Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shmuel Auerbach

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP. -Splash - tk 15:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shmuel Auerbach

Contested prod of a rabbi. No sources, no googles, possible lack of notability. >Radiant< 09:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• If some references can be found then keep, otherwise Delete--Greatestrowerever 09:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep- I can see him being notable if he is a leader of a politcal party? Thunderwing 09:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, fails WP:ATT, WP:BIO for politicians. It would be great if he actually was, but in point of fact his party (Degel HaTorah) has any seats at all in the Knesset only through an electoral alliance with the more prominent United Torah Judaism. Auerbach does not himself sit in the Knesset in either of the two seats assigned to DHT, nor is he listed in DHT's article as any manner of party leader or functionary. Being a junior "leader" of the thirteenth most important party in Israel doesn't strike me as significant. RGTraynor 13:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • RG: You are wrong on all counts: (1) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach is not a politician, he is a noted Haredi rabbi and posek ("decisor of Jewish law") (2) United Torah Judaism (UTJ) is not "one" party, it is an alliance between two separate parties: Agudat Israel (representing Israeli Hasidim) and Degel HaTorah (representing the "Lithuanian" Mitnagdim) (3) For the last election in Israel they agreed to be united under the "banner" of UTJ but split the six Knesset seats they attained between themselves, see United Torah Judaism#2006 unity. (4) The supreme policy-making bodies for both Degel HaTorah and for Agudat Israel are their individual "Council of Torah Sages" (Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah) and it is there (in Israel) that Rabbi Auerbach sits and "wields" power together with the other rabbis on the two councils. (5) None of the rabbis on the "Council/s of Torah Sages" ever sit in the Knesset, a job which is left to political functionaries (themselves also rabbis, but lacking in the religious/spiritual power of the "Council of Torah Sages" members.) (6) Rabbi Auerbach's notability is derived from the fact that he is regarded as one of the pre-eminent Torah sages of present-day Haredi Judaism, and has nothing to with how he is perceived in the world of Israeli politics. (7) Finally, my question to you is, when did you become an expert in Haredi rabbis? IZAK 05:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - abstaining from voting as I know nothing about Israeli politics, but if Degel HaTorah's correct in saying he's leader of a party with 3 elected representatives in the Knesset, he's probably notable enough to warrant a keep. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iridescenti (talk • contribs) 17:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

• Comment: If he actually is, a claim for which the article provides no source. A Google search of Shmuel Auerbach + Degel HaTorah turns up all of 28 hits, most of them Wikipedia and various mirrors [1] and almost all of the rest being blogs. The lead hit discussing Auerbach's role with the party is from Haaretz [2], an article from this January that states "Most prominent among these rabbis was the head of the Maalot Hatorah Yeshiva, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who is expected to be an important Degel Hatorah leader in another 10 years or so." (emphasis mine). None of the other sourced hits do anything more than identify Auerbach as belonging to the party. RGTraynor 18:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment - his page on Hebrew Wikipedia presumably says more & has better sources, if anyone can translate it. - Iridescenti (talk to me!) 18:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Not one whit more, from the looks of it, and apparently not so much. RGTraynor 19:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Keep as a politician assuming sourced back up his being head of the party.--but we'd need some evidence of that, since the article on Degel HaTorah mentions two other leaders, but not him. DGG 03:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • DGG: Let's get this straight, Rabbi Auerbach is not a politician. He is a spiritual leader of Haredi Judaism. IZAK 05:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. --   ⇒ bsnowball  10:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment As the article is written now, it certainly doesn't prove N. This Rabbi might be worthy of a better article but his work might also not be publicized on the internet, or maybe he is NN at this time? Nonetheless, the timing for an Afd might not be productive at this time since it is a Jewish holiday for the next week and some editors with more knowledge to comment or add info might not be logging in. --Shuki 22:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. The article is badly written and needs to be expanded, for it implies that Rabbi Auerbach's only claims to notability are the fact that he is the firstborn of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and that he is a prominent figure in the Degel HaTorah political party. Nonetheless, in addition to these, Rabbi Auerbach is a well-respected Rosh Yeshiva and posek. A simple WP: Google test would reveal his fame [3] , [4] , and [5], as well as the Hebrew wiki. This is probably an unfair afd at this time because anyone who knows anything about Rabbi Auerbach is busy celebrating the eight-day festival of Passover, and probably won't see this afd for another week. רח"ק | Talk | Contribs 05:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, there are more hits for "Shmuel Auerbach" than "Shmuel Aurbach", so perhaps that should be changed on the page. רח"ק | Talk | Contribs 07:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

