Talk:Michael Dov Weissmandl

message: It is true that Rabbi Weissmandl's actions both spawned controversy (e.g. the refusal of Saly Mayer of the JDC to work with him) and were misinterpreted by others (e.g. Professor Bauer's comment expressing surprise that an Orthodox Jew would suggest bombing Auschwitz railroad lines). But that's no reason to question the neutrality of this article. Instead, let's write up the different takes on Rabbi Weissmandl's activities within the article itself. Don't forget the letter sent to him by Nathan Schwalb, who wrote that the Jews had to pay for the right to settle the Land of Israel with blood, implying that the religious Jews of Europe should die while Zionists should be rescued and sent to Israel. Weissmandl quotes this letter from memory in his book. Since the letter is not extant, it's his word against the Zionist fellow's. But as others testify, Weissmandl did have a tremendous memory... Yoninah 14:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why I removed POV tag

message: Zero0000, I've removed the following text from the page:
Weissmandl's own summary of the charges is his Ten Questions to the Zionists. Bauer refutes many of these claims.
because jewsagainstzionism is an unreliable source, and so it cannot be used on Wikipedia. I have no trouble with the content itself, if you can find reliable sources for it. Jayjg (talk) 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I dispute that this web site is unreliable for material like this.  It is a political polemic site and can be used a source for what that polemic is.  Weissmandl is not a third-party here, he was  in the same community that this site represents.  This document is cited not as a source of facts but as a source for what Weissmandl claimed.  So far I have not seen any reasonable argument that this site should be blacklisted altogether.  --Zerotalk 23:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes extremist sites present truthful content and mainstream and politically correct historians are in fact apologists for a regime or a group. Rabbi Weissmandl's Ten Questions raises deeply troubling and painful issues, and to many people the questions are very irritating. Still, apparently, the Ten Questions is authentic - even if it was found on an unreliable Web site. It is part of Rabbi Weissmandl's historical record and it is inappropriate to censor that. It is, however, appropriate to question the authenticity of the referencing site. I plan to look up the Ten Questions for posting on the main page along with the also controversial Shwalb letter. Emesz 21:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliable sources 

message: We have a minor dispute over writing "Weissmandl's accusations against the Jewish organizations" (the original wording I used when I started the article) versus "Weissmandl's accusations against the Zionist organizations".  I'll explain my choice of words.  The particular organizations Weissmandl accused were the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Congress, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint).  The first two are obvious Zionist, but the Joint was not Zionist (at least, not officially).  So saying "Zionist organizations" is not quite right.  I propose to write "Jewish organizations" in this place, but to expand the earlier paragraph where this is mentioned to name the three organizations.  Any objections?  --Zerotalk 12:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggest perhaps "Jewish/Zionist organizations and leaders" Emesz 21:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to write a sentence? 

message: Zero0000 says that he removed "highly non-encyclopedic edits" because this "is not a eulogy!” Please tell me what's unencyclopedic about what was written. If you think that parts of it are unencyclopedic; I can understand that. So be so kind and leave what to you is considered enyclopedic. Are mediocre or lowly unencyclopedic edits acceptable? What consists a eulogy? Is what is said at a eulogy forbidden to Wikipedia?
Also reversions need to be identified as reversions; otherwise they are considered edits. Reversions disguised as edits or edits disguised as reversions is pure vandalism. Itzse 17:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to not explain it more.  You simply can't write things like "legendary heroic brilliant Rabbi" and "utmost devotion" in your own voice.  Those are the words of a eulogy and not of an encyclopedia article.  WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:CITE are all violated. You have to use neutral language and you have to give a source for your claims.  It is ok to quote some named person as saying he was brilliant and devoted but it should be a quote from someone notable and credible (eg, something said at his death by his student would not be very interesting because students always say such things of their rabbis at their deaths).  You also put too much detail into the introduction rather than its proper place in the article. --Zerotalk 23:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enyclopedic not a eulogy! 

