Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive index

message: I propose to archive everything above except the sections "Citations and Copyright Violations" and "Objection to refering Einstein ethnic origin as 'German -Jew'," which seem still active. Does anyone want to retain any other sections on the active talk page? --teb728 08:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  == Proposed archive == 

message: *Include. Not only was Einstein of Jewish descent, more significantly he involved himself in Zionist and other Jewish causes. --teb728 21:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you could find many people who would say so! :-) DAGwyn 03:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Jewish

message: Does anybody have such a strong objection to the current status quo (Inforbox Ethnicity=Jewish) that they can't live with it?  As a general policy I oppose to attaching ethnic labels to individuals, although in this particular case there are some good reasons for doing so (which I alluded to previously), but those reasons do not justify anything different from the status quo, except possibly removing that field from the Infobox altogether. — DAGwyn 19:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I oppose the poll for reasons stated before. Epson291 21:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you both for your comments. I offered the poll because already 42KB of this talk page had been devoted to the Ethnicity field without getting anywhere. (And it was still growing!) I thought that a poll would result in a conclusion (at the cost of a bit more verbiage). --teb728 23:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why not just settle on having Jewish as the only ethnicity? There really isn't a huge need to mention he is of German ethnicity when you consider he was born in Germany (Had he born let's say in, Britian, then menionting it would be more paramount of a concern).  Epson291 09:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I was surprised to see that his ethnicity wasn't even mentioned in the first paragraph. The fact is Einstein left Germany because he was a Jew. He gave many speeches in which he identified himself as a Jew and as a Zionist. He dedicated a book "to the Jews of Germany" and renounced his German citizenship. The fact that he's Jewish, needs to be mentioned in the opening paragraph. Lizrael 14:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose the poll

message: 3 weeks have passed since the poll (which I opposed to then and still do) begin, .Not much have changed and the poll dosn't seems active any longer, the status quo shuold stay as it is, i.e. : only Jewish at the ethnic entry.Reasons were give, very good ones, and the discussion shouldnt start over again.The poll results showd that only Schulz and TEB support the inclusion of "German" in the ethnic entry (one more didn't sign and so cant be counted, unless we want users to double voting).The others (5 voters) supported the exclusion of "German", few more opposed the poll .so, the case is closed.--Gilisa 19:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ==Ending the poll== 

message: ----
// I find this issue very strange. The very idea of a label "ethnicity", and no clear definition, is quite absurd. Maybe it has to do with the American obsession with "race" labels, and their self-definition as an immigrants' country, I don't know... Meanig it seems to be particularily American to me.
If you look at the article for N.Bohr, he is just Danish (label in box), but the text talks about jewish heritage.
I just wonder how humans who consider themselves "Jewish" and live in Germany today, and have not recently immigrated ( i.e. from the ex-Soviet Union ) AND are familiar with the subtleties of the (particularily American?) use of the label "ethnicity" would "classify" themselves. Perhaps one should do a poll, doing field research for clarification...
 
- And how they would have done at various times in pre-NS history ( concepts and "identities" aren't necessarily stable over time, esp. in pre-WWI- and pre-N.S. times "Jews" apparently generally wished to be assimilated and not-so-distinct from other Germans, which in turn is not a clear-cut either-or thing, but a whole spectrum of shades, that "assimilation"  )?
 
And how A.E. would have responded at various stages of his life, esp. before he had to flee the country...
- By the way, having a particular "ethn." identity, or such label affixed to you, is not the only reason to be persecuted, and was not the only reason to be killed in N.S. dictatorship. Fleeing is no aequivalent to cutting ties and hence doesn't prove a thing as such.
- To my mind what really matters most for identities is language ( your main and mother l., which you would use in dreams and memories and phantasies and emergency shouts), because you cannot think but in and through a particular language, and express a lot of your emotions through it. Next would be physical appearance, which is an objective fact and you will notice it every time you look into a mirror; and the whole complex of culture. So it is "mind and soul" (with lg. a clearly identifiable core element) first, then physique, then "all the ways of living and feeling and thinking" third, in that order. One-word labels are neither adaequate nor very helpful ( except for some political purposes...).
- A.E. was celebrated with great aplomp and a lot of (mainly, I think) goverment/tax money in 2005 in Germany, and certainly no-one would have thought of him other than "a German" ( who also happened to be a Jew, which in his times... etc. ). That doesn't establish "a truth" any more than anything you wrote above, it just shows that the whole issue is hopelessly confused and terms depend on points of view and cultural bias ( i.e. your own ! ) etc.
Bye 147.142.186.54 13:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment without no topic or signature on the "opposing the poll" section 

