Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism/Archive 21

"Book of the Law"
I'm looking for an article to describe this document which is mentioned in Deuternomy 29:21. Trying to look up the term on Wikipedia only yields a Thelemic and a Mormon text which aren't it. I asked this question originally at the WikiProject Bible discussion page and was advised to also seek an answer here. __meco (talk) 21:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Predestination
The articles Predestination and Types of religious predestination have been listed to be merged for over a year. A drive is on to clear out and this merger could use the attention of someone with expertise in the field, or at least someone who knows more than me. If anyone could take a look, it would be greatly appreciated.--Gimme danger (talk) 23:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Shafiq Ades
This is an important in the scope of Iraqi Jew history. any help will be appreciated! MiS-Saath (talk) 06:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter?
It seems to me that we're busy enough to warrant a monthly newsletter? You know, the ones that some of the larger WikiProjects leave on all the members' talk pages? I'd be willing to design and co-write if someone else is willing to help with writing. I think there's a bot that delivers newsletters automatically which saves tons of time, so I'll look into that. Yes, no, maybe so? L'Aquatique  [  review  ] 05:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note to self, it's User:ShepBot that does delivering of newsletters.  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 05:32, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I never got an answer, so I decided to just be bold and do it anyway. It's the WikiProject Judaism Newsletter, coming soon to a talk page near you...  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 04:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean we're also going to collaborate on core Judaism articles? JFW | T@lk  05:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily, although that sort of seems like a Good Idea™. It's just a way to keep everyone in the loop.  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 05:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Birkat Hamazon: Odd external link
Birkat Hamazon currently contains a rather ungraceful link to an external site in the section "Source and text". Are people comfortable with this or should it be modified? -- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 22:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have pruned the list. In the future, feel free to jump right in and do it yourself.  Don't worry about stepping on anyone toes, if you want to improve the encyclopedia we encourage you to contribute.  Jon513 (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Jewish Wedding Customs
Please visit new discussion.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 17:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem FAR
Jerusalem has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 21:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 1372 of the articles assigned to this project, or 22.3%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-06-18.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  21:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Shituf Page
(This is a duplicate of the same request on the WikiProject Christianity page)

Another editor has requested mediation on the Shituf page, so I looked up the mediation process. The first step is to ask for third party opinion -- which is the reason I'm here.

Shituf, briefly, is a Jewish term applied to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The definition of the concept, however, appears to be Arian: lesser beings (the son and spirit) worshipped in junior "partnership" with God. Accordingly, I included a short Christian view section which simply describes that Christianity has formally rejected multiple deities in junior partnership since Nicea.

The contention is whether or not the section should be included.

My argument is that an article describing Jews eating human blood on passover would require a short section describing that Jews actually FORBID such a practice. Accordingly, an article describing Christians in Arian ways would require a short section describing that Christianity actually FORBIDS such a belief.

In any case, since the other editor suggested mediation, I'm taking the first step and asking for third party review.

Thanks.Tim (talk) 13:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Tim has given you false information. The Jewish concept of shituf was not created for application to the Christian concept of the Trinity.  Judaism has a very absolute idea of what monotheism is.  Any worship that diverges from this absolute monotheism is viewed as idolatrous in Judaism.  The one exception is where the worship can be viewed as including the One God worshipped by Judaism.  In such a case, the other deities or aspects are seen as "associated" or meshutaf to God, and there is a rabbinic view that this is permissible for non-Jews, and not idolatrous for them (though it is still considered idolatry for Jews).


 * There is a minority opinion in Jewish law that says that the Christian Trinity constitutes shituf, and not avodah zarah (idolatry). This opinion is not based on Christian concepts such as Trinitarianism and Arianism, since Jewish law is based on actions, and not beliefs.  Judaism views statements such as "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" as being contrary to Judaism's absolute monotheism, regardless of whether those three are viewed as separate deities or aspects of a single deity.


 * The question of whether intent matters in issues of idolatry is asked and answered in the Babylonian Talmud, and the unanimous legal decision amongst the rabbis is that worship that is non-monotheistic or idolatrous in form is a violation of the commandment against avodah zarah, regardless of the worshipper's intent.


 * Furthermore, Tim sees the issue of shituf as fundamentally connected to Christianity. And indeed, the article on Shituf is written that way.  But this is because Tim wrote the article.  As a point of fact, shituf applies to other religions, such as Wicca, where a commonly stated principle is "All the gods are one god, all the goddesses are one goddess, and the god and goddess are One."


 * I think that having a section on "Christian views" in an article on shituf is no different than having a section on "Jewish views" in an article on the Trinity. In both cases, it is non-encyclopedic, and highly polemic in nature. -LisaLiel (talk) 14:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

''With all due respect, the parties have had a long-running dispute over this (among other Christian/Messianic issues). It's a fine idea to NOTIFY us here about whatever you all pursue with dispute resolution processes (see link for suggestions). But please, please do not carry on or recapitulate your content dispute here. A brief notification should suffice. I trust you both understand. Best of luck with your efforts. Take care,'' HG | Talk 18:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Specifically, given the extent of prior discussion, I believe it would be fine to proceed to an RfC or to the mediation cabal at your earliest convenience. (Not a 3PO.) At the article talk page, you all could probably first agree on the specific question (or otherwise define the dispute) for the RfC. To facilitate input, it's often helpful for each side to present their side in a very concise manner. Then wait patiently for feedback w/o lots of cross-talk. Thanks again for your efforts at working this out in a collaborative manner. HG | Talk 04:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Aguda
Could people here have a look at Aguda and confirm whether I've got the "union" or "organisation" bit right for the Hebrew definition? And would the "Israeli national LGBT organisation" name of Aguada be related to that? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 11:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Identification of Jewish members at article Freedoms watch
HI folks, would you mind lending an opinion article Freedom%27s_Watch. In this particular article an editor feels that the lead should have a pragraph detailing the number of Jewish members control the organization. Now I'm not Jewish and I don't proclaim to have any particular expertise in this area, but to me looked like thinly veiled "jew outing" and left a bad taste in my mouth, and a violation of WP:WEIGHT But maybe I'm wrong. If members of this project would be so kind to comment on that talk page I would be most appreciative. Comments supporting or negating my position are welcome. thanks much Dman727 (talk) 20:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note that I have already raised this issue at the most appropriate place, Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. &mdash;Ashley Y 20:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * thanks Ashley. I've not objection to posting a request on another topic board as you see fit.  Hopefully with some commentary we can put this to reset. Dman727 (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to our attention. At article talk, I've added some related reliable sources that may shed light on this issue. (And I've added my own 2 cents assessments.) Best wishes, HG | Talk 04:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Classification of Humanistic Judaism
As a Jew, I am very uncomfortable with the classification of Humanistic Judaism as part of the Judaism subject tree. I don't see how atheists who put on some Jewish trappings should be included under Judaism. Jewish culture, sure. But the religious link should be to Atheism only.TAPwiki (talk) 21:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Should we also take out the Conservative and Reform movements because they make some people uncomfortable? That can't be the litmus test for excluding a Jewish religious movement. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * They don't really identify as a religious movement, though, do they? The Conservative movement doesn't identify as German/Positive Historic Philosophy within a Jewish context the way the Humanists identify as Atheists within a Jewish context.  It's a little different. -LisaLiel (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please clarify which article or page you are uncomfortable with and exactly what the problem is. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 01:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The current categories for Humanistic Judaism look completely appropriate per WP policies (e.g., self-identification) and as a matter of encyclopedic coverage. Also, see: WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I don't see any value to discussing the merits or content of Humanistic Judaism here (or even on the article talk page), since our editorial decisions are not based on such opinions (my own included). Thanks. HG | Talk 03:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Texas A&M Hillel and History of the Jews in Brazos County, Texas
A merge has been suggested for Texas A&M Hillel to the article History of the Jews in Brazos County, Texas. Texas A&M Hillel is the oldest Hillel organization on college campus. Also, the Jewish history of Brazos County, Texas is over 140 years old. These two subjects and their histories, I believe, are different enough to deserve seperate articles. Also, both have long histories and multiple sources. Bhaktivinode (talk) 03:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Both articles need to be expanded. I have done what I can. Any edits would be appreciated, especially expansions as there are many reliable sources referenced in both articles. Bhaktivinode (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Torah
There's been quite a discussion brewing at Talk:Torah. Some of the extremes of the possible ways of covering religion articles have been covered, from attempts to rewrite everything from a Haredi Jewish perspective with a vigorous defense of cobbling all non-Orthodox opinion under the subtitle "Foreign Views", to a viewpoint that only academic sources are reliable and religion subjects should be presented from the viewpoint of academics. Perhaps other opinions had better weigh in. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 09:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Editors need to be educated on WP:NPOV on both sides. It would be very wrong to have a fork called Pentateuch and a fork called Torah. This problem is not isolated to Torah and mutatis mutandis applies to articles where the religious perspective differs radically from the mainstream, popular culture or academic perspective. None of the perspectives has particular ownership over articles, provided the perspective is above the notability horizon. JFW | T@lk  12:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've commented at Talk:Torah. Briefly, each of these various terms are notable and cover somewhat different scope, but we could do much better w/neutral and nuance within each article, and then avoiding unnecessary (e.g., POV fork) overlap. Thanks, HG | Talk 13:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Moses Article Status
It's claimed that Moses has reached A article criteria. If so, it should be passes GA review. Thus I propose to nominate it for GA review.-- Seyyed(t-c) 02:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree! Go for it...  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 03:19, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, this still hasn't been done, so I've done it myself. Although historically articles I've nommed have not done well, I'm sure this one will pass with flying colors.  L'Aquatique   [  le faux nez  ] 05:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Dating the Bible
There is discussion on the talk page of the above article regarding how much weight should be given to traditional dating of Biblical works relative to modern academic conclusions at Talk:Dating the Bible. All input is welcome. John Carter (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Reliable source examples
Proposing an example explaining the appropriate use of religious sources in religion-related articles. The intention is to clarify and explain existing policy, not to change it. There have been a number of debates over the years, some of them heated, about whether and what kinds of religious sources should be used. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

C-Class?
Has this project decided to use the new C-Class rating or not? If yes, I could adjust the project banner to accomodate it. Also, I am curious as to whether the members of this project might be interested in kind of reviving the various dormant Judaism projects by perhaps adding parameters to the existing WikiProject Judaism template similar to those in use in the Template:ChristianityWikiProject. Doing so would allow editors whose primary interest is a certain field of Judaism to perhaps concentrate their attention on that field a bit easier. Anyway, let me know your decisions. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Moses Citations Needed
Hey folks- Moses's GA review is on hold pending the addition of some citations. I'm going through and trying to find as many as I can, but there are a few that are eluding me. If anyone knows of reliable sources for the following statements, PLEASE add them ASAP. Thanks! Thanks! L'Aquatique  [  review  ] 05:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * According to Genesis 46:11, Amram's father Kohath immigrated to Egypt with 70 of Jacob's household, making Moses part of the second generation of Israelites born during their time in Egypt.
 * Many scholars today view the Habiru as members of a social underclass of people present throughout the Ancient Near East at this time, rather than a tribal group confined to Egypt.