message: Emesz, you're adding large amounts of material without attributing it to a reliable source. Please see our policy on sourcing, Wikipedia:Attribution, which says that anything challenged or likely to be challenged must have a reliable, published source or it may be removed, and the sources have to be in the form of inline citations to be of any use. That is, you must say after the sentence where you got it from, including page numbers if it's a book.
Also, please review our WP:3RR policy, which says you may not revert more than three times in 24 hours; any undoing of another editor's work counts as a revert. If you violate 3RR, you may be reported and blocked from editing. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 02:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Moved from Main page Itzse 18:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Weissmandel or Weismandel

message: What does history mean in this case?  History of what?  It should be made clearer, for me and for people reading the article.  Thanks, Yodaat 15:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References/History 

message: I did some reorganizing and made a guess (only!) about the 2 redundant paragraphs that I combined on the new community.
For a feature article, I'd suggest  (1) more clarity and sourcing for the key Holocaust narrative, (2) photos or other images to make it look more interesting?, (3) some authoritative comments about, maybe selected quotes from his books. His family and legacy? HG 21:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  suggested improvements 

message: It is almost like somebody from Machon Meir wrote this. There is *no* mentioning of his Ten Questions to the Zionists, and *no* mentioning of his strong opposition to the Zionist state. This must be fixed. --Rabbeinu 12:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see the section "Unreliable sources" on this page.  I've been meaning to return to this issue but didn't find the time.  --Zerotalk 15:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ten Questions? Criticism of Zionism?

message: :For instance, the implication that the Nazis were amenable to compromise by setting Jews free, on condition they do not go to Palestine, is pure nonsense. Does the author of this article understand what the Holocaust was all about? The Nazis were not amenable to allowing Jews to flee to anywhere, neither Palestine nor anywhere else. The Jews were marked for death. Full stop.
:I also find the alleged accusation of Weissmandl that Zionist organizations refused to help Jews unless they went to Palestine a little perplexing, given that the leader of the Working Group organization that Weissmandl himself worked for, Gisi Fleischmann, was herself a Zionist leader. In fact, she founded the Bratislava branch of the Women's Zionist Organization. 
:http://www.adl.org/education/dimensions_18_2/rescuers.asp
:A similar figure was the Zionist leader Joel Brand, as well as his wife Hansi, who tried to save Jews from death no matter their destination. Let's also not forget Chanah Senesh. 
:The constraint of the Jewish Agency in Palestine itself was that by 1944 the British Mandate authorities were no longer allowing Jewish refugees to enter Palestine. The British also rejected outright the "blood for goods" proposal, as it would have given a major boost to the German war effort.
:It is also interesting to note that the rescue train of the much-maligned Rudolf Kastner, whose final destination was Switzerland, carried a number of key rabbis from the anti-Zionist Hassidic Satmar group, including its leader Rabbi Teitelbaum. I also find it interesting that it was Kastner who arranged for the safe passage of Weissmandl from Bratislava to Switzerland, a fact that seems to undermine Weissmandl's main accusation against the Jewish Agency, seeing as Weissmandl was not a Zionist and did not end up in Palestine.
:
:—Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 19:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article contains flagrant falsehoods 

message: Weissmandl's bribes delayed the deportation of Slovakian Jewry for 2 years; they did not stop it completely. In the end, both he and everyone else were deported. Therefore I reverted the misleading lead language, "who became known for helping to save the Jews of Slovakia" back to "who became known for his efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia."
Re: the quotes from Yehuda Bauer: Bauer looks like a chameleon figure here. First he says the bribes were ineffective, then he says they were effective. This paragraph needs to be re-written so it doesn't look like Bauer is contradicting himself.
I also downgraded the rating on this page from B to C. The whole treatment of Weissmandl's work during the war is sketchy and unbalanced. Yoninah (talk) 09:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your change to the lead, and also that Berkshires' treatment of Bauer is problematic.  Historians are allowed (in fact required!) to change their minds when extra evidence or deeper analysis leads them to conclude that they were wrong before.  At the moment it says that Bauer in 1996 said something, but "Bauer himself writes" something different in 1981.  This is not good presentation.  If it is worth mentioning his earlier opinion at all, the correct way is to say that in 1981 he believed one thing but by 1996 he had changed his mind.  As far as I know, his opinion remains that of 1996, namely that he is skeptical that any substantial delay of the transportations was due to the bribes.  Because of Bauer's eminent standing in this corner of history, we should not state as a fact that the bribes delayed the transports.  We should only say that Weissmandl believed it and some but not all historians support him.  Zerotalk 13:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