• merge to dad - NYC JD (interrogatories) 06:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Huh? No need to rely on "dad" (is that a way to refer to a Gadol?) 'cause he is notable on his own merits. Cut the apron strings! IZAK 06:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep because he is one of the world's most important, notable, non-Hasidic rabbis alive, and much written about in the Haredi press, especially in Israel. The fact that there are relatively few "hits" on Google is meaningless in this case. There are enough articles that mention his name that would be brought up as this stub would be expanded with time. In future, it would be wise for any editors not familiar with Judaism, especially with the personalities of modern Haredi Judaism to desist from nominating topics they know nothing about for deletion. A better and more prudent course of action would be for them to post a request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism and ask editors over there first who may know more about the subject. IZAK 04:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that it's ridiculous to request that editors resist nominating Afds because they might not have knowledge of the subject. The nominated article screamed NN, OR, and what else and the Afd was perfectly valid. It is a good thing that people unfamiliar with the subject are comptrolling the vast amount of categories on WP, because otherwise, we'd have a lot of poorly written articles. --Shuki 18:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Shuki: It is definitely not "ridiculous" that "editors resist nominating Afds because they might not have knowledge of the subject" -- because just think of the consequences, anyone with no knowledge of a subject can flip to areas they know nothing about and decide that because an article is not "looking pretty" so it "deserves" to get zapped. That is sheer childishness and an invitation to turning Wikipedia into a free arcade game where anyone would be free to nominate the seeds of legitimate and serious work for oblivion and obliteration due to some delusionary "screamed NN, OR" appearance or whatnot. Any seasoned editor knows that tens of thousands of the best articles and biographies start/ed out as raw, unsourced, stubs and even remain/ed so for quite some time until more seasoned editors with more time and access to better sources add/ed to and improve/d the articles. It is not a "mitzvah" to be editorially trigger happy, especially if one is ignorant about the subject matter at hand. This should be obvious, but obviously some people still don't get it. IZAK 08:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
• Note: Here are ten citations from the web, among many more, for Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach that prove his importance to Israel's Haredi world (now also added as "External links" to the article): (1) Haaretz article: Draft deferrals for yeshiva students surpass 50,000 mark in 2006. ("Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who is expected to be an important Degel Hatorah leader in another 10 years or so") (2) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach noted in Yated Ne'eman: Opposition To Initiatives For Religious-Secular Dialogue and to the Idea Of a Covenant Stressing Common Values (3) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach and the "Torah Codes" on aish.com (4) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach's actions described in Intermountain Jewish News (5) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach leads major Orthodox charitable organization (6) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach bans the books of Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the "zoo rabbi" reported in Haaretz (7) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach sought for a blessing (Torah.org) (8) gaymiddleeast.com: Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach opposes Israeli gays (9) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach sought out for advice (shemayisrael.co.il) (10) Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach endorses ban on smoking. Thank you, IZAK 06:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per notability established by abundant sources found by IZAK. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 06:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per IZAK --Shirahadasha 06:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• definite keep dean of Shar Shomayim (the top yeshiva for Kabboloh) but living person so be careful Wolf2191 17:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per aformentioned reasons.--Yeshivish 04:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Izak's sources. In general I am strongly inclined to keep something that had been on the hebrew wikipedia (which has an extreme deletionist policy) for a long time (September 11, 2005). Jon513 10:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.