Talk:Who is a Jew?/Archive 2

message: I just read quite an interesting article in the Seattle Weekly, which seems to have some bearing on this topic, because it definitely touches in several respects on situations where U.S. states have had to determine who is considered a Jew. This is particularly an issue in the prison systems. George Howland Jr., The 'Jewish' Con, Seattle Weekly, March 1, 2006. I'm not sure exactly what might be worth bringing into our article, but I think possibly something should be. - Jmabel | Talk 03:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is an interesting article, but I can't see how it could fit here. What it is really about is separation-of-church-and-state issues in the US; i.e., the state has very limited power to rule on a religion, and though this is a good thing, it invites fraud. This is also a fairly recent development. Until fairly recently, accomodations for religion in the US military were minimal. If an observant Jew or Muslim did not want to eat pork, or was worried that their meat was not Kosher or Halal, they had two choices: eat it or not. -- Cecropia 20:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Might a paragraph on this type of thing be a useful addition to the paragraph on liberal societies and the possibility of a person misrepresenting him- or herself? - Jmabel | Talk 19:57, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting article I just read 

message: can we get a standardization on this?ThuranX 03:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would favour Beth din. The vowel is a tzereh, but most people pronounce it short. The th is a good choice for a tav without a dagesh. JFW | T@lk 03:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as the vowel, you favor popular usage (though not necessarily common tradition), whereas you favor th for tav, which is perhaps academically preferable but is far from being a common pronunciation. Why? (Perhaps I misunderstand your position.) HKT 18:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would concur with HKT regarding the reasoning for the split, I.E. - Beit is common pronounciation, esp. in America, whereas Beth might be more a academically proper solution. it might be best to find a satisfactory consensus pronounciation guide. Perhaps the Soncino press books might contain a guide most folks can agree upon? I've got a copy, my conservative cousins have copies, and I've seen Soncino in orthodox hoomes too. Just a thought.ThuranX 04:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, I'm inconsistent, but so is Google: 574,000 for "beth din" vs 274,000 for "beit din". JFW | T@lk 03:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beit Din/Beth Din 

message: I dispute the neutrality of the article "Who is a Jew?"!
This article is clearly written from a denominational Orthodox perspective, biased towards other traditions such as Conservative, Reform and Reconstructive Judaism.
The article says:"Sadly, people like reform Jews and conservative Jews rarely if ever learn Jewish law and have no idea the stuff they are taught is made up by people who also have no knowledge of Jewish law." 
This is obviously not appropriate for Wikipedia! [unsigned comment by Xerxes78]
:I agree, that item should be out, it is both unencylopedic to say "sadly," and makes a significant unsupported and unsourced claim about a very large group of people. -- Cecropia 00:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Words like "Sadly" are clearly making a judgement, and are as such non-neutral. That should be out. Having just read the article (and as a non-jew who has no particular opinon at all on the subject), I get the opinion that it's fairly neutral overall. However I do agree with Jdcooper's opinion above: I got the feeling that there's a lot of repetition/redundancy. The text could be structured better. (I'm also somewhat disappointed with the arrogant reply said user got. Subject matter and presentation are two completely different things.) --BluePlatypus 00:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was most disappointed that, considering the large numbers of editors who are clearly interested in this article, i received just one response. Having said that, the article is rich in information, and as was pointed out to me has received a lot of work. As you said, it is just presentation, maybe a peer review could be the way to proceed? Jdcooper 15:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, quite arguably Christianity can be viewed as a Jewish heresy, but that doesn't mean that the Gentiles who adopted the religion thereby became (ethnic) Jews. - Jmabel | Talk 00:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is not a conversion soapbox for proselytizing the infidels, 'dr' dale. Using it as such is objectionable POV pushing. It is absolutely neutral to NOT acknowledge Christian extremist demands to be seen as Jews, especially since most of christianity goes back to romans nad visigoth conversions and so on, and NOT converted jews. You might as well go to the islam page and demand that that article include that all muslims are christians.  Good luck there. ThuranX 02:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Please refrain from ridiculously provcative commentaries like you used above. It's chidlish and detracts from the overall discussion. You may have noticed there were no replies after your comment was made. I know I chose to ignore you for a while, since agitation ws clearly a part of your agenda. Please focus on the salient issues, and not on cheap shots designed to irritate other editors. You'll find you catach more flies with honey, than with vinegar. ThuranX 16:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I dispute the neutrality! 