text: What you are getting into here is original research.  We can discuss such things on talk pages, but in the article we can't construct our own case by commenting on the sources.  See WP:SYNTH.  We can only report what the sources say. There is no question that a leading Holocaust historian like Bauer is a reliable source by Wikipedia standards. Zerotalk 00:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

text: The way you connected two writings of Bauer in the wrong order in the article was synthesis and needs to be fixed.  As for Vrba, if his comments are about Bauer then they belong on Yehudah Bauer (if anywhere) and not here. If Vrba wrote things about Weissmandl related to Vrba's personal experiences, that would be a different matter. Zerotalk 06:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Berkshires: As Zero stated, it's not our job to decide which historian is more reliable. Our job on Wikipedia is just to quote the sources — even if they disagree — and let the reader decide. I shorted and summarized the paragraph in question accordingly. Yoninah (talk) 10:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Incidentally Bauer (1996) does mention his earlier position.  He says (p99): "Weissmandel not only has his dates mixed up; he also ignores the last two trains completely.  Most of the historians who have commented on this affair until now, including myself, have fallen into the trap of believing Weissmandel."  He makes this comment after many pages of examining the evidence. So I disagree with Berkshires' assessment of the situation.  Bauer's position is more complex than reported in the article, I will summarise it soon. Zerotalk 14:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Effort or success?

message: From all the discussion here and the research I have done, it seems that Bauer has actually “3” positions, in 1981 that the bribes where successful in causing the germens to halt the deportations, in 1996 it seems that his position is that bribing had little effect, and was just a coincident.., in 2002 (page 179-180) it seems that his position is  the bribes where successful, but by changing the Slovakia’s position. I have made some corrections in the article to accurately reflects Bauer’s position.
It is difficult to conclude what Bauer’s position really is, since he doesn’t cite in each case the arguments he himself made. I would say that kranzler’s position has been much more consistent.<Berkshires (talk) 00:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry if I misjudge you, but it seems to me that you haven't read Bauer's 1996 book.  In there he says clearly that the bribes of Slovak officials had an effect (just not the bribing of Wisliceny), though the extent of the effect cannot be determined.  I can't see any great incompatibility between his detailed account in 1996 and his one-paragraph summary in 2001.  Bauer does not have 3 positions, and you are quite wrong that he doesn't cite his previous work.  His position has evolved over time according to his research; you see that as inconsistency but I see it as integrity.  A historian prepared to admit they were wrong is much to be preferred over one who sticks to a position regardless. Zerotalk 02:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bauers 3 positions ? 

