Talk:Jews/Archive 10

message: Our current intro says, in part:
Ethnic Jews include both so-called "observant Jews," meaning those who practice the Biblical and Rabbinic laws, known as the halakha, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense.
This sets up a dichotomy that leaves out Reform Judaism and, arguably, some Conservative Jews as well. Reform Judaism generally rejects the bulk of halakha; Conservative Judiasm accepts it only in part. However, neither would necessarily consider themselves "secular", and they certainly would describe themselves as "practicing Judaism as a religion". -- Jmabel | Talk 00:04, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
:You're right, the language is awkward, and definitely tends to leave out Reform, though I think you might get an argument from some Conservative Jews about them accepting halakha "only in part".  How about:
Ethnic Jews include both so-called "religious Jews," meaning those who practice Judaism, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense.
:I think this neatly gets around the whole issue of defining Judaism, halakha, etc., since the Judaism article will do that for us. And as a bonus, the sentence actually makes more sense that way.  I suspect that it probably looked something like that once upon a time, until someone felt a need to insert something about halakha in the article. Jayjg 03:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Falling between two stools 

message: One section of the article says: "Progressive Judaism (an organization to which both Reconstructionist Judaism and U.S. Reform Judaism belong) accepts bilineal descent; notably, the Reform movement in the UK does not, while the Liberal movement in the same country does." 
I was under the impression that outside of America, Liberal Judaism = Reform Judaism. Did I miss something?--Josiah 02:48, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See this: . Jayjg 17:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The document seems to affirm what Josiah thought and what we all know. Gidonb 20:07, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Thanks Jayjg, but doesn't make more sense to say that some Reform Jews accept Bilineal Descent, and others don't? (Sorta like Polygamy - Askhenazim generally view it as forbidden because of R. Gershom's edict, whereas other Jews do not)--Josiah 21:06, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the difference is that in the U.K. there are two movements, one called Liberal, and one called Reform, and the U.K. Reform movement still insists on matrilineal descent whereas the Liberal movement follows the U.S. Reform view. Jayjg 23:21, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but they are still both "Reform" Judaism, just like Satmar and Chabad are both part of "Orthodox" Judaism despite their differences.Josiah 00:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Does the Liberal movement still consider itself part of the Reform movement?  I get the impression it doesn't, and considers itself its own entity (say like Reconstructionist), but I could be wrong. Jayjg 03:41, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think one could say, very roughly, that the UK Liberal movement is to the UK Reform movement what the US Reconstructionist movement is to the UK Conservative movement. The UK Reform movement is in many ways actually closer to US Conservative than to US Reform. -- Olve 18:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? Reform different than Liberal???? 

message: Well you skipped that point too. It is quite clear from the wording of the article about this ‘breakup’, is that it is ‘population breakup’ by using the words like ‘Total population’ and ’ Significant geographic populations’ . But when ‘validity’ of these stats are questioned, the answer to the ‘opposers’ is given that, it is ‘citizen breakup’ not a ‘population breakup’ and yet more, these stats are an ‘undisputed fact’. I think we should end this ‘two opposite faces’ of same facts.
:with regards
:Zain 22:12, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Majority readers interpretation is &#8216;population breakup&#8217; not &#8216;citizen breakup&#8217;

message: Does anyone know if the anonymous, uncited, and uncommented addition of "Chile: 30,000 (est.)" is correct? Sounds likely enough, but we've had so much vandalism on this page I begin to doubt anything anonymous and uncited. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:28, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)
:This source lists the Jewish population Uruguay as 32,500 .  I suspect 30,000 is close enough. Jayjg 22:40, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, the same source lists Chile at 15,000.  I got the countries confused.  I'll fix the number. Jayjg 23:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find it there any more. Jayjg 23:39, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chile 

message: Unclear phrase in Renaissance and Englightenment section: "...incited to Jews to leave..." "...incited to Jews..." doesn't make sense. I'm guessing this is either "...incited Jews to leave..." or even "...invited Jews to leave...", but either of these would still be a bit unclear. A previous version had "...allowed Jews to leave..." which is clearer (but may not cover the facts). "Allowed" would suggest just repeal of restrictive laws, "invited" would imply that plus an appeal of some sort, "incited" would imply active agitation. Just what happened? Maybe this merits another sentence (or at least another phrase) in the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:23, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
:I suspect it should be "gave the Jews an incentive to leave". Jayjg 22:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay I fixed, and added a new article Napoleon and the Jews, given the length of the material.  Amazing what I learn while researching for the wiki. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Napoleon 