 * Can't "According to Genesis" use Genesis as a reference? Gary King ( talk ) 05:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree but I think the concern was that the Bible is considered a primary source and the request from the reviewer was for secondary sources? I'm not sure, but I'll add that ref for now until we can get a [perhaps] better one.  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 05:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * My apologies but I'm not exactly familiar with the book of Genesis; however, if the statement you're referencing says that Genesis states this, and then you use Genesis as a reference, then you're essentially saying "Genesis says this; take a look at Genesis then you will see it says this." And I don't see a problem with that? Gary King ( talk ) 05:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As I said, I agree with you. I have added the citation. I'm merely noting that the reviewer has stated that he is looking for secondary sources. Part of the problem is a communication difficulty between me and the reviewer, who is not a native English speaker. Anyway...  L'Aquatique   [  review  ] 05:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay; I'm just not clear on whether you have communicated this to the reviewer or not... I will take a looksee now. Gary King ( talk ) 05:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Habiru. As referenced in the Habiru article, this seems to be covered fairly well in Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999), p.72  (Google Books)


 * Note that, contrary to the implication in the Moses article, the Amarna letters describe the Habiru as random mercenaries, rather than organised invaders; nor do the letters identify them as emanating from Egypt. Jheald (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration, trying again
I think this WikiProject has a number of dedicated editors, but at the moment it needs to take more ownership for articles under its aegis. I think we need to set some standards for Judaism articles that could be enshrined into a "style guide" of sorts. Issues that we could cover in such a guide are: (1) Hebrew pronunciation and transliteration, (2) Naming and formatting of personalities associated with Judaism (Maimonides versus Rambam, Vilna Gaon versus Gra versus Eliyahu of Vilna etc), etc.

One thing I believe needs to be discussed centrally is how to present daily Jewish practice. It is fairly straightforward, in an article like Shabbat or Kashrut, to summarise what the Shulchan Aruch and poskim say about a subject, often with substantial supportive material that confirms that this is daily practice amongst the Orthodox. However, for the sake of NPOV we need to mention the official stance of the major other streams of Judaism. That has nothing to do with mutual recognition, but it has everything to do with documenting Jewish religious practice in an encyclopedic fashion.

I'm very keen to hear some responses to this. Once we have set some general article standards it will be relatively easy to apply these to the "highly accessed" Judaism articles about Shabbat, Yom Tov, Kashrut and so on. JFW | T@lk  23:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Would you like to head up the steering committee?  IZAK or somebody tried to establish a standard for transliteration some years back, which prompted some consternation from at least Tomertalk  05:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC).

I can steer all I can, but we need a boat first (i.e. people willing to participate in this process). I can apply my experience from the medical collaboration of the fortnight, which is a good model that has recently yielded some very good results.

As for transliteration, I think we should primarily use the "neo-sephardi" Israeli spelling with as few diacritics as possible (i.e. the opposite of 1906 JE). JFW | T@lk  05:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is already a lot at Naming conventions (Hebrew). Jon513 (talk) 08:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I support that policy, and am curious what Tomer thinks about it. Another problem that we need to resolve before setting up a system of collaboration is: how do we address differences between streams of Judaism? For instance, many articles on mitzvot and halachot make it sound like their observance is normative in Judaism. Yet, in practice, Jews belonging to Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist etc communities, as well as those who are unaffiliated, would not adhere to these practices. Rather than the unsourced general chestnuts ("The Reform movement does not regard halacha as normative"), how could we possibly - in an NPOV way - point out that there are variances in adherence to these practices? This goes right to the heart of collaboration of this WikiProject being effective and not fraught with conflict. JFW | T@lk  08:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not just differences between sects, but also between individuals -- even Orthodox -- over what can be classified as an authority, or even the interpretation of English! My point is this: we should be able to state differences in views, and to do so in an historical way.  Traditional views, and then newer views and practices.  Start with Orthodox, and then include different types of observance today.  If we go by history, rather than numbers, then readers will get a fair flow in an unambiguous way, without being confused over what "Judaism" says or does on a particular issue.  Conservatism tones down Orthodox practice, Reform rejects it, and Reconstructionism gives it a different rationale -- but they are all trying to modify Orthodoxy, and cannot be properly understood without first listing the traditional (Orthodox) practice that each newer group modifies.  Finally, some Orthodoxy is acting in a reactionary way, and driving practice further than it may have been practiced historically.  This, TOO, is a modification of the traditional.  People argue over what is "right", and cannot appeal to a universally recognized authority.  Fortunately, Wikipedia doesn't care what is "right" but only what "is."  History has been documented.  We can still argue over it, but after a while one side will begin to look silly -- and then try to bury history and evidence -- and then, hopefully, others will have an objective basis to step in and say "no, we are documenting, not polemicising."Tim (talk) 09:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Tim, what constitutes an accessible reliable source that illustrates Conservative or Reform practice? We are going to have problems with WP:V. JFW | T@lk  13:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a good question. Most of my experience is Orthodox.  I've SEEN Reform Responsa, but have no idea how authoritative it is to that group.  I would suspect that Conservative and Reform Jews would be able to answer questions about their resources, though.  Everyone goes by something, don't they?Tim (talk) 13:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a few preliminary remarks regarding Naming conventions (Hebrew)... first off, it is internally inconsistent. Why, for example, does it prefer "Rehovot" over Rehoboth, but not "Yerushalayim" over Jerusalem? Second, why, other than the fact that Ashkenazim don't know how to distinguish them, does it deprecate ʕ|ˁ, th and q for `ayin, thav and qof? unless...Third, this guideline really is only a guideline for article naming, rather than for spellings within articles...? Tomertalk 00:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

WT:NPOV
Because this issue comes up often and can be a source of contention, I am proposing adding a paragraph to the existing WP:NPOV/FAQ with a more careful and clearer explanation of language to use and how to present the subject to implement WP:NPOV in articles involving disputes between religious views and historians/scientists etc. Doubtless the proposal can be improved. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 22:31, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk questions help
I asked some fairly basic Hebrew questions on the Wikipedia language reference desk on July 20, and most of the questions are still unanswered. Could someone please help? I would really appreciate it! :) —Lowellian (reply) 08:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Biblical archeology
Eyeballs needed for the work of, who has put pretty much the same content on a number of Bible-related articles, such as David, Solomon, Bible, Biblical archaeology and Ten Commandments. While sources are provided, and the perspective is valid, I have significant problems with the tone of these contributions and was wondering what the feeling of other contributors was. JFW | T@lk  16:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This editor seems to have gotten hold of the TRUTH™ and is bludgeoning a number of articles with it. Contributions along these lines must be clearly labeled as one significant point of view in about a sentence or so. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec) Looks to me that the content seeks to characterize an entire, broad field from a few sources. While the sources are useful, it's not clear that they reflect a consensus within the discipline(s), so they should be contextualized by Wikipedia if possible. I agree with you about the tone, but at first glance it seems the editor is being responsive. Is that right? HG | Talk 18:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The editor's primary source, Israel Finkenstein, is a proponent of the minimalist school of Biblical archaeology. While minimalism isn't a fringe theory, it hasn't gained wide acceptance. The editor is making the minimalist theory sound much more authoritative than it is. Broad statements about what "extensive archaeological research" has found are inappropriate in any case, since there is no unanimity in the field of Biblical archaeology. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Technically, Finkelstein isn't a minimalist - he's not with P.R. Davies and the Copenhagen school, who are skeptical that anything in the Bible pre-dates the post-exilic neo-Babylonian period. Rather, he's pretty much middle-of-the-road for a secular academic archaeologist not driven by faith or patriotism - compare Bill Dever for example; though Finkelstein has perhaps been a bit more outspoken than most about the lack of economic development of Judah at the time of the supposed United Monarchy, and lack of evidence on the ground to support Biblical accounts of David and Solomon. Jheald (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I put the following on the talk page for Bible:


 * "The material you added is not factual. It's argumentation. Argumentation based on reliable sources, true, but still argumentation.  It's sufficient to say that this or that source has concluded that no material evidence has been found (not 'does not exist', since you can't prove a negative) to substantiate many parts of the biblical historical narrative.  Going point by point the way you're doing is unnecessary. -LisaLiel (talk) 19:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)"

I am getting quite a constructive response from this editor, so perhaps we can work something out. Be prepared to take issue with contentious statements though—it is years since I last looked at Biblical archaeology. JFW | T@lk  20:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

P'tcha needs your help
Anybody care to improve P'tcha? Article is currently very stubby indeed. -- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 18:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * So are numerous other Wikipedia articles. Have you got a good source on the subject? JFW | T@lk  20:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I certainly don't, which is exactly why I asked if anyone else had anything. Also, "other stuff exists" is generally considered a very bad argument. -- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 01:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope you're not implying that an AfD would be in order. Oh Pshaw, don't delete P'tcha. It's Jewish material culture and cuisine at its most edible. HG | Talk 03:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Reliable apikoros source here. And quasi-reliable nativist journalisticial source. HG | Talk 03:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Anon, rather than lecturing me on arguments to avoid (which applies primarily to deletion discussions) I wanted to know if you had a source but you were unsure on how to work it into the article. JFW | T@lk  06:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are we allowing personal testimony on this one? HG | Talk 22:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No. Nooooo. JFW | T@lk  22:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This just in: "it tastes horrible" added to list of good deletion arguments... :D  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 03:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * After one week of intensive collaboration by our WikiProject on P'tcha, it's somewhat disappointing to see that I am the only editor to have added to the article. Aside from awarding me a special barnstar, what else can be done to improve p'tcha besides adding lots of chrain? HG | Talk 11:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * HG just got his barn starred. JFW | T@lk  14:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Halakha vs Template:Jewish life vs Template:Judaism
Recently, User created Template:Halakha. I have left the following message on his user page and asked that a discussion about this be started here for more input: "You recently created Template:Halakha but it is probelematic because ultimately all the 613 Mitzvot fit into Halachah one way or another, and the new template you created would duplicate much of Template:Jewish life and Template:Judaism. Before commencing a vote to merge Template:Halakha into Template:Jewish life I would like to get your views on the matter and see if we get can some input from other Judaic editors." What do others think? Thanks. IZAK (talk) 06:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You may also want to see Infobox Halacha (see the discussions there at Template talk:Infobox Halacha) when creating Halacha-geared articles. IZAK (talk) 07:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * See Template talk:Judaism for many other Judaic and Torah-connected templates, especially: Jewish and Israeli holidays ; Jewish life that should NOT be duplicated. Thanks. IZAK (talk) 07:12, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that Halakha is going to be monstrous if populated with all articles about halachic subjects. I haven't seen Infobox Halacha used a lot but it has some potential. Jewish life actually has the same problems as Halakha and should probably be renamed "Life events in Judaism" with removal of items pertaining to the holidays and general observances.
 * The general gist is that we need to integrate Judaism content, and I admire Xyz7890's attempts at doing this. I have now twice suggested that we start a regular collaboration, similar to other collaborations as listed in COTWs; I have the pleasure of running the forthnightly medical collaboration, which has recently thrown off some excellent work including a bunch of good articles. JFW | T@lk  08:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi JFW: I think it would be beneficiel if you and User had a meeting of the minds since right now he is the one that is "hot on the trail" of his new Halakha project. IZAK (talk) 10:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I commented on the template talk page. Gist: I like the idea of a template if it can be matched up with our effort to set up the Category:Jewish law better. I assume discussion should continue there. Thanks. HG | Talk 10:34, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I am posting the following here from User talk:IZAK

(copied from my [Xyz7890] talk page) Hi again, Xyz7890: See Template talk:Judaism for many other Judaic and Torah-connected templates, especially: Jewish and Israeli holidays ; Jewish life. Thanks. IZAK (talk) 07:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I have found that these templates are confusing, and really need to be split. Judaism is not a single category, but is a lot of smaller ones.

I have already created a few Judaism templates, including Shabbat, High Holidays, and Jewish prayers. I have been planning one on Sukkot for the future.