message: This sentence is incorrect --
"The Nazis, for example, ruled that anyone with one Jewish grandparent was either a Jew or a Mischling, and therefore subject to persecution (see Nuremberg Laws)."
In fact, the Nazi's ruled that anyone with THREE Jewish grandparents (or two Jewish grandparents, if practicing) was considered Jewish. This is from my professor, Dr. Thomas Childers, who had a PhD in history from Harvard and is a specialist on Nazi Germany and World War II. I'm currently working on finding a book which states this fact outright.
Wikipedia seriously needs to improve its quality!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.91.128.44 (talk • contribs) 02:40, 26 March 2006
: Did you actually go and see the Nuremberg Laws article? It makes it pretty clear: A "Jew" in their definition was someone with three or four Jewish grandparents, as you say. But it only took one to be considered a "Mischling" (mixed-race). Both groups were subject to persecution. Since the article explicitly says "Jew or a Mischling", it is correct. --BluePlatypus 01:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced correction 

message: "A third controversy concerns those who no longer consider themselves Jewish because they no longer practice Judaism, do not accept or follow Halakha, or now adhere to another religion. Nonetheless, all Jewish denominations would still consider such a person to be a Jew if he otherwise met their definitions."
Really? So someone who becomes a Christian is still considered Jewish by all Jewish denominations? Light Orlanu Brecker 06:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All of Orthodoxy would consider such a person Jewish. And what you describe as "a 'just-in-case' conversion process" is not that at all. If someone is known to possess matrilineal descent, he/she wouldn't require any "process" at all. However, it is considered proper to immerse in a mikvah as part of a repentance process. Also, IIRC, "hatafas dam bris" is only required where a male never underwent that ritual aspect of circumcision (but I'm not sure - perhaps you are correct about this point. Nevertheless, it certainly wouldn't be done as part of a conversion process; if this is done as part of a repentance process, it wouldn't be considered necessary, only proper). HKT 18:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I realise that all of Orthodoxy would consider that person Jewish.  My point was that according to some Reform doctrines with regard to whether a person has been raised Jewish, it is possible for a person considered Jewish by the Orthodox to be considered not Jewish by the Reforms, absent formal conversion.  What I meant by "just-in-case conversion process" is that essentially, for those of us who were not raised Jewish, but are Halakhically Jewish, the process of Teshuvah we're encouraged to go through and making up for ritual hurdles we did not pass early in life (as I said, where applicable) can be supervised by a beis din, and often generally follows the formal conversion process quite closely.  This is especially true if such a BT wishes to marry. Mluther 20:00, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed Section tag 

message: From "Perspectives - Within the Jewish Community" (placed by an anon):
:Ultimately, according to Halakha, a Jew is anyone who has the yoke of Torah. That yoke is acquired in two ways; either by being born of a woman who already has the yoke, or by taking on the yoke voluntarily, i.e. conversion. It is for this reason a baby donated as an egg or as an embryo, by a non-Jewish woman, is birthed by a Jewish woman as a Jew and does not require conversion. This clarification dispels the idea that Jewishness is genetic or ethnic. It has its basis in Torah. Therefore it is impossible to reject Torah and continue to define one as a Jew. [my emphasis]
Excuse me, that is sick and though I am not religiously qualified to say it, seems to me to approach blasphemy. Can we back that up with reserch, and if we can, now we have learned sages deciding that Torah specifices that the Biblically-unknown and unnatural medical practice of egg- or fetus-implantation makes the baby automatically Jewish, even if the natural mother was not? Then this is used as "proof" that Jewishness is not "genetic or ethnic." I'm removing this portion without direct attribution. -- Cecropia 20:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On second reading, I removed the entire paragraph. No citation for any of it, and the conclusion that "Therefore it is impossible to reject Torah and continue to define one as a Jew" makes every non-practicing Jew a heathen. -- Cecropia 20:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, viewpoints have in fact been published by halakhic scholars arguing that Jewishness is established by being born from the womb of a Jewish woman as distinct from having the genes of a Jewish woman where a distinction between the two exists, and have suggested implications for surrogacy etc. I wouldn't think it encyclopedic either to draw sweeping conclusions from the somewhat techical arguments behind these perspectives, nor to characterize them as "sick" etc. Best, --Shirahadasha 04:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eggs and yolks 

message: It looks like there is quite a lot of duplicate content in the article; the halakhic definitions and Reform and Orthodox positions seem to be stated and restated many times, for example. I suggest reorganizing the article by points of contention:
# Mixed Parentage debate
##Religious positions
###Reform
###Conservative
###Orthodox
###etc.
##Secular positions
###...
# Conversions debate
##...
# Life circumstances debate
##...
Thoughts?
--CommonGround 21:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: it makes more sense to me to order "Religious posistions" orthodox, conservative reform.  Moving from the most convervative postions to the most liberal.  ie every step adding who is considered a jew according to some opinion, not excluding people from being jews.  Jon513 13:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restructuring the article 

