these texts necessarily defines non-observance.  Your thirs source explicitly states the following, which has been denied by Malik Shabazz on a number of occasions:


 * Conservative Judaism - A modern development in Judaism, reacting to early Jewish Reform movements in an attempt to retain clearer links to classical Jewish law while at the same time adapting it to modern situations.


 * Previously mentioned user denies this and claims that Conservative Judaism is a continuation of original Judaism, rather than a reaction to Reform Judaism. This website also asserts that Orthodoxy is a reaction to Reform Judaism as well, but I did not cite this as a reliable source, he did.  However, it explicitly states that "the views, opinions or conclusions expressed in the articles on this Web site are those of their authors."  Fritz Voll, the author of the glossary, is an unknown, unsubstantiated source of genuine Jewish thought and law.  I could not find how the fourth source says anything about this, and the fifth source cited is merely a forum, where anyone can post whatever they want; it's no different than quoting a Wikipedia article as a source.


 * The point is that printed material contrary to the texts of Jewish law fall away and become immaterial in the face of such contradiction. Why are there quotes from websites when there are more verified sources such as the Shulchan Aruch.  And once again, practice of individuals doesn't mean a thing.  It is totally irrelevant, because any individual one sees not acting according to the rules of Jewish law cannot then be used as a source to defy that law by stating that "it doesn't apply, because, look, these people are not doing it."  Why has this once again become a debate between this user and myself.  Where are the rest of the members of this project?  DRosenbach  ( Talk 12:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Jew list marked for deletion
Jew list is on WP:TFD. Just thought I'd let you know. -N 01:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Need guidance
A newly registered user,, has been removing any indications that Alain Calmat, an inductee in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, is Jewish, even going so far as to remove the redirect from Alain Calmanovich, his birth name. He claims to be acting in Calmat's interests, and claims that this information is hurtful. Assumedly, Calmat does not identify as Jewish. What to do?

Please discuss at the WikiProject Ethnic groups talk page --Eliyak T · C 15:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Unknwon Rabbi picture
Hi, do you know who's the one on this orphaned picture? -- Andersmusician  VOTE  04:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The image description page says Rabbi Shia Rubin. Do you have reason to doubt that? nadav (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * just because the image is orphaned, not being used in any articles -- Andersmusician  VOTE  22:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Tanakh/Old Testament/Hebrew Bible categories
Some people may have noticed that most categories previously using "Old Testament" have been converted to "Tanakh" by a user, without I think much discussion. There is a discussion here which proposes converting them to use "Hebrew Bible" Johnbod 22:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)