Having one for all the holidays is overwheling. Each major holiday has several categories within, as you can see with these and Passover Footer. Some of the other ones, like Jews and Judaism and Jewish life are too broad, and those are the ones I am concerned about that eventually should be broken down.

The Halakha one is not complete yet; gradually I am finding more articles and categories for it, though I am omitting it from pages found on the templates of Shabbat and the various holidays. It is more geared to halakha pertaining areas not covered in other templates. Xyz7890 (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Xyz7890: Thanks for responding at length. You are missing the point of the general templates. Obvioulsy each topic and aspect of the Mitzvos can be extended in a million directions, because the Torah and its contents are after all infinite. But by reducing the templates to the level of the articles you miss the point that broader templates provide a broader context. In addition, you are creating templates when there are already CATEGORIES and even LISTS for many of the subjects you mention, and it makes no sense that there should be templates that function as "in-your face" templates crowding each page. You must study how articles are to be written and structured and eventually split up if too large, the purposes and use of lists and categories, and the nature and need of templates, none of which should duplicate each other. Hope this helps. Do not be too rash, but seek consensus. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 08:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Moshe David Tendler
I'd never heard of Moshe David Tendler till I encountered a related request here. (Here's my response.) The person making the request may have a valid point, but he's not (yet) its best advocate: there's all sorts of unencyclopedic and BLP-problematic allegations on the article's talk page. I know nothing of this subject matter, so invite one or two people here to take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 10:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. What parts do you consider unencyclopedic or otherwise problematic? Please give the text or the diff on the article talk page. Thanks again. HG | Talk 15:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Remaining: When it comes flatulance [sic], you leave the authors [sic] questionable claim and merely ask for a source. And recently deleted. NB this project page will not remain on my watchlist. -- Hoary (talk) 00:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, well it sounds like we don't need so much this Project but rather an admin intervention. Thanks. HG | Talk 00:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me see what I can do.  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 02:04, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Haredi Judaism and Orthodox Judaism merger discussions
Please see: Talk:Haredi Judaism and add your views. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 12:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:Naming conventions (Hebrew) and Mechitza v. Mehitza
Please join a discussion on the following on WT:Naming conventions (Hebrew)

Earlier today, an editor renamed the Mechitza article Mehitza on grounds that the change is required by this naming conventions guideline. Some questions:


 * Is this really a guideline? Did it ever get consensus in the relevant part of a community, or was it labeled a guideline on agreement of a small number of users? I'm not going to change the status without discussion but I'd like to know what the community thinks.
 * Should it be clarified that it doesn't apply to this type of case? The general WP:Naming conventions guideline says to use the term most commonly used in English based on general rather than specialized use. A guideline that imposes a specific standardized transliteration scheme based on specialist opinion resulting in commonly-used words being spelled in unused and possibly unrecognizable ways would seem to go against the spirit of the guideline. The main guideline reflects a philosophy that because article names are the way users look up subjects, they need to reflect the search terms (and spellings) actual users are most likely to employ in their searches. Given this situation, I personally don't think an approach that bases article names on any standardized spelling method not reflecting actual English use is consistent with the overall guideline. Such an approach may be permissable for words that have almost never been spelled in English, but I don't think Wikipedia's overall WP:Naming conventions guideline makes it a permissable option for words that have tens of thousands of ghits, regularly appear in English-language newspaper articles, and show other evidence of common use in English. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Mechitza outgoogles Mehitza by a factor 8 at least. That should be allowed to override our own internal guidelines. It says at the top that it's a DRAFT. Furthermore, I'm not sure if that guideline ever went through a full consensus-seeking process (I would have grumbled at the use of "h" for "ח", which I regard as phonenically incorrect and lazy). JFW | T@lk  05:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:BibleAsFact
I have proposed this template for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please see the discussion at Templates for deletion/Log/2008 July 30. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "There is no archeological evidence, therefore the Bible must be false". Automatically fails the fallacy of negative proof. JFW | T@lk  14:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a similar template, Template:In-religion-universe, also nominated for deletion by Shirahadasha. At least the template page says it is. I couldn't find the relevant discussion at the TFD page. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 05:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Help requested: Gender of God
I hope that some of you will be willing to help out on the Judaism section of Gender of God.

A certain editor has chosen to label reliable sources (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and Jewfaq.com) as "opinion pieces" and relegate them to the bottom of the section, while placing things like the Reconstructionist siddur that uses feminine pronouns for God at the beginning.

When I moved these sources to the beginning of the section yesterday, this editor simply reverted my edit without comment and an edit war ensued. I should have asked for help at the time, but I (unwisely) chose to revert his reversion. By the end of the day, the other two editors had reverted the article six times between them, and I'd unreverted it as many times myself, resulting in a block which has been lifted after I promised not to do that any more. Fair enough.

However, this morning, the editor in question had reverted my edit for a seventh time, and I'm trying to pursue dispute resolution in order to prevent misrepresentation of the Jewish view. I'm asking editors who are part of the Judaism WikiProject to come and help. I have no problem with modern feminist views being represented in the section, but I'm trying to preserve the traditional Jewish view as well. Thanks in advance for your help. -LisaLiel (talk) 12:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Since I'm lazy, I'm just kibbitzing here on the talk page rather than helping out... but I think the traditional version slights kabbalistic perspective. Just because Rambam thought something A"Z doesn't mean that the Kabalists didn't believe it. Yudel (talk) 02:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is currently an AN/I thread open regarding an edit war at this article. I would advise those who choose to help Lisa be very careful to not get involved in the edit war. Good luck-  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 03:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll keep an eye on the article, and I'll try not to edit-war. I removed the word "Himself" from the phrase "although God Himself is not gendered in Judaism" because it was self-contradictory and didn't add anything. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I put the word back, Malik, but after Tim took it out, I'm not going to fight about it. For the record, however, I think you're mistaken.  It isn't self-contradictory; the section stipulates that masculine grammar and imagery is usually used for God, despite the fact that God Himself isn't gendered.  Second of all, did you see how I just used the word "Himself"?  I could have said, "despite the fact that God -- as opposed to God's aspects -- are not gendered", but that's a mouthful, and the way I said it was the way people normally speak.  That's the same way in which I was using it in the article. -LisaLiel (talk) 15:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Just curious, Lisa -- since I'm a member of WikiProject Judaism, were you asking for my help to defend you from myself? Folks, in all seriousness, the article DOES need work, from more hands than just Lisa.  And I would appreciate my quote of Rabbi Benjamin Blech being restored to the article page instead of being relegated to a footnote.  The text of the quote is on target and better worded than our own clumsy efforts.  It belongs where people will see it.Tim (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * And I disagree. That section has far too many inline quotes as it is.  They should all be put into refs.  And putting this one in the body of the section is problematic.  It seems to contradict the references that precede it, but it doesn't actually.  We could solve this by putting every single quote in the body of the article, but that might also be confusing to the reader, and it's a little absurd to have every single quotation cited appearing in the body of the article.  No offense, but could your insistence on putting this citation in the body of the article have something to do with the fact that it's a source that you brought?


 * As far as your uncivil question goes, I was asking for help against both you and Alastair. If you would like to offer your help in preventing yourself from reverting every edit I make, I'd be happy to take you up on it. -LisaLiel (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Lisa, will you please tell me what you are NOT interested in so I can go into some Wikicorner and edit collaboratively without your following me there to blow up whatever page I happen to visit? This is the fourth war you've started with me.  I'm not THAT interesting.Tim (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You're accusing me of warring? I made one edit, and you just reverted it.  And rather than change it back again, I decided to leave it alone.  Even though I think you're wrong.  Look in a mirror, Tim. -LisaLiel (talk) 16:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Lisa -- whatever personal thing you have with me, please stop dragging people into it. And let's please BOTH stop cluttering this page.  People have more important things to do than to help you defend Judaism against me and Malik.Tim (talk) 16:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Malik didn't do anything "wrong". I disagreed with him.  Is that a crime?  He said that something seemed contradictory and unnecessary.  I gave my reasons why I thought otherwise.  You ignored my reasons, and just reverted the edit.  And then I left it alone.  Clearly, you have some anger issues.  We had started to cooperate yesterday (finally), and this morning, I come in and find you trying to pick a fight with me on this page. -LisaLiel (talk) 16:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Lisa, you wrote "I'm trying to pursue dispute resolution in order to prevent misrepresentation of the Jewish view". I am NOT trying to misrepresent the Jewish view.  I didn't pick the fight.  Now, can we PLEASE leave this Project Page to more important things, like Judaism?Tim (talk) 16:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sigh. I wrote it, and I stand by it.  I'm not going to retract my opinion just because you disagree with it.  Stop trying to bully me. -LisaLiel (talk) 17:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Folks -- I apologize for this long term fiasco cluttering up the project page.Tim (talk) 17:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm sorry I got involved in this mess. Please deal with it yourselves at WP:ANI or on the article's Talk page. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 21:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hebrew language
Hi all, anyone with a more sophisticated understanding of Hebrew language/linguistics want to help me figure out what kind of article or wl should exist Hebrew "stem class" terms like nifil, pi'el, etc.? (If any?) To me it seems like at least the general category "stem class" should exist as an article about linguistics. Thoughts? Kaisershatner (talk) 14:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see Hebrew grammar and Hebrew verb conjugation. See also "Stem formation" in Arabic grammar. I'm skeptical about the need for a separate article at this juncture. Thanks. HG | Talk 19:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, HG, exactly what I need. The redlink can rdr to Hebrew grammar or something. Kaisershatner (talk) 19:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, thanks. See also Triliteral for a comparative chart and brief explanation of the Hebrew and Arabic terms.HG | Talk

Request for comments on Naming conventions (Hebrew)
Hi! A request for comments has been made for this proposed guideline. Please comment at WT:Naming conventions (Hebrew). Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Jose Faur
Could someone have a look at the links added to a number of articles by. On one hand, these look like CoI links to a self-published website. On the other hand, if the claims made on his website are true, he looks like a legitimate scholar, albeit a trifle controversial. My personal judgment was that if the articles have only been published on his website, regardless of how legit he is, they probably don't merit external links. I reverted them all except for a couple that someone got to before me. I'm requesting more eyes on them, and if I'm wrong, please revert me. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 23:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Steven -- José Faur is a notable scholar of rabbinic law and literature. Not unusually controversial (i.e., not fringe by any stretch). I'd ask that you revert these yourself, esp if they are merely citing his works. Thanks. HG | Talk 23:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll happily do that now. The only thing that bothered me about the links is that they were all added by an IP to a range of different articles and, as I say, looked self-published and seemed like linkspam. Also, the only reason I called him controversial is that his |own webpage details controversies surrounding him (scroll down). (I updated the userlinks template above so it's easier to get to the log of the IP's edits.) --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 00:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, done. But some of those links seem awfully peripheral to the subject of the articles in which they're contained. Also, the links are not to the articles themselves (which are in PDF files) but to a catalog describing. Did you actually look at any of the links or follow them? Also, I'll point out that I didn't say or imply that there was anything fringe about them. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 00:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry if my reaction wasn't helpful. I had looked at the diffs, not at the website or their fit within the article, and also replied based on my knowledge of Faur. Now: spotchecking the Maimonides example, I see that the article is from a serious journal and it does seem like a plausible item for the article. To be sure, the article should need to be cited fully and (ideally) placed under something like Further Reading. In this instance, then, better to restore and, if you are inclined, make the improvements. I don't mean to question your judgment about whether the linked Faur cites belong to the WP articles. BTW, you might want to inform the newbie about how to improve it. Hope this is more responsive. Best wishes. HG | Talk 00:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