message: I think we really ought to add a section representing the "sincerity of belief" school of thought. This is the standard which the U.S goverment follows with regard to religion. Moreover, it is the standard that is most often applied in the secular world. Hazel Rah 03:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about the appropriateness of that, because it has no place in most Jewish traditions, and who is qualified to judge sincerity? In the secular world ordinary people being introduced to someone in a context where they would know the person is supposed to be a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Baptist, or whatever, would not worry about the person's sincerity of belief. The U.S. Government has very little power to determine sincerity of belief, largely because the separation of church and state doctrine doesn't empower the government to decide whose religious expression is sincere and whose isn't except in rare cases. There was recently an article which described prisons in which apparently non-Jewish prisoners (by most religious or secular standards) were claiming to be Jewish, thereby receiving Kosher meals and the ability to attend worship together, with some very odd outcomes (especially since some white supremicists formed "Jewish" congregations); but when prison officials used a knowledgeable rabbi who specialized in these things to decide who was a Jew and who was not, it was more often than not knocked down in court. And, to be honest, I think the government has broad latitude to regulate prisoner's behavior and rights, but no power to determine the sincerity of one's religious beliefs. -- Cecropia 04:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  As for in Jewish religion, as far as I can tell that's basically the standard used by Humanistic Judaism althouth they don't use that exact phrasing. You can check on their website. I never mentioned anything about who is qualified to judge sincerity of belief. You brought that up. But my point is that in the secular world, both among jews and non-jews, most take the a person's claim to jewishness at face value as long as they think the person is being sincere. Hazel Rah 23:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's covered in the "In liberal secular societies" section. I'm not really sure what the "sincerity of belief" school thinks or how organized it is. I know you didn't mention "who is qualified to judge sincerity of belief" but this is an article about "Who is a Jew?" so the question of judging a person's sincerity is implicit. -- Cecropia 02:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sincerity of Belief

message: I removed this, posted by an anon:
:Typically, Jews who denied their racial heritage during the Second World War ([WW2]) were expulsed from France and settled in Somerset, in the south of England. For fear of further persecution, they continued to deny their heritage and any mention of their past was strictly taboo, especially to the next generation. This created a generation of mis-informed youth that remain ignorant to their past, however many clues exist, the most obvious of which are in the lexicographers' historical database of surnames, which includes Rotherman, Schluter, and Goldschmidt as the most common in the period 1943-1952.
This is going to require some direct citation. I can't find this on Google and it doesn't sound, ummm, Kosher. During WWII France expelled Jews who denied they were Jews to England? A country they were technically at war with? How? And the fate of Jews, denied or not, in France during WWII was not to get to go to England. -- Cecropia 16:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  French Jews in Somerset? 

message: Modern genetics prove beyond any doubt that being Jewish is an ethnicity. If you have Taysachs, you already know this. Your religion may be a matter of choice but not your ethnicity. For example, General Wesley Clark is of Jewish origin as his father was ethnically a Jew. 
This is not to deny others who identify themselves as Jewish by virtue of conversion, self-identification, or buying lox at the corner deli (in some cases these folks speak more Yiddish and know more about Judaism than most Americans Jewish by ethnicity only). -- 68.127.168.113 01:10, 13 May 2006
:So if I speak Latin and carry a scepter, that makes me the pope? --Eliyak 05:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please show me the scientific study that demonstrates how converting to Judaism changes people's genes. What exactly is the biological mechanism that makes this occur? --Shirahadasha 23:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Jew is a Jew is a Jew! 

message: Has a move to Jewish identity been discussed before?
Borisblue 22:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure you didn't intend this but do you understand that you are suggesting that the name of the religion should be changed to one that observant Jews would be forbidden to speak or write? But we are also getting off topic: the point here, to reverse Karl Marx, is not to change the world but to describe and explain it. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unencyclopedic title

message: This article lacks a certain amount of accuracy when it makes generalizations like, "conservative Judaism says" or, "orthodox Rabbis say". A little cleaning up will clarify it and make it a little more accurate.
:can you be more specific? Jon513 12:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Generalizations / neutrality and accuracy 

message: Why is this article titled like a question?  It shouldn't be, see WP:MOS.
Secondly, how is this different, including in principle from the the article Jew? — Dunc|☺ 17:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The title is a translation of "Mihu Yehudi?", the classic formulation of this question.  The title has been disputed several times and discuss at length. It is a strong consensus that the title is correct.  This article addresses one of many issues related to Jews, as such it can be said to be a subarticle of it (linked with a  template) which is standard wikipedia guideline for such issues.  Jon513 18:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions 