message: I hope this doesn’t trigger yet another round of fruitless discussion, but… How do other people feel about changing “German-born” to “German-Jewish-born”? Such a change would satisfy my concern that the first sentence be brief and defensible against additions of other labels such as Swiss and American. I previously proposed something similar, but Geeman objected for reasons I do not understand. Perhaps this is something we can agree on. --teb728 21:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking now about a new formulation which be something like a "German Jewish scientist" (I'm still not sure but in the next few days I will since I promised Schulz with a quick answer)which any one could interpret according to his/her understanding about ethnicity and etc (Stephan Schulz suggested that it would be "German scientist born to a Jewish family" (a formulation which I first asked him about)."German-Jewish born" isn't a very good definition for my understanding (and I can be wrong as my English is limited ).And any ways -any solution should be on the open paragraph only and should be widely accepted .--Gilisa 07:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  People can make there own judgments on ethnicity and nationality this way Epson291 07:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  == The first line (again) == 

message: The debate about Einstein's ethnic entry have last too long. A poll, which was first suggested by  TEB728 , is already ended with a clear results: 5-6  opposed mentioning Einstein as an ethnic German (Geeman is possibly the 6, but he is against any other decision than his suggestion about re-formulating the intro, asuggestion which under different circumstances than those I would support), 4 (3 actually , since it include Epson291 which already voted at the poll), including me, think that it was better if such a poll wouldn’t been done- (for many reasons, here is part of mine: facts are not for a democratic vote , the  German link of Einstein is truly already mentioned at least 3 times in the info box, a poll is an open invitation for hostile arguments and opinions against minorities and different ethnic groups and etc)  .only 2 voted for including Einstein as having both German and Jewish  ethnicities ,'the third' one shouldn’t be counted since : 1. And this is the only reason for which I didn’t count his/her voice (I don’t really need to explain, didn’t I?): he/she didn’t sign, counting his/her voice will allow for any other user which already signed to vote again and again (and any way, but less important, if we follow the Einstein article-only users which are active enough time to have the right for editing his article ) 2.And I didn’t used this reason for excluding his/her voice: arguments which are not to the point, and easily could sound as  provoking, manipulating and/or offensive, even tough not with bad intention, like that the Jews are not an ethnic group while the Germans do, and that Einstein didn’t truly was a Jew since he was only of a German of Jewish belief (but realy belived only in the God of Spinoza). Whether this kind of claims came from an ignorance about the Jewish people/ Jewish history/ethnic identities and etc , or whether they  came out of an agenda calling to Germanize any Jewish scientist (including Jewish scientist which born outside Germany but their parents primary language was German-as Michelson which born in Poland (and so did his parents) in a city that was under Prussian occupation or Szilard which born to a Jewish family in Hungary and etc) or just from a racist/ ante Semitic views(*)–I don’t know, nor does it make any difference –Wikipedia have its own quality standards and when someone giving explanations which are extremely  controversial / offensive/ without any evidential base to support it and etc- than his/her voice shouldn't be counted. Before you all attack me for saying so, let me to explain it with an example: if someone would claim that Einstein should be mentioned as only one of a two scientists team (i.e. him and mileva) which came up with the relativity – no matter how many users would vote in favor of such a bad idea, at any given poll, still it wouldn’t make such an argument for being more than a merely an extremely speculative bad statement / pseudo biography –and this would defiantly be bad for the Wikipedia quality standards. For conclusions: the debate have already last  too long and already having with results-Einstein entry status quo will remain the same as it is: i.e. only Jewish. Every comment on the talk page that have to do with it would be archived soon.Case closed.Best--Gilisa 19:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  == Archived all the Einstein ethnic entry discussions ==