CfD discussion
Can a few experts from here drop in on this discussion? This is about merging Category:Kashrut to Category:Kosher food. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've commented there. I'm guessing now that merge will fail, though both categories may be kept and reorganized. Thanks. HG | Talk 13:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The Jewish Barnstar
Shalom, everyone- IZAK and I cannot agree on which image is better for the Jewish Barnstar. Perhaps you guys can lend some input, taking into account overall aesthetics, image quality, recognizability, etc: — Preceding unsigned comment added by L'Aquatique (talk • contribs)


 * 1) [[Image:The Jewish Barnstar.png|200px]]
 * 2) [[Image:Wikipro.JPG|175px]]


 * Number one looks better. However if you look at the templates there are 2 different barnstars listed. Untilrecently one used picture #1 and the other used picture #2. Perhaps you can use both, or perhaps one of the templates should be deleted.Nerguy (talk) 22:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Nerguy: First of all, image 2 should be image 1 because it has been around longer and now that User wants to change things he calls his own image number "1" and the one I used number "2". In my view, #2 is far better because (a) the images here are not actual size as they are used in the template. They are enlarged here and look very very different when actually deployed, see actual image 1  and actual image 2  in the templates, and you will see that image 1 is much more fuzzy and its Jewishness is lost in the ugliness of the brown barnstar, so that (b) it's hard to see what's "Jewish" about 1 with the Star of David lost in the brown overlay of the other star. There is no "law" that says barnstars must look ugly and image 2 is a lot nicer and more Jewish in appearance with the Star of David given prominence with a smaller barnstar that is also in its center and not the other way around. Symbols are important and a Jewish barnstar should look, well, Jewish. Why is this such a significant point in any case and why does User L'Aquatique want to "fix" something that is not broken? IZAK (talk) 05:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I'm not a he, I'm a she. Secondly, I respectfully disagree. My version of the barnstar has a higher image quality, in terms of smoother edges, less graininess, etc, and, I believe, it is more aesthetically pleasing. To be honest, I find it a little bit insulting that you would call something I spent a good deal of time on ugly, and I'm not sure why you are being so hostile, here. The whole point of Wikipedia is to continually improve upon things, barnstars included. It's not that yours was bad in any way, mine is just an update, the next version.  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 05:35, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, and by the way. The numbering was totally arbitrary. It was not my intention to place unnecessary emphasis on my version by placing it first...  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 05:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * My first inclination is to ask whether this has to be an either/or choice. Can we have two barnstars, and let editors choose which of the two they would like to award?
 * If that's not an option, I think I prefer L'Aquatique's version (image #1), but I wonder if it's possible to tone down the brown a little more, or make the "halo" effect behind the Star of David a little brighter, so the Star of David is a little more prominent. Just a suggestion from a graphics idiot. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 06:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear L'Aquatique: Usually the sex of users is not known and "he" and "she" is used interchangeably and when in doubt a user is a "he" unless it becomes known otherwise. So now we know you are a she. Your version does not have a "higher image quality" as one can see that the edges around your brown barnstar are fuzzy and unclear and the dark blue Star of David of yours is swallowed and lost and one has to do a double-take to really see it, unlike the main Star of David in the second version with its clear-cut and sharp lines, corners and colors reminiscent of the Flag of Israel's famous and proud Star of David. The emphasis on blue in my preferred version makes it far more prominent and prettier and projects a strong message of Jewishness, just like the Star of David on the Flag of Israel, see below, whereas yours clearly does not, just another mediocre and ugly barnstar. (Most of them need improvement by the way, so why not work on others first and then come back with some good ideas here later?) It makes far more sense that a symbol for a Jewish barnstar should look more like this: unless you think that the flag of Israel is "not" "aesthetically pleasing" either. I totally diasgree that you are "improving" anything here when nothing needed improving, and your decision was totally arbitrary on such a delicate subject of important Jewish symbols. IZAK (talk) 16:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I like the first one better. The coloring just goes better.  But I'd add that the formatting goes better as well.  To have the barnstar inside the magen David is to have the barnstar as a subset of Judaism.  It's not.  The Jewish barnstar is a type of barnstar, not a type of Judaism.  The barnstar is the superset in this instance, and should be larger.Tim (talk) 16:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Tim: "To have the barnstar inside the magen David is to have the barnstar as a subset of Judaism" or "The barnstar is the superset in this instance, and should be larger" is to introduce a game of semantics because the subject is not about "Judaism" but about being awarded a barnstar for work in Jewish topics and many barnstars don't even have any type of stars as there is no rule to this, so having a larger Star of David is fully legitimate even within the realm of barnstars alone. See for example [[Image:Rosetta Barnstar.png|50px]]; [[Image:Peace Barnstar 6.png|50px]]; [[Image:Compass barnstar.png|50px]]; [[Image:Barnstar search rescue.png|50px]] and many others and many awards do not emphasize the stars at all, see [[Image:Barnstar-Megaphone.png|50px]]; [[Image:Goldenwiki 2.png|50px]]; [[Image:Wifflebat.png|50px]]. So that it is clear that there are no "rules" and "policies" governing which should be the "subset" or the "superset" -- terms that you are arbitrarily throwing in here. IZAK (talk) 17:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * IZAK -- I wasn't trying to be dictatorial or make a rule. I was just saying why I liked number 1 better.  It was how it struck me, not how it had to be for everyone else.Tim (talk) 17:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I like #2 better, but I would like it even more if the interior (five pointed star) could be changed to a six pointed star. Is it required that barn stars have five points? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:07, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You know, I was wondering that too. Why not just a plain jane run of the mill barnstar... that has six points instead of five?  The coloring would make it an obvious barnstar and the shape would make it Jewish.Tim (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Tim: Why do we need a "plain jane" anything just because it pops into your head? What do you have against a classical blue Star of David? And my question to you is the same as the one I posed to User:L'Aquatique: Why fix something that is clearly not broken! IZAK (talk) 17:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * IZAK -- I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't trying to tell people what they had to like.  It just occurred to me that we ALREADY have a star.  Blue, green, purple, bronze -- the rest of the Wikiplanet has a five pointed star, but we've had our own star for a while now.  Heck, even the blue star by itself is a star.  It's OUR star.  But I wasn't trying to say anything against any work and thought someone else had done.  It just popped into my head and I apologize.Tim (talk) 17:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe make it six pointed and with blue shading instead of brown, but I agree with IZAK, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Nerguy (talk) 17:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I heard there's an issur on all barnstars... mumbling about ovdei kochavim... -- Anonymous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HG (talk • contribs)
 * Touché. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] IZAK! For goodness sakes! The reason I made a new one is because the old one was broken. The edges aren't smooth, the barnstar in the center is pixellated, and the color is splotched in the star of david. I'm really trying hard not to be insulting here, but frankly you're not granting me the same courtesy. The whole point of Wikipedia is to improve upon the work of others. I did that, and you're hanging me out to dry and leaving extended messages on my talk page complaining about other work I have done for this Wikiproject. This is not okay. L'Aquatique  [  talk  ] 19:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Let us all try to keep calm. The purpose is not to insult each other, but rather get things done.Nerguy (talk) 19:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

L'Aquatique is there a way you can just make your version available, and let users decide for themselves which to use? If there is, I suggest you do that. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, we could write the template so you choose which image you want. But before I think about how to do that, I changed my barnstar a bit as an attempt a compromise. You might need to purge your cache to see it, but I made the star of david bigger and made the barnstar white so the star stands out more. IZAK- would this be more acceptable?
 * I am sorry if I went a little overboard, by the way. Stupid Angry Mastodons...  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 19:40, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There are now two Jewish barnstars: The Jewish Barnstar with the older star and The New Jewish Barnstar with the newer star. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * We need one more. "Two Jews, three opinions..."Tim (talk) 20:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, L'Aquatique, I think you accidentally reuploaded the same old image.Click on the image below and you will see what I mean.Nerguy (talk) 20:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Nerguy- looks good to me. Try purging your cache- in firefox type ctrl-shift-del.  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 20:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks good in firefox.Nerguy (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, we DO have three! Yes, folks, we really are Jewish!Tim (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I like it! Can I give myself one? ;-)Tim (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Only if you give one to Lisa, too! :P  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 21:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I do like Template:The New Jewish Barnstar and yes, thanks to User:L'Aquatique for the continuing efforts to improve the "Jewish Barnstar" situation. IZAK (talk) 05:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks! Sorry if this whole thing got out of hand...  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 06:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi L'Aquatique: No problem. I tend to be somewhat direct so if we can just be open with each other that'd be great. IZAK (talk) 02:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I created the original Jewish barnstar and the image for it, and I prefer the older image --Java7837 (talk) 23:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Java: Good to hear from you, and I agree with you too. IZAK (talk) 02:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Jews by religion and Category:Converts from Judaism
Could someone please explain why Category:Jews by religion (created by User in March '08  is not a violation of WP:NEO (a "Jew" of "another" religion is not the conventional way or referring to a Jewish apostate) and a violation of WP:POVFORK of Category:Converts from Judaism and why it should not be nominated for deletion or a merge into Category:Converts from Judaism. This is unquestionably somewhat tricky, since the word "Jew" can refer to an ethnicity, but it does open up a pandora's box since "Jew" does also refer to an adherent of Judaism always called Jew/s so that in this case it is best to focus on the religion of Judaism and not on a doubtful "Jew" label that is ambiguous and can refer to either the ethnicity or  the religion of a Jew. It would accordingly make no sense that there be a category of Category:Christians by religion (other than referring to only Christian groups or divisions) or Category:Muslims by religion (other than only referring to Muslim groups). IZAK (talk) 03:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, you're right, that is a bit tricky. You might consider opening Categories for discussion discussion to get some other opinions. My thought would probably be to merge them and rename the whole shebang. Or, have a category called "Ethnic Jews" and which could then be merged with Converts from Judaism... maybe. Incidentally, is there a category about Converts to Judaism?  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 04:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't guess at the motivation of another editor, but I would note that Jewish Buddhists (the only articles in Category:Jews by religion and not its sub-cats relate to Jews and Buddhism) are not necessarily converts from Judaism. I agree, however, that this category seems unnecessary.
 * It's also odd is that this category is a sub of Category:People by nationality and religion, which consistes of categories like Category:Afghan people by religion and Category:Israeli people by religion. Jews are, in effect, being treated as a nationality. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 04:14, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Although it is kinda what we've always wanted, that makes me inclined to want to delete, simply because it's not actually accurate. Good catch, Malik.  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 04:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * As the creator, it was not my intention at all to create a fork or make a point or to invent a concept. When I created it, if I remember correctly, I did it to contain the subcategories Category:Jewish Christians, Category:Jewish Muslims, (since deleted), Category:Converts from Judaism, and the Jewish Buddhist article. (It seems like I remember it having another subcategory and/or another few articles, but it's possible they have been deleted or removed.) I suppose it's obvious I was thinking of "Jew" as an ethnicity, but perhaps the category name was inelegantly worded. Perhaps "Jewish people by religion" may have been clearer. Many of the "Jewish FOO" categories are routinely kept during CfDs on the grounds that it is an ethnicity, not merely a religion. Thus, Category:Jewish sportspeople is acceptable as a category, but Category:Christian sportspeople or Category:Muslim sportspeople would not be because they are non-notable intersections of religion and occupation. (Why ethnicities and occupations are more notable as intersections — don't ask me. That's one of the great mysteries of CfD consensus.)  In any case, I'm definitely open to discussion on what should be done — rename, merge, delete, whatever. I won't be offended if a CfD is started. I can certainly understand the confusion. (Thanks for bringing this discussion to my attention, IZAK.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This just looks like an organizational issue, instead of a POV fork issue. Can we drop "violation of POV fork" and just approach this from a neutral standpoint?Tim (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Clarification: The above comment was posted by User:SkyWriter, not User:Teclontz, who also edits in Judaism-realated topics and signs himself "Tim". --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC) Oops, there seems to have been a name change, Teclontz is now a redirect to SkyWriter --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the confusion Stephen. I'm impersonating myself... ;-) Tim (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Category redirect
Thank you all for your input. Based on the flow of the discussion here and in order to avoid entirely obliterating Category:Jews by religion, for the time being I have redirected it to Category:Converts from Judaism and moved its few contents to Category:Converts from Judaism (a polite way of alluding to Jewish apostates). IZAK (talk) 19:06, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I dunno about that. The way to rename or merge a category is not to manually empty it. If the category is referring to Jewish people (ethnicity-wise) by religion, it's incorrect to say that all are converts from Judaism. A second-generation Christian could be a "Jewish person" ethnically, for instance, and not be a "convert from Judaism". I'm not trying to defend the category from my point of view — to a large extent I think we agree somewhat about the category — but I'm just pointing out that it would probably be better to have a CfD on the matter so that everyone can be invited to input on the appropriateness of the category and/or the name, because the issue is not so "one-sided" that this is a WP:SNOW situation. So I'm restoring the contents of the category. But by all means, nominate it if you wish. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a difficult one. The Jewish religion - all denominations - would not consider a "second generation Christian" to be Jewish, if you're implying that the person's parents had converted to Christianity. For example, the Reform movement (the largest Jewish denomination in North America) considers anyone who has taken on another faith to be a non-Jew, not just an apostate. From that standpoint I would tend to lean towards IZAK's opinion above, although I have no doubt Good Ol’factory's positive intentions. The whole ethnically Jewish issue is a slippery slope... Best, A Sniper (talk) 22:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's why I think perhaps a CfD on the category would be best — it's a difficult subject, and I'm sure lots of editors would have good input on it. I personally am leaning towards IZAK's approach as well — I certainly have no outstanding love for the category I created — I just think it should be opened to everyone if a change is going to be made, rather than just limited to those who participate on this WikiProject page. Maybe I'll nominate it myself. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: I've begun a formal discussion about Category:Jews by religion HERE. Feel free to replicate any of the comments/opinions you've made here. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Merging articles
I highly suggest merging the following articles because two articles, with slightly different titles have been created, about the same subject.
 * 1) Chaskel Besser and Haskel Besser
 * 2) Mercaz HaTorah and Mercaz Hatorah