message: I've archived old discussions and interminable arguments in Talk:Jew/Archive 10, which now contains 85K of material, most of it the discussion about citizenship.  If anyone wishes to continue that discussion, they can do so there. Jayjg 23:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Latest archive

message: I will try to work on a suitable template, maybe like Template:DreyfusAffair (rather small) or Template:Sep11 (good for a large topic). IZAK 19:39, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Time for a Template

message: I would suggest that dividing the article is not a good solution.  Some subjects are complicated, and require a longer treatment, even if specific topics are referred to on other pages -- people should be able to look up "Jew" and get an understanding of the Jewish people, rather than a list of links.  Otherwise, this article becomes an outline, rather than a starting point for research.  It could be worse, as britannica.com says: "Ersch and Gruber's enormous Allgemeine Encyclopädie (“General Encyclopaedia”; 1818–89) has been cited as a true example of the medieval “summa”—it is famed for including the longest article in any encycopedia, that on Greece, which fills 3,668 pages in volumes 80–87." --Goodoldpolonius2 15:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, sorry - fixed above. I am not saying that the 34k limit isn't useful - I am just saying that where the effort has been made to comply with it, but cannot succeed due to indivisibility of information, that the article should not be divided.  What would really be a good feature is to allow a "page 1" and "page 2" approach --Goodoldpolonius2 15:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the material is too vast for a mere "page 1" and "page 2". Too many links to other articles are already part of this article and then those articles are detached from the main article when viewed or found on their own. There would still be plenty for one page, and the rest could be found using a template. Let's see how it works. IZAK 05:36, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Against Division

message: OK, it took a few hours, but finally the new template  is activated. I have moved some sections from the main Jew article to some newly-created articles with the same names as the sub-headings in the main article. No material was lost or edited when it was transferred. The main article is now UNDER 32K for the first time in many years, and NOTHING is lost, because now by looking at the "Jew" table (created by the "Jew template") any reader/editor/User can easily go to the articles they need. The challenge now will be to editorially monitor more articles relating to "Jew" (but that is all "par for the course" at Wikipedia.) Please look at the articles and add appropriate materials as we now have more space within them. Thanks, and Happy Chanuka! IZAK 11:45, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work, IZAK, and good choices about what to keep in the main page and what to move.  I still would have liked to keep the article together, but this seems like a sensical apporach as well.  It inspired me to create some new articles to fill out the template, see my discussion below. Again, nice work.  --Goodoldpolonius2 17:10, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Looks good, IZAK. Nice work. I'd just like to suggest that we re-order the template to put Jewish Ethnic groups below Religious Denomimations (or raise denominations), since a key point in the articles is that Judaism is not really a race, even though adherents have their own racially influences religious cultures.Mikeage 02:26, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Mikeage, I think the key point of the article is that Jews can be thought of as an ethnic group/nation, as well as just a religion.  That is the whole point of seperating it from the religion catagory.  In deference to your point, I did put religion as the second link in the template, but this article and template is dealing with the Jewish national/ethnic identity, not the Jewish religion.  Also, perhaps you should put suggested changes in the final section below, where I made some suggestions and changes to the template.  --Goodoldpolonius2 02:59, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Jew template

message: Hi, welcome the new Wikipedia  Template:Judaism-stub . There is also a new   Template:Israel-stub
. Please use them when coming across relevant "stub" articles. Thanks a lot. IZAK 14:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New: "Israel-stub" and "Judaism-stub" 