message: Although Rabbi Weissmandl sounds like a remarkable man how could he publish a book in 1958 if he died in 1957? I don't know anything about Rabbi Weissmandl and don't know where to find the correct dates of these events.74.241.10.9 (talk) 08:51, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This page seems to explain the matter of Kikayon D'Yonah, but I'm not sure it is citable. Zerotalk 09:17, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What did he invent? I have the book of Fuchs which your source is a very brief review of, but as far as I can see the only inventions it mentions are the stories he made up to fool the Nazis. That doesn't make him an inventor, and without a proper source for this it has to go. I also object to "discovered codes in the Biblical text" which seems to say in Wikipedia's voice that these "codes" are a genuine phenomenon. I'm sure you know that this is a fringe claim. It should be mentioned that he revived the idea of skipping letters which had previously had only a tiny following, but only things that actually exist can be "discovered". Zerotalk 09:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: All Fuchs provides us with is: "At times he worked on various inventions and intended to support himself from his inventions and be independent." (The Unheeded Cry, pg. 21). I don't understand your objection to the codes being presented as a "genuine phenomenon". Of course they exist, as MDW in his genius demonstrated, but he did not claim clairvoyance or prophesy of the modern day Bible Codes proponents, a possible violation of Biblical law itself! Have you not seen the image of the menorah with each of the five book of Moses? Take the following as another example:
Once, in the 1950's, I visited him at his Mt. Kisco NY community in the month of Adar, a short time before Purim. He asked me, "Did I ever tell you how many letters there are in the Book of Esther?" "No," I replied; "I have no idea." "Well, I know," he continued. "There are 12,196 letters in it altogether." "That's incredible," I responded. "But what do we do with this information?" "...Is there significance to this number?" He smiled. "Bring me a Chumash" he said. I brought one to him, whereupon he told me: "Starting from the first instance of the letter alef, if you count an interval equal to the number of letters in Megilat Esther—12,196 — you arrive at a letter Samekh. If you continue another 12,196 letters you get to a letter tof; and if you keep going for another 12,196 you land on a letter Resh. And, of course, alef-samech-tof-reish spells Esther! Is this not amazing?" "It certainly is," I answered enthusiastically. And then I added with a grin, "but is there a connection to Mordechai too?" He looked crestfallen. "I don't know. Yet. Try me again next year." The next Adar I made sure to visit Rabbi Weissmandl again. "What about Mordechai?" I asked. "I also found a hint to Mordechai," he announced. "Our Sages pointed out that there is a hint to Mordechai in the Torah, where the verse states, 'You shall take the finest fragrances: 'mor dror…' [myrrh]." ['Mor dror' has the same first two syllables as 'Mordechai,' and its Aramaic translation by Onkeles, 'mira dichya,' has the same consonants in the same order as 'Mordechai.' The verse is Exodus 30:23, which is in the Torah portion that in most years is read in the week in which Purim occurs! He continued: "Now, if from the letter mem in mor dror in that verse you count forward the number of letters in the Megilah, you come to a reish. And if you keep counting successively 12,196 letters you will get a Dalet and then a Kaph and then a Yodh – spelling out Mordechai! This is truly even more amazing."  --- Best, Chesdovi (talk) 15:05, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

text: Thank you for pointing out the Editor's Note which I had not seen.... so not so amazing after all. But how bizarre that there is a difference of 1,298 letters in various programs for the Book of Esther which I would have thought would have been uniform considering the Hebrew printed text we use today, as I believe is the case for the Pentateuch. How should we then word his work in this field? The Chabad article states "Today he is best known for his pioneering work on Torah Codes in an era before computers." On aside, what is your take on the small letters in the sons of Haman which correspond to the Hebrew year 5707? Chesdovi (talk) 21:08, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   This article may interest you. I haven't checked it. I was also surprised at such a large variation in the length of Esther. Usually the lengths of biblical books in different editions differ by only a few letters. Since all of the text once varied a lot (proved by the Dead Sea Scrolls), perhaps the explanation is that Esther was not considered in such high regard so it wasn't subject to the same degree of scrutiny and standardization. Zerotalk 02:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

text:   Here you can find a talk on Weissmandl by Dr. David Kranzler (who wrote a book on Shlomo Schonfeld). At about point 2:20 he says "he was a [unclear] genius, he was working on a perpertual motion machine in England". It's interesting but it doesn't change my mind about "inventor". Zerotalk 06:33, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Goodness, how did you stumble across that! I think he said "a multifaceted genius, a mechanical genius"... I actually happened to speak to his nephew recently and he also was unable to provide more information on this matter Chesdovi (talk) 20:48, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

text: Kranzler writes "Weissmandl was also fascinated by physics and mechanics and worked on a perpetual motion machine and other inventions during his stays in Britain", but this is cited to an interview with Schonfeld's son. Chesdovi (talk) 20:57, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: , yes I agree with your understanding of those words. I saw that video when it first came out many years ago. Later I asked a guy who was writing a book on Weissmandl (which never seems to have appeared) about this and he replied that he hadn't heard the perpetual motion claim and doubted it was true. Zerotalk 01:02, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  inventor, Torah codes