Thank you--Nerguy (talk) 17:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There seems to be little doubt that these articles are about the same subject.


 * You can read Help:Merging and moving pages for suggestions about how to merge two articles. Since one of each pair is a small stub, you can probably WP:BE BOLD and make the mergers without building consensus first. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 17:56, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.--Nerguy (talk) 18:41, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Mergin discussion of Self-hating Jew and Auto-Anti-Semitism
Eveyone are invited:

Talk:Self-hating Jew Categories for discussion/Log/2008 August 14
 * 1) merge discussion here:
 * 1) Category delete here:

--Shevashalosh (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The actual discussion is at Talk:Self-hating_Jew. Shevashalosh has repeatedly changed the tag to lead away from the discussion where others have already commented and !voted. I can't imagine why. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:49, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Minyan
Chesdovi and I appear to be in an edit dispute in the Minyan article. Chesdovi takes the view that there is too much content on issues of women in the article and these issues should be drastically cut. My view has been that because that the issue of women in a minyan has been a defining issue in distinguishing Conservative Judaism from Orthodox Judaism on ideological grounds and has been of immense importance in Conservative Judaism and of no small importance in Modern Orthodox Judaism, a substantial amount of coverage is not undue weight. I would not object to the subject getting its own article, and might be open to arguments that some of the content may belong in a different article. However, I would object to the out-and-out deletion of the content from the Minyan article, particularly since Chesdovi's edit reduced discussion of Conservative Judaism to a single sentence and removed all discussion of anything to the left. Although Chesdovi finds that it adds unnecessary length and emphasis, my view is that an informative discussion of women and minyan needs to provide some background on the different views of the role of women in prayer in order to explain the different conclusions about the status of women with respect to a minyan. And although I agree that public prayer should be the main focus of the article, I would object to making that exclusive, since the concept of a quorum exists for a variety of other purposes and the word "minyan" is used in some contexts where the required number is not 10. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 13:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see my comments at Talk:Minyan‎. I object that public prayer should be the main focus of this article. Public prayer is called Tefilah be'tzibbur. A minyan means a quorum. This page should simply describe what that is, when it is needed and who is eligible. Long sections, which descend into the intricacies of who has an obligation to pray in totally out of place here. Shirahadasha notes that I “removed all discussion of anything to the left.” She fails to mention that I also removed all the “right” waffle – which makes this article overly long-winded. Also it is badly written and does not flow well. If a long section on Women and minyan is to stay, it needs to be rewritten and encompass all views under one section. Chesdovi (talk) 14:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Clarification: I should have said the article should be mainly about "the role of a minyan for public prayer" rather than "about public prayer."


 * That said, I agree that that the current content presents some detail about the arguments for against whether women should count in a minyan, including different philosophical views of the role of women in prayer, rather than simply presenting the different conclusions. I believe this is a feature, not a bug. I simply don't see this content as "waffle" or inappropriate. In my view, it's the kind of content that necessarily distinguishes an encyclopedic presentation of a controversy from a presentation of agreed-on, this-is-the-way-it-is facts. One could argue that because of the amount of detail it involves, this content should go in some other article, perhaps in its own Women and minyan article. However, it definitely shouldn't be deleted. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Is quite clear that the conservative bits can be quite nicely accommodated in either Women in Judaism, which already discuses the matter or at Conservative Halakha which also touches on the subject. The surplus and needless additions about women in Orthodoxy in this article all added to provide balance for the conservative view, which makes this page look like a POV fork. Although I assume good faith, it also should be noted that User:Shirahadasha would seem to be overly biased on this subject. See Shira Hadasha. Need I say more?! Chesdovi (talk) 20:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that I have to support Chesdovi's concerns of a WP:COI here. I hope this can be settled amicably. JFW | T@lk  22:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I too support User:Chesdovi over User:Shirahadasha in this case. Indeed, User:Shirahadasha's potential WP:COI is that he/she deliberately chose the user name "Shirahadasha" precisely because he/she created, wrote, moniters closely, and advocates for the Shira Hadasha article and its POV, and in this context probably violating WP:NPOV here as well by promoting and pushing the classically un-Halachic notion that women may be counted for a minyan, an irresponsible act, knowing full well that Wikipedia is increasingly being used as a reliable international reference and that by advocating for Jewish feminism in the context of very Modern Orthodox Judaism it creates the utterly mistaken and distorted impression that classical Judaism somehow supports women counting in minyanim when it never has except in a few rare and very isolated and specific instances never meant to be the sources for extrapolating new ideas about women counting for a minyan in Orthodox Judaism. So the best thing, and the TRULY HONEST thing in this case would be to create a new article about Modern Orthodox Judaism and women in a minyan or The role of women in Jewish services and not try to shove the obviously square peg of "women in a minyan" into the round hole of how classical Judaism and normative Orthodoxy view what is regularly and simply called a "Minyan". Of course, this discussion does not apply to Reform and Conservative Judaism who accept women as equals in all their services. IZAK (talk) 06:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There are many strong reliable sources on the topic of women and minyan in the context of Orthodox halakhah. I've added a few sources by Broyde, Schachter, Wolowelsky, and their interlocutors to the article, and more could be added. Regardless of the strong POVs of various editors involved, this is a significant aspect of minyan as a topic. Thanks. HG | Talk 07:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "Broyde, Schachter, Wolowelsky" -- they are now the poskim for Klal Yisrael? What a joke! Name one yeshiva or posek, or universal Halachik work who relies on the opinions of "Broyde, Schachter, Wolowelsky et al" please! To use them as "RS" is to violate WP:NOR as far as Judaism is concerned (sure on Wikipedia you can fool some of the people all of the time...but any truly Torah knowledgeable and serious scholar or Talmid Chochem worth his beans will see right through this kind of megaleh panim BaTorah shelo kehalacha)! Look, let's call a spade a spade. Feminism, and its handmaiden egalitarianism, is making strident demands upon all streams of Judaism, and Jews in those streams, be they rabbis and lay people are victims of monkey see, monkey do that then spawns all this retroactive pseudo-scolarship, like they do in Nevada or in the Netherlands when they play lawyerly games and rename prostitution as "legalized sex" and prostitutes have no stigma since they are then called sex workers or it becomes "sex tourism" in Asia rather than calling it by its truthful and honest DIRTY and illegal name. There is no true Halachic stance that allows for wholesale partcipation of Jewish women in minyanim, and everyone knows it, but because of the shallowness of the times and for fear of fighting the boogymen (women) of ("Jewish") feminism, people come up with all kinds of lame excuses that they then try to foist as "scholarship" when it is nothing of the sort. Anyone ever heard of the word "ehrlichkeit" and knows what it means? IZAK (talk) 07:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Izak, your comment reflects poorly on you and undermines whatever point you're trying to make. HG | Talk 14:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * IZAK, if you can identify a instances where I've "pushed" this position I would strongly suggest that you do so. Otherwise, I would suggest stopping the bluster about the people who disagree with you being dishonest and try to think up some sort of argument that actually addresses the article. As an FYI, the Conservatives made essentially the same arguments back and forth and used the same background, a good piece of this article was originally written by a Conservative who essentially argued that classical sources support the Conservative position, most has been redone but some remains. It would be incorrect to attribute that content to me. If you look through the history you'll find I wrote most of the content on the traditional position. But be that as it may, this article has to include how contemporary people regard the subject of minyan, including how they view and use classical sources. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 07:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comparing chesdovi's version to the version Shira prefers, I think that Chesdovi's version is a better basis for expansion. I think that Chesdovi's version can be expanded to have a small section on women and minyan and if it get out of hand again it can be branched off into and new article "women and minyanim".  As it stands now having the article 80% about women and minyanim is crazy.  While the subject might be a very "hot topic" now, wikipedia must not be temporally biased and overly focused on the current situation at the expense of an historical perceptive. Jon513 (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's good to be notified when people get a bit stuck on these kind of q's, but discussion might best proceed on the article Talk page. That said, this strikes me as a question that can be resolved by focusing on Reliable Sources, and the proportionality of their attention to minyan in general vs role of women. From my reading of the secondary literature (Jewish and scholarly), the role of women is quite a significant matter and the most notable aspect of minyan in the RS. It's not merely a temporary journalistic hot topic (like a news event, and the encyclopedia should not be skewed to news) but rather the major feature of minyan coverage in 2ry sources for upwards of 25 years. I suppose there are other issues discussed in secondary sources, such as the use of somebody under 13 (e.g., contemporary psakim and diff betw Ashkenazi or not), which could be expanded in the article. Thanks. HG | Talk 10:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also want to mention a common issue w/the minyan article. Under an Orthodox heading, the article describes the various pre-modern sources (Rambam, Rashi, ShA, etc). Editors should work out another heading, such as "Traditional" or "Rabbinic" or "Pre-modern" etc. "Orthodox" is not the correct label for anybody before 1700. (Actually a much later date, but I want to avoid argument here.) Thanks. HG | Talk 10:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * HG, I think this is an area where I suspect you'll find my view somewhere between yours and Chesdovi's. I agree that in the Orthodox (and particularly the Hareidi) world, discussion of the role of women has been less than it has been in more liberal circles, while the issue has a lot more coverage in academic discussions. While I agree that the academic and liberal religoius sources are important here and on net the issue merits substantial discussion, I want to clarify that this is not because I think the academic sources on the subject are more reliable than the traditional religious ones. Here I suspect the issues academics choose to focus on are especially likely to reflect their personal interests and perhaps their biases, and hence are better regarded as simply representing a viewpoint. There may be something of a tendency on both sides to think of ones own viewpoint as the natural meat of the article and others as things to be grudgingly mentioned at the bottom. There may also be something of a tendency to think of the sources reflecting ones viewpoint as the reliable ones and the other sources as unreliable. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In response to HG, I would say that this is precisely what my problem is about. Today the word minyan is synonymous with women rights. Sure, the role of women is a significant and notable topic with regards to minyan. But is it the only one? Is too much devoted to this alone? You "suppose" there are other issues. Well, I can tell you that there must be a wealth of literature regarding minyan which quite frankly you wont find published on the internet, but buried in halachic tomes. It was the weight given to women in the article which struck me as unbalanced. Other matters just as important regarding minyan cover: Is minyan permitted in one room where the people can not see one another; it is permitted to be split in to two rooms; is permitted in an unenclosed space; whether an intoxicated person can be included; what if some of the ten left in the middle of the prayer; whether the duty is biblical or rabbinical; whether a young lad is believed to be eligible; whether an onan can be included; whether a ger can be included; whether a deaf person can be included; whether one was profanes shabbat can be include; whether one who denies the oral tradition or the resurrection of the dead or a mamzer or an excommunicated person or an uncircumcised person or a 13 year old who has nor brought signs of maturity; or whether those who have already prayed can be included, etc, etc. Chesdovi (talk) 21:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * For better or worse, it's my sense that Wikipedia privileges secondary sources. But really, that's fine Chesdovi, you can write up these issues in the article. That will provide the balance you want; it wouldn't justify deleting content that's backed up by other sources. I can't tell where I may disagree w/ShiraH, but I can say I'm not talking only about scholarly journals (whether AJS or Tradition), I also mean the ordinary English language media. And I mention the sources not because of "reliability" but because they shed light on proportionality of the subtopics within the article. Anyway, let's continue on the article Talk as need be. Thanks. HG | Talk 22:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