message: Updated on 12/12:
Given this division, some of the articles in the template were in desperate need of help.  I got caught up in a wiki-binge and created a number of new articles, modifying the template slightly to accomodate.
*Added Jewish religion link to top of the template, since the Jew-as-ethnicity issue is not as clear in the subpages.  We might also want to call this link a "Main Page" link as well, as we do with Jew.
*Jewish Population Centers - This formerly took you to a list of famous Jews by country.  I moved that to a subcatagory and created a new article Jewish population with information about current population centers and population changes, though more work could be done on it.  I also created subarticles specifically on History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in Germany for the population links.  The Jewish American link needs to be improved, though.
*Subcatagories of Secular Jewish culture - I am suggesting that the two subarticles be Zionism and Israeli culture.  I would be open to other additions, Jewish food? Jewish music?  Jewish ethics? But I think three Zionist/Labor links is overrepresentitive on this article, especially since at least a couple are arguably more of historic interest.
*Jewish history - main article was weak and incomplete, I did some substantial work, including adding more links and creating new articles on Jews in Italy, France, and Germany, as well as a new Jews in the Middle Ages article, but more can be done.  The catagories were also a problem.  2000 years of history was covered by one article, "Rabbinical Leadership," which did not link to an article on the subject, but instead to one on rabbis.  I added links to  Jews in Islamic Lands, Haskalah, the Middle Ages, and the Holocaust to fill out this, and I cut the Rabbinical Leadership link
*Schisms among the Jews moved to a subpoint of history.
Still needing work:
*Jewish symbolism - I think that this could be elminated from the template, as it is religious in nature and covered elsewhere
** Concur. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:56, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
*Secular Jewish culture - I spent some effort trying to improve, but it could use some real work still.
** I put in some more work here, but it remains slim. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:56, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
*Jewish American - This needs real help, including a good article on Jewish history in 20th century America
--Goodoldpolonius2 20:27, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes to the Template/New articles

message: I know it's not a mainstream Jewish sect, but shouldn't there be a short bit on this, or at least a link to the article on it?
:Check under Judaism, which is the article that primarily focuses on the Jewish religion, rather than Jew which focuses on ethnic/national identity. --Goodoldpolonius2 17:21, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kabballah 

message: Rabbinic Judaism is based from the Babylonian Talmud, not from the Palestinian Talmud, no matter whether it is Ashkenazic or Sephardic. I wonder who the scholars mentioned in the ethnicity section are? I never heard that theory.
Of course, there is a great deal of speculation on what the Judaism of the majority really looked like in the first millenium of our era - maybe the mysterious sentence is a shadow of that? Hasdrubal 05:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnic subdivisions

message: Just for the record: I have reverted exactly one of Hasdrubal's many edits, the one that removed mention of matrilineality from the lead. Most of what he did looked reasonable to me, but I haven't read it all closely. Since we've had a lot of issues over maintaining consensus on this article as it's developed, and since these changes don't look trivial, is there at least one other of the major authors of this to date who endorses Hasdrubal's edits? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
*As of now ALL of Hasdrubal's edits are NOT in keeping with any known stream of Judaism or Jewish scholarship, and I have reverted all of them after reading what he added/deleted. Why was he so interested in "knocking out" the Jews' Biblical connections to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then inserting some connection to the long-gone and pathetic Samaritans? The contents of the article have gone through solid review. There are many facts on this page that are also discussed on other pages, and that is because they are important. How about if Hasdrubal explains more about his view/s of Judaism and Jewish history on the talk pages...we can all listen to what he has to say and see if it fits within any sort of known and accepted Jewish scholarship or if it's just quackery?. IZAK 11:24, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The Samaritans are neither pathetic, nor long gong. 654 (last year) of this ethnic group are left in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Most Sameritans families, by the way, converted throughout years to the islam. Sameritans who kept on to their traditions were persicuted over thousands of years by moslims in Palestine/Eretz Israel. gidonb 01:17, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Come now Gidon..."654", maybe it was "653" or "655"....gimme a break, what do they have to do with Judaism? See the section on Schisms among the Jews#Break-offs: Samaritans and Christians about this. IZAK 07:56, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maintaining consensus 

message: These are the two main branches of UK Orthodoxy. Can someone create an article for them?   
:Firstly: you're wrong. There are four main orthodox bodies: United Synagogue, the Federation of Synagogues, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and the Sefardi one (forgot the name). Please write the articles yourself if you come accross useful information! JFW | T@lk 20:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  United and Federation Synagogues 

message: Waldemar Haffkine is certainly notable enough to merit an article, but not nearly famous enough to belong in a short, illustrative list of famous Jews. However, as I earlier suggested, would people please comment out any even halfway-reasonable names they disagree with in that list instead of deleting, to make it easier to see what is being contested? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)
: Even though I feel this short list is too US-centric and does not have enough Jewsih doctors, I don't insist on his name being included. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 00:06, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Waldemar Haffkine

message: *Can any administrator make this page protected because there is some retarded vandalising this page. PMLF 06:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Retarded idioticly editing this page all the time (January 1st 2005)