message: My dad used to say that a definition he had heard in Czechoslovakia was that 'a Jew is somebody about whom people say he is a Jew'.  I must agree that this is the very best definition in historical terms and legal terms.  It was used (and still is) to orchestrate and administer persecution or privileges and recognition as circumstances vary.
Personally I dislike all labels, especially ethnic ones, and find quite disturbing that in the US I had to prove my non-Aryan ancestry to gain some State contract privileges.  Anytime your ethnic background comes into play, things are not quite right. 70.112.50.86 17:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, such a definition, in America, is often viewed as a highly bigoted one. Here, your father's standard is akin to the 'one drop' theory of who is 'black' and thus 'not-white', wherein, any ancestor, no matter how far back, who was 'not white' by the judging person's standards, negates the subject's identity of 'white', in exchange for one of 'colored', or more often, 'black'. It's a highly racist attitude which is fortunately passing from our culture, but still remains in some traditionalist mindsets in, or from, the South. (it occurs elsewhere, but I've actually lived it in the south, so I'm saying it's still there.). ThuranX 21:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A community definition 

message: There is a very odd sentence in the first paragraph. It simply says "Kyle, however, is not a Jew"?
Could this be deleted as it seems to bear no relation to the rest of the article?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blissfullyeccentric (talk • contribs) Pjacobi 12:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Pjacobi 12:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops, missed that in my revert. Hard to catch all the vandalism. ThuranX 20:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The very first paragraph. 

message: Here is a suggestion I have made in SlimVirgin's talk page:
"Might it not be best if Wikipedia simply refrained from attaching the label "Jew" or "Jewish" to any individuals? There are just too many explosive cans of worms attached, and, besides, there is the problem of meaning: there are different sources making different yes-or-no statements, but nobody can agree on what the actual statement ("X is a Jew" or "Y is from a Jewish family") actually mean!
When the information is relevant, it can almost always be rephrased in a proper way. Say: "Spinoza was raised in the Jewish religion, from which he was later excommunicated" or (in the relevant section) "Wittgenstein's siblings were in danger of being classified as Jews by the Nazis" or "Wittgenstein, like Wolfgang Pauli, would not be Jewish under Jewish law" (though that would seem to me to be an odd and slightly irrelevant statement to make in a biographical page!) or "Akiva Rubinstein's early life was marked by his strict religious upbringing" or "Max Born's grandmother's delicious kugel greatly helped his brain development, even though he was later to become a Quaker."
(It seems that the cases in which the information is relevant become quite clear this way.)
The standard work-arounds ("X was of the Jewish faith", "X was of Jewish origins") should probably be strongly discouraged, especially when used as definitions; they are awkward precisely because they are attempts at saying something absolute and seemingly transcendental in the guise of nuanced statements of fact.
As for the categories - well, perhaps it is time to propose the whole lot of them for deletion again?"
See the replies and more under User_talk:SlimVirgin#Tagging. 
Also: saying that "Jew" is a tag not just for a religion, but also for an "ethnic background" amounts to building a Troyan horse. There is such a thing as broadly defined ethnic groups: the Igbo, for example. There was also the habit of referring to immigrants from Italy or the Pale as "ethnics". There are also some very broad categories of language, class and religious affiliation that are very generally true of some first-generation Americans, though they are rarely precise enough to warrant a yes-or-no label. (These categories got homogeneised and fixed in the collective imagination by The Godfather and Woody Allen movies; of course, these are theatrical impressions that bear little relation to most actual individuals from the immigrant generation.)
What we have here is something quite different. We have a yes-or-no label, determined almost exclusively by lines of descent, and unaffected by the individual's opinions, beliefs, or the actual familial background in which he or she grew up. This label is taken by many to be extremely rich in meaning, having many associations that may not belong to the said person at all. It is also worthless as a sociological tool - indeed, it is grossly misleading.
As for categories - well! If we have Jewish anything (other than Jewish religious figures, say) will we have Jewish spies, or Jewish members of the Soviet secret police around 1920? The lists circulated by antisemites on this latter category, by the way, are large and by true and verifiable. The evil resides in such categorisation itself. We ought to be consistent, though, and have all such possible categories or no "X is a Jew" categories at all. (I would prefer the latter solution.) Bellbird 13:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The examples Jewish spies and Jewish members of the Soviet secret police around 1920 are complete strawmen. Nor do we have Ethnic Chinese criminals nor Lutheran axe-murderers. These are inappropriate on the face of it. But—I've said this elsewhere, but the discussion seems to keep being re-opened on various pages—as a secular Jew and a committed diasporist, I feel like Bellbird's proposals amount to an effort to erase my ethnicity and culture from Wikipedia. Woody Allen, John Zorn, Philip Roth, or the late Gilda Radner, for example, do not just happen to be from a Jewish background. That cultural background heavily influences and informs their work. - Jmabel | Talk 01:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No tagging at all? 

message: Could someone please figure out where the bottom part of the article went and restore it? --Ornil 22:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed ThuranX 01:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article appears to be cut off