CfD on Category:Yahweh
CfD here -- Jheald (talk) 08:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Gate of Mercy Synagogue
I recently created Gate of Mercy Synagogue and have put it up for DYK. I am not very familiar with the topic so could someone please:


 * 1) Check the infobox data for me? I am not familiar with the affiliation, rites etc.
 * 2) Does Sha'ar ha Rahamim mean Gate of Mercy in Hebrew?
 * 3) If someone is familiar with the Hebrew script, could the name of the synagogue be added?

Thanks =Nichalp   «Talk»=  06:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The answer to Number 2 is yes.Nerguy (talk) 12:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not familiar with the Synagogue. Is the translation שער הרחמים?  Post Addendum: I added my translation, but I don't think my font is normal...CheskiChips (talk) 14:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Selective Judaism
Has anybody heard of Selective Judaism? A new editor just created an article about it. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Its a new form of judaism that not many are apart of so i would be SUPRISED if someone knows about it. but i have heard of it

It was created in 2003 i think — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beitmidrash (talk • contribs)


 * Well, one of the criteria for Wikipedia articles is that their subjects have to be notable. If nobody's heard about the article subject, Wikipedia isn't a good place to publish information about it. Also, information has to be verified by reliable sources. It looks to me like you got this from the web site Whether this blog is simply satirizing cafeteria-style Judaism or actually proposing a new denomination, Wikipedia's inclusion criteria don't permit an article that's based on a blog.  Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Please see Notability (organizations and companies) for more information about what makes an organization "notable".
 * Have any newspapers or magazines have written about Selective Judaism? That might establish the movement's notability. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I submitted the article for proposed deletion. But it likely fulfills the #3 criterion for speedy deletion because it is a purportedly humorous form of misinformation. Also, pls give warnings to User:Beitmidrash for both the article and the misinformation of the comment above, thanks. HG | Talk 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Its not a host because i dont think anyone would find it funny at all. its an actual denomination. That i am apart of as well as under 100 people. if you havent heard of it doesnt mean you have to delete. Something has to start some where. If you think this isnt real then i dont htink you think Alternative Judaism or Humanistic Judaism is real either now do you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beitmidrash (talk • contribs) 20:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec)Hi Beitmidrash. I've given you a warning on your Talk page. It'd be great to have you participate constructively here. Meanwhile, people will need to go thru all your "contributions" and reverse them. Please stop immediately. If you would be courteous enough to undo all your edits on this, it would be appreciated and reflect better on you. Thanks. HG | Talk 20:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Why are editors assuming that the article is a hoax? Selective Judaism has a website and a blog. That seems like a lot of trouble to go through to make a Wikipedia hoax. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A blog created today? An article created today by a user who says it's from 2003 (haha) ? Hey, Malik, how'd you even here about this thing? LOL. HG | Talk 20:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * On a slightly more serious note, the user just deleted the WP:PROD notice. I'd like an uninvolved admin to, well, get involved. Thanks! HG | Talk 20:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it's a hoax, and I don't know if you're the same person as the person who wrote the blog, although the writing styles do have certain similarities. However, Wikipidia isn't the kind of place to publish new ideas previously mentioned only in blogs. We can't have an article on a jubject unless it's already been covered in published reliable sources. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Beitmidrash has become hostile and removed the PROD banner and other tags as "nonsense". I agree that an uninvolved party should take a look. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * if it is so much trouble i will delete the post myself when you tell me its ok becasue its just wikipedia and i made this post so others can know and understand Selective Judaism but i guess you dont understand so i will just leave. Thank You and Shalom (talk)


 * Shira -- FYI. All the user's contributions, e.g. to the Template and Selective Judaism, were today, and the blog was created today. Also, the joke above about 2003. And the website is a joke/hoax, too. Thanks. HG | Talk 20:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously the blog was created today because we were previously with word press. The website is not a joke. I find your language to be immature like the words "joke" and etc. Please if you have a busy life and if you are a "pro" then please type like one because from what i read it is easier to see who the bigger person is. Please when you are ready i will delete the wikipedia and everything else isnt your business but the members of Selective Judaism.Beitmidrash (talk) 20:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for being professional and friendly. I will pray for you all during Yom Kippur especially Malik for his wrongdoing. Shalom everyone and hope you all keep up the work.Beitmidrash (talk) 20:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC) The issue is resolved and the thread can be archived. HG | Talk 03:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Yahweh
Neutral eyes would be appreciated at Yahweh.

Previously, eg this revision, the article opened with a decent lead, setting out why Jews don't pronounce the Name, and different proposals exist for its vocalisation.

, who appears to be motivated by a fringe Christian group called the Assemblies of Yahweh, has been editing the article to downplay any doubt about "Yahweh" as the correct reconstruction of the Name. He's also trashed the lead because in his view "The article should begin with the groups who use the name Yahweh [ie the 'Assemblies of Yahweh'], not the groups who don't".

The article, to be fair, was previously a bit sprawling. But these new edits aren't going in the right direction. I've already had probably more than my fair quota of reverts, so I'd appreciate if others could take this on. Jheald (talk) 12:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Jheald, you deserve credit for trying to handle this. At this point, though, you probably need an uninvolved admin to step in. Your interlocutor is attacking you personally (i.e. edit summary: "...get rid of this jheald"). Plus, the article has obvious POV problems, driven apparently by the Yahweh-ist POV against Jehovah, e.g., "Thus Jehovah – though a word widely used by Christians today – is not an accurate transliteration and unquestionably contemptible..." Good luck. HG | Talk 13:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I listed some of the POV issues and placed a neutrality tag. But I'd still advise admin intervention. HG | Talk 14:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

CheskiChips (talk) 11:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC) Why in this article is it deemed acceptable to write the name of HaShem? Please can we consider having this changed to YodHey, or some other version that's not directly written. It's an irrevocable avera for many of the Jews that will be viewing this page.


 * Unfortunately it is not a Wikipedia policy not to allow people to commit aveirot. --Eliyak T · C 08:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, some articles have little warnings for the reader, like -- you're about to read a spoiler. But what is the halakhic source for this "irrevocable" avera, anyway? HG | Talk 10:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * After viewing something in a vein manner it cannot be unseen, therefore it's irrevocable. It's not beyond reparation.  Halakhkicly, do not lay a stumbling block, which includes for yourself and others.  CheskiChips (talk) 10:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've read through the page, and it looks closer to propaganda than an encyclopedia article. It needs an overhaul, but I don't think it's going to improve from tweaks we can give while the propagandist editor is active.  Looking through the history, external improvements are soon removed once any individual editor looses interest, and unless we are proposing long term policing of this, it may be a lost cause.  I appreciate the concern regarding the aveira, also.  I'd suggest that the risk involved (aveira), and the likelihood of creating a sustainable scholarly article (very low) in the face of this fringe interest group, should be weighed against focusing on this article.  We'd end up taking time away from other articles with lower risk and easier gain.EGMichaels (talk) 15:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there is any reason the article could not be reverted to an earlier version? I seem to recall that it was better not so long ago. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I just looked, and this version was indeed much better. I'd suggest several things here.  First, I think that we should go in the history and find what we believe to be the best version of the article.  Second, we should enlist interested parties from ourselves and another interested responsible group.  And third, reset the baseline, in cooperation with the other group -- perhaps the Christianity portal.  I don't edit very often, though.  So I'm not sure how much help I would be.  But that's the simplest, fastest, and easiest to enforce solution: multiple groups reseting the baseline to a version before the fringe group entered, and starting afresh.  But the current article is a mess.  I'd almost suggest an AfD in its current form.EGMichaels (talk) 15:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it's being continued by a Messianic sect? I've heard many Messianics obsessed with the topic. CheskiChips (talk) 10:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Easy DYK - Moshe Idel
Hi folks. Anybody want to create an article on Kabbalah scholar Moshe Idel? Should be an easy DYK to do. More than 1,000 hits in Google Scholar. HG | Talk 13:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure it's as easy as it appears. Would it entail expressing his extensive views or just his history/who he is/ what he wrote etc ?  CheskiChips (talk) 10:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * For a DYK new article, you just need to cover the basics in a few thousand characters (not words), I believe. Besides bio info, mention his main works, his |lang_iw&client=firefox-a awards, and I'd suggest use a review essay or two (or intro to Kabbalah:New Perspectives or the like) to cover his basic method and a couple emblematic views, described very briefly. The trick is to come up with a "hook" to publish on Wikipedia's Main Page, as discussed in the WP:DYK pages. Good luck! (Tip: Prepare much of it off in a user subpage and then launch it when in decent draft form. You only have a week or so after it enters main space to apply for DYK.) Presumably I or others could help out, too, if you want. Is this useful? HG | Talk 11:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'm surprised there's no article on Har Zion Temple nr Philly, locale for Friedman's The New Rabbi: A Congregation Searches for its Leader book. HG | Talk 05:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Ten Lost Tribes
Could someone who really knows his stuff please have a look at this article? It's become something of a coatrack for, well, weird ideas, mainly regarding claims about modern-day ethnic groups being members of the mysterious ten lost tribes. There were several recent edits by someone who, from his website, appears to be a Messianic. Obviously, Messianics have the same right to edit articles that anyone else does, but I reverted one of them because it seemed highly POV, unsourced and apparently OR (although I doubt that it was actually original). I'd be more comfortable with more eyes on that revert as well as attention from some of the more knowledgeable members of this project on the overall article. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 05:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be completely removed in entirety? Well perhaps mention of who the 10 tribes are and how they were disobedient etc etc. But only historically written things, or even oral traditions of the people. However the majority of these things don't even have historically charted oral traditions, it's as if there's world-wide gaps of people scattered looking for a place to belong. There are sigificantly "valid" claims, such as the Japaneese connections some language similarities and their ancient temples. Also perhaps for Christians even the tribe of Dan in Ireland or the Danish. But seriously...is there no way to just remove the bulk of this article? The majority of it is really just the misunderstanding of what the tribes were by people who never studied Hebrew or Hebrew-related things. CheskiChips (talk) 08:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay SECOND note. I cleared out a lot of the garbage here and put reasonings on the discussion page, we'll see how much stands and how much is changed. I doubt there are a lot of people who really believe the things on the page, the bulk was most likely entered by a small faction. I will definitely need help. Has anyone considered allowing for a "Supposed Claim" page. There is a significant amount that can be written about the 10 tribes, but as it is...it doesn't fit in the article. CheskiChips (talk) 08:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Third note: I made significant edits to the page, and removed unsubstantiated facts. They were all reverted the very next day, apparentally there is no way to remove this problem. Can someone help me create a 'claims' page for compromise. CheskiChips (talk) 19:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This article has been taken over by various folks making claims to be one of the 10 lost tribes. Haven't looked at the latest, will look further later today when I have more time. The article has been somewhat liberal in keeping reliably sourced claims (reliable as to notability in the sense of picked up by mainstream media, rather than reliable as to truth), in no small part because several past claims were accepted by the State of Israel and the Chief rabbinate of Israel, and hence it is within the realm of possibility that future claims might be accepted as well. Accepted claims include the Beta Israel (whose claim to be descended from the Tribe of Dan was accepted, and the Bnei Menashe, whose claim to be descended from the Half-Tribe of Manasseh was accepted. Much like the claims of various groups to be Native American tribes in the United States, the existence of these claims and the fact that some of them have been accepted for legal and other purposes and others have been investigated and might possibly be accepted in the future, represents notable information about contemporary society independent of what various authorities may think about their merits. --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also because Ten Lost Tribes is an extremely notable concept in the cultural, literary and historical sense, and one which has recurred continually through Western Literature and has been discussed by numerous explorers and researchers for over 500 years. It is entirely appropriate for this article to note some of the many theories, hypotheses and concepts which have been of major literary, historical and cultural signifcance for centuries. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Such a fallen state for us to be forced to accept legality over emet. How can any truths be known about the real tribes?  For example, I could cite supposed characteristics of tribes which are negative.  Because various peoples have been "legally" (as if the Israeli courts have Halakhik value?) these negative traits could be deemed as libel!  The allowance of purported claims is a modern phenomena and there should be a distinguishing between these and biblically historical perceptions.  For example in person if i've been accused of racism for saying the tribe of Dan was praciticing horribly.  Why?  Because now black-extremism has claimed the tribe.  This sort of historical revisionism shouldn't be accepted idly.  This is not just a fight for wikipedia, but for Jewish history in its entirety!  They want to revise the events of beit Hamikdash, they want to revise Moshe existing, they want to claim Jews are khazars, they want to say the holocaust never happened, they want to take every drop of our history and claim it for their own.  What happens when enough of these radical groups become noted in public eye?  What happens when I know they are not practicing the Judaism my forefathers practice and I am not legally allowed to say "No, this is wrong." by laws of racism?  I'm new here, but I believe we should be protecting the history of Judaism while citing accepted sources.  It's possible, because it's emet.  I appologize for the emotional commenting, but this is something dear to my own heart. CheskiChips (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV is not absolute truth. It requires all relevant perspectives to be covered within the constraints of their notability. If you are looking for the emes, other sources rather than Wikipedia are at your disposal. JFW | T@lk  00:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, the article Ten Lost Tribes is now semi-protected due to recurrent edit conflicts, as well as some vandalism. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just as a further note, the vandalism was unconnected to this debate. Both the talk page and the article were the subject of repeated attempts by someone using various IPs at the New York Public Library to aggressively deny any link between the Ten Lost Tribes and the Pashtun people. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, we don't actually know that the two things are unrelated. What we do know is that we have one new editor suddenlyl saying that the basic concepts of the article run counter to his opinion and therefore a good portion of it should be deleted. We have another editor suddenly claiming that he is from Kashimir,  and saying how dare we malign the Pashtun people by saying that they are connected in any way to the Jewish people. We could use a little help in watching this article. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Calculation of Shimon Peres' birthday
Hello,

Could some people


 * A) knowledgable in the Jewish calendar, and/or


 * B) able to find and read Hebrew sources

help us on Talk:Shimon Peres ? Thank you. Teofilo talk  13:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Circumcision renaming discussion
In case you are interested, please read and speak your conscience, whichever way it may be at Talk:Circumcision. -- Avi (talk) 14:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

God or god
Here is a snip from the Manual_of_Style:


 * Honorifics for deities, including proper nouns and titles, start with a capital letter (God, Allah, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Great Spirit, the Horned One); the is not capitalized. The same is true when referring to major religious figures and figures from mythology by titles or terms of respect (the Prophet, the Messiah, the Virgin, a Muse). Common nouns denoting deities or religious figures are not capitalized; thus the Romans worshipped many gods, many Anglo-Saxons worshipped the god Wotan, Jesus and Muhammad are both considered prophets in Islam, biblical scholars dispute whether Mary was a virgin for her entire life, and her husband was her muse.

Also from Proper_noun:

Sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. For example the common noun god denotes all deities, while the proper noun God references the monotheistic God specifically.

The way I read that:
 * One could say in Henotheism that "God is a god" (that is one among many).
 * One must say in Monotheism that "God is the God" (one who is alone).

The reason I'm bringing this up here is that it's come to my attention that someone is using a misreading of the Manual of Style to vandalize the use of "God" in a broad spectrum of articles. The individual in question is trying to make "God" into a common noun "god" even in contexts of monotheistic articles in which "God" cannot be a common noun (because there are no other gods to share the title with). I've tried to point out that monotheistic religions use "God" as a proper noun (because there is only and can only be one) and also substantively as a proper name (because we do not use the Divine Name).

In any case, I cannot deal with this by myself without resorting to edit wars, and I have no intention of drumming up a posse. But I'm bringing this up here to let everyone know that there is a systematic effort going to demote "God" into "god" in monotheistic contexts (which is nonsensical). If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Tim (talk) 14:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, Tim. Have you tried leaving him or her a note on their talk page with the info you just gave us?  L'Aquatique   [  approves | this | message  ] 17:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Offhand, I'd say this sounds like a content dispute that ranges across several articles. You might try an RfC or some other kind of dispute resolution if talking to him doesn't work out. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies -- we had an extended conversation about this just the other day and he has every intention of proceeding through any article he can find. Before I proceed further, though, I wanted to touch base with some others for an informal opinion of whether I am on base or off base with this issue.  Here is a diff for one of the affected articles .  Ilkali's stated intention is to conform this and all related articles to the lowercase god usage in his version of the edit, and there appear to be a number of other articles involved already.  If I'm on base, I'll consider an RfC.  If I'm off base, I'll drop it.  I think the first step in the process, after conversation fails, is a second opinion.  Thanks. Tim (talk) 17:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is Ilkali? Well, that complicates things. Let me try to talk to him before you do anything else, please.  L'Aquatique   [  approves | this | message  ] 19:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, that's why I'm asking for opinions here. I really don't intend on doing battle with him, and would rather just go away for a while, but at the same time, systematic Henotheisticising is a concern.Tim (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, well, I heard back from Ilkali and I'm relatively satisfied with his answer, which was, basically, he's changing the capitalization in cases when the word is being used as a common noun. I looked through the diff you gave and he's technically correct, which is the best kind of correct [[Image:Face-grin.svg|25px|smile]]. If someone else wants to take this further, feel free but I'm good.  L'Aquatique   [  approves | this | message  ] 04:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Skywriter's assessment is based on a faulty understanding of both the MoS and the syntactic theory involved. For an explanation of what I've actually been doing, along with the rationale, see my conversation with L'Aquatique. Ilkali (talk) 22:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * L'Aquatique -- he is not technically correct. "God is a god" is HENOTHEISTIC, not monotheistic.  There are no other gods to share the noun "in common" and therefore it cannot be a common noun in that context.  Ilkali's assessment is based on a faulty understanding of both the MoS and the syntactic theory involved.  I have explained this to him, and he is determinined to create henotheistic syntax in monotheistic contexts.


 * Ilkali, you are decapitalizing more than the common nouns, and decapitalizing proper nouns as well. In a monotheistic context, God is not "a god," but rather "God is the God".  "God is a god" is henotheism.  Monotheism comes from two Greek words, Monos (alone, only) and Theos (God).  Henotheism comes from two Greek words Hen (one) and Theos (God).  Monotheism has a context in which there is only one true "God" -- He is the ONLY God, and is God ALONE.  Henotheism has a context in which there is one God among others.  In Henotheism, the word "God" can be either a proper noun or a common noun, because there are other gods to share the term "in common" (hence the "common" in "common noun").  In Monotheism the word "God" is always a proper noun, and in most Monotheistic religions it doubles as a proper name (i.e. we don't go around using names like "YHWH").  In a monotheistic context, "god" is a common noun meaning "false gods."  "God is a god" therefore, means "God is a false god" in a monotheistic context.  It is a syntactic structure prohibited by the fact that there are no other gods "in common" with God.  I invite you to observe the MEANING of the word "common" and to restrict yourself to that usage.Tim (talk) 01:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, both Tim and Ilkali are a little right and a little wrong here. Tim needs to stop asserting his stuff about henotheism.  Waving the word around isn't helping things, and frankly, I don't think Ilkali has any interest in henotheism as such.  "God is a god" does not mean "God is a false god" in a monotheistic context.  But it doesn't matter, because as Tim has pointed out himself on any number of occasions, this isn't Jewish Wikipedia or Christian Wikipedia.  It's also not monotheistic Wikipedia.  In an objective and scholarly sense, it is absolutely correct to say that God is a god.  The only god, but there's a difference between a proper noun like God and a regular noun like god.


 * That said, I was looking at the diff Tim gave above . Looking through Ilkali's version, the first large part of is appropriate, as far as I can see.  The first problem I came across was in the section on Panentheism:


 * Panentheism, or Monistic Monotheism, is a form of theism that holds that god contains, but is not identical to, the Universe. The 'one god' is omnipotent and all-pervading, the universe is part of god, and god is both immanent and transcendent.


 * Here, the phrase "that god contains" should read "that God contains". It would be unwieldy to say "that the god contains", and without the article, it's a proper noun which should be capitalized.  Later on, there's this:


 * However, in dualistic theologies as that of Gnosticism, the two deities are not of equal rank, and the role of the Gnostic demiurge is closer to that of Satan in Christian theology than that of a diarch on equal terms with god (who is represented in pantheistic fashion, as Pleroma).


 * Here, the phrase "on equal terms with god" should definitely be "on equal terms with God", for the same reason as before.


 * I'd point out that Akhnaton may well have been a monotheist, and not a henotheist or monolatrist, since he not only opposed worshipping gods other than the Aten, but denied them altogether. But the Aten is not God.  Nor is Ahura Mazda, despite the fact that at one time, worship of that god was monotheistic in every sense of the word.


 * I know that L'Aquatique is going to be irked at me for pointing this out, but Tim's battle cry of "But that's henotheism!" is exactly like his former battle cry of "But that's Arianism!" There is a pattern here, and it should be addressed.  I'll be candid and say that Ilkali's changes are distasteful to me on a personal level.  I don't think that capitalizing God in a monotheistic context is a bad thing, and I abhor what appears to be Ilkali's atheist agenda.  But technically, as L'Aquatique pointed out, he isn't wrong.  Except for a few cases like the ones I pointed out.  But Tim has a pattern of riding roughshod over everyone who disagrees with him, and pummeling them with whatever inapplicable slogan he can come up with (henotheism, Arianism). -LisaLiel (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * At the risk of making this easy... I'll grant that I have a pattern: words have definitions; definitions have words; synonyms exist from shared definitions; and sometimes the same word is given different definitions in different contexts. Being aware of the usage of words in their contexts makes us better editors.Tim (talk) 02:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * L'Aquatique, you see what I mean. Tim is so sure that his analysis of the situation is correct that he's utterly unwilling to concede that he may be mistaken.  This isn't going to end well. -LisaLiel (talk) 03:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's already ended. I raised it here for others to comment.  I responded to Ilkali.  I granted your point that I do think that words have one or more definitions and definitions have one or more words.  And I'm satisfied to let you and others deal with the article in question.  Unless there's something else you want, I'm satisfied with what you are doing with that article, and I appreciate the help you put into it.  Night.Tim (talk) 03:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Here, the phrase "that god contains" should read "that God contains" [...] Here, the phrase "on equal terms with god" should definitely be "on equal terms with God"". You're right in both cases, but I didn't change those. They were uncapitalised when I got there, and I didn't notice them when scanning the article.
 * "I abhor what appears to be Ilkali's atheist agenda". I find this offensive. Correction of incorrect capitalisation is just one stylistic change I regularly make, and one doesn't need to be an atheist to respect the MoS. Ilkali (talk) 08:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

''Hi. Thanks for notifying us about this content discussion/dispute. Feel free to continue the discussion at the article talk page or thru suitable WP:DR mechanisms. This WikiProject page doesn't need more of the content discussion, though do please leaves links to any other pages where the discussion might occur. Take care,'' HG | Talk 03:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Rabbinic Literature section
Hi guys,

I just made this suggestion on Talk:Rabbinic_literature on the accessibility of that category for 'outsiders', but considering that particular talk page is pretty quiet, if not dead, I thought it might be wise to post it here as well to ensure it is seen by people who can do something with it. Please see Talk:Rabbinic_literature.

Regards,

Anonymous / 82.156.55.208 (talk) 23:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Antisemitism
There has been a change in the Template:Antisemitism from this to this. Any comments on which version seems better would be appreciated here. Thanks. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Expand article on Regina Jonas?
I recently came across this article about the first official female rabbi; however, it looks to be in rather poor shape and could certainly stand to be expanded given the historical nature of her life and work. Does anyone who knows more about her life want to give it a whirl? Thought it might make a good community project here, perhaps even work it up to FA status eventually. Just a suggestion, --Wassermann (talk) 23:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. Just added 3 items to the bibliography in the article. One article seems to be the leading scholarly research on Jonas (by Von Kellenbach, a Christian feminist), but I don't think it's available on the internet, so I'm not sure it's an easy collaborative project. Good luck! HG | Talk 04:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Goy vandalism
Anonymous users are trying to insert the canard that goy means cattle. Please keep your eyes out for this. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 12:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The Exodus
This article has been rather heavily edited over the past couple of days by one editor. I think it would be a good idea for some members of this project to get involved there. Our only other member who's been there recently (besides myself) is LisaLiel, who is at the disadvantage of being under arbcom restrictions. I reverted a long series of Pico's edits because I thought such wholesale changes should be discussed on the talk page. He declined to do so and (as far as I can tell) put the changes back. I'll be frank and say that the reason Pico's editing concerns me is the fact that he made this edit to Exodus, claiming that it's some kind of established archeological fact that the Exodus never happened, a claim which I regard as absurd on its face. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 06:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Joshua ben [sic] Nun?
There's a disambiguation page, Joshua ben Nun, to which I've added a query: is this correct? I've always seen and heard bin Nun, but the page for Joshua in English makes no mention of this. There isn't even a redirect page for "Joshua bin Nun" at present. An authoritative answer and, if necessary, comprehensive corrections, would be of great help. (I need this for editing the Battle of Latrun page.) -- Many thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 03:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not really a proper disambiguation page as there's only one valid link that it disambiguates to. It should probably be redirected to Joshua. The spelling Joshua bin Nun could be easily redirected to the same page. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 04:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I just redirected both titles to Joshua. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 04:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the redirect, but my posting here is a request for authoritative clarification of which name should be used in all references to Joshua, and how to accomplish any further editing reflecting this. I'm not a Bible scholar but conduct plenty of infosearches (web and library) for my translation work and editing WP, and my difficulty in clarifing this elsewhere indicates to me that others too may benefit by adding this info to the Joshua page and related ones. (I may resort to the Encyclopedia Judaica once I get back to the office tomorrow.)-- Deborahjay (talk) 05:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * An online Bible search seems to show that the name is always "bin Nun," never "ben Nun." However, this doesn't mean that the military operation didn't use "ben." --Eliyak T · C 14:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Judaism
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Jewish religious movements
I'd like some editors here to take a look at Jewish religious movements, particularly the table. In it, we're confidently informed that what Americans and Canadians call Reform Judaism is about equivalent on the liberal/conservative spectrum to what the British call Liberal Judaism. On the other hand, British Reform Judaism is more like American Reconstructionist Judaism. I just wonder whether there's any source for any of this, or is it just a load of original research? I left a brief note at the talk page, but it doesn't seem to get much traffic, so I thought I'd bring it here. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 23:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Please help at Seven Laws of Noah
There is a section in this article entitled "The Christian Trinity and the prohibition against idolatry". Leaving aside the inappropriate polemecizing of Christian views in an article about a Jewish (and Noachide) concept, this section is entirely original research. Furthermore, it cites Rabbi Joseph Telushkin in an out of context manner to make it seem as though he is saying something he objects to. I e-mailed Rabbi Telushkin to check with him about this, and he was appalled that he would be misrepresented this way.

All of this has been dealt with in the article on Shituf. It appears that the same editor who had been insisting on doing this in that article is trying to do it here as well.

I really don't want to get into a conflict with him again. I hope that some of you can come and help out. -LisaLiel (talk) 12:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As for Telushkin -- that's been beaten to death. No one tried to falsify what he wrote.  He simply wrote something that did not mean to all audiences what he meant as a Jew.  Again, we've discussed this ad infinitum.  However, I agree that the section is unnecessary.  The question is one of Christians and Noachide Laws.  That entails two aspects: 1) are Christians even aware of the Noachide Laws (and if so, do they even care), and 2) what do Jews think about Christianity in respect to the Noachide Laws.  Other than the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Christianity does not seem to have even been historically concerned with the Noachide Laws as they were codified centuries later in Talmudic literature.  Also, the question of whether Christianity actually is shituf is irrelevant to the fact that Jews do apply shituf to Christianity in making their considerations of it.  So, then, the only question that remains is... does Judaism in the main consider Christianity to be in violation of those laws?  Lisa, I don't have those sources available right now, but if you agree to my two points, could you write the answer to the 2nd question, and I'll write a brief blurb (sourced) regarding the 1st?Tim (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Harvey Milk
This biography has been recently rewritten to coincide with the anniversary of their death on November 27 as well as a feature film on them released around the same date. While awaiting further research material on request from libraries as well as some licensing for images it is now in a peer review. Other editors are welcome to offer constructive feedback and assistance. --  Banj e b oi   04:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Please help at Names of God in Judaism
There's an editor who is inserting original research into this article, and using another Wikipedia article as a reference. I'm limited to a 1RR, so I'd appreciate it if someone could drop by and help. Here's the diff of his changes:. -LisaLiel (talk) 15:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You ask us to step in and revert for you, but you haven't even bothered to ask the user to stop, or try to discuss things out with him? There's a short blurb on the talk page, but it's pretty bitey. This is a new user, they aren't necessarily aware of our norms and rules. Why don't you try talking things out instead of coming here to raise a lynch mob?  L'Aquatique   [  parlez  ] 17:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, that was helpful. -LisaLiel (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What exactly where you expecting to get?  L'Aquatique   [  parlez  ] 21:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I don't know. Tim was willing to help.  Despite the issues we've had, he was willing to deal with a content issue as a content issue without making it personal.  You might want to consider that. -LisaLiel (talk) 22:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you could have offered you thoughts on the request without the slap at the end. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I could have, but this is a.) one of my pet peeves and b.) an ongoing problem. In the past I have been quite civil but I am getting quite tired of Lisa running to this board to raise lynch mobs against whomever is her antagonist of the week. That's not what this is supposed to be. Consider it a trout slap if you so desire.  L'Aquatique   [  parlez  ] 22:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't looking for a lynch mob. I had a migraine, and I was concerned that I might get too testy with this guy.  I came here asking for help.  I didn't realize that I'd knock that big chip off of your shoulder.  My bad. -LisaLiel (talk) 22:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * L'Aquatique, some very responsible editors have requested such help. I know existentially that there is nothing inherently annoying about such requests because they not bother me at all. Savlanoot. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You asked for advice, and I gave it to you. I'm sorry if it wasn't what you wanted. I notice, however, that after this you still have not contacted the user in question...  L'Aquatique   [  parlez  ] 22:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW -- I just checked the user's contribs, and there are a number of pages involved in similar edits. I posted a note on his talk page, and I'll try to talk to him about some of the other pages involved when he replies. Right now I've just given him a welcome with a couple of pointers. I haven't looked at the other pages in detail yet. I don't know if they've been reverted. Seems like good faith, but newbie, edits with OR and a specific interest in the Divine Name.Tim (talk) 23:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent. I've added a link to the original research policy- it's good to give newbies additional official reading- it tends to convince them that this really is a rule, not just what this one guy on my talk page is b.s-ing about! [[Image:Face-grin.svg|25px|*grin*]]  L'Aquatique   [  parlez  ] 00:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Everyone -- the user in question, Alleichem, is continuing to make the same edits over and over again in this and other articles, creating UNDUE weight for some group called the Assemblies of Yahweh. Last time I've looked, there are at least five or six people (Christians, Jews, others) routinely reverting him across an assortment of pages, and Lisaliel and I have been unsuccessful in talking to him on his talk page.  This isn't doing him any good, nor the editors trying to maintain the pages.  Does anyone have any suggestions for us? SkyWriter (talk) 14:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to follow up, the user in question has been confirmed to be a sock of a previously blocked user. The edits from all of the socks have left a good bit of debris in a number of articles. We need to clean out the problems remaining in the articles edited by the following socks:



It's important that we can create a stable version of each article so that additional socks can be easily reverted to a known stable form. Yahweh was one of the affected articles, and there are several others. Can we have some help eyeballing the articles and catching anything fringe that needs to be set aside? Thanks.

Also, kudos to Lisa for being the first to catch the newest sock. SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 19:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have taken the liberty of adding the userlinks template to the names on the list. Hope you don't mind my refactoring your post in this way, Tim. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Todah Rabbah :-) SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 23:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)