Talk:Jew/Archive 15

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Contents

publication

This is a very good article and it should be published. -- Zondor 08:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The article should be changed to "Jewish People" not "Jew", which is derogatory64.121.37.90 06:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


"Jew" is a perfectly legitimate word. Blastfromthepast 05:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


It's censorship and completely ridiculous to limit the ability to change the wikkipedia " JEW " page. Look up the "Muslim" page. Is it restricted? Of course not. How this reminds me of the google search. Search for "Jew" on google, and google tells you you've been bad. Try "Nigger" and it does no such thing. Apparently Jews are untouchables in society now. You can't criticize anything they do or say or you've been a bad anti-semite. And another thing. What is with jews calling arabs anti-semites? arabs are semites.. wtf? anyone want to argue with me? nischt@gmail.com

google does no such thing --GarethLewin 23:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Anti-semite is a word that has been overused and as a product of this, become inaccurate and oft misused. People of Aramaic descent (certainly Arabs) are also semitic as much as the Jews are. Ideally, a new word should be coined for anti-Jewish behaviour (humorous in fact that the latin word anti does not mean against but rather instead of). Unfortunately, words this popular aren't often changed to be politically or religiously correct. Unless it's changed, anti-semitical will continue to refer exclusively to people and actions towards the Jewish people, which is unfortunate to all other semites.

nischt@gmail.com Wikipedia has policies in place to protect pages which are subject to repeated vandalism. Temporarily restricting a page is not censorship. In any case most of your comments have nothing to do with the article Jew, hence this is not the place for them. Blastfromthepast 05:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The German word Antisemitismus (from which the English word comes) was a deliberate coinage by people who were specifically anti-Jewish, but wished to put their anti-Jewish stance in racial rather than religious terms, racism being rather more fashionable at the time than religious bigotry. - Jmabel | Talk 04:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Jewish Population Figures

If the following is true, why does the Jewish population not reproduce itself? With a small family in the modern era, a slow reproductive rate, long lifespans and a population of approximately 12 million Jews following WWII, there should be about 30 million Jews in the world at a minimum. How is it that the Jewish population barely replaces itself?

Population

   Main article: Jewish population

Prior to World War II the world population of Jews was approximately 18 million. The Holocaust reduced this number to approximately 12 million. Today, there are an estimated 13 million [2] to 14.6 million[3] Jews worldwide in over 134 countries.

I bring the above issue up, because the numbers don't make the slightest logical sense based on the mathematics of population statistics. Stevenmitchell 16:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Most Jews are in the US or Israel; those countries don't have the sorts of exponential growth rates you see in the developing world. (J)

Moving this article to "Jews"

Just a thought; the article about people from Poland is called Poles, not "Pole", and the same plural naming convention seems to be used in most other similar articles describing groups of people.

Should this article, on that principle, therefore be called "Jews" instead of "Jew", and a separate article "Jew (word)" be created to deal with the issues about the word itself?

Or has this idea been already discussed ad nauseam here already? -- The Anome 14:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

On the surface, I would say there is a slightly different focus. "Poles" are from Poland. "Germans" are from Germany, "Israelis" are from Israel, but "Jews" are not from "Jewland." "Jew" is a different concept from most nationalities or ethnicities, with a lot of historical background and freight. But from a broader point of view, I think it would be better for "Jew" to be a dab, and the articles to be "Jew (person)," "Jew (ethnicity)," Jew (nomenclature)," and so on. But I'm not sure that would be a popular suggestion.
Magyars aren't from Magyarland nor are Dutch from Dutchland and moreover some Poles are from New York and some Germans are from Namibia, so thats a silly argument. Kuratowski's Ghost 20:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've recently been looking at a bunch of articles on ethnicity, and this naming in the singular is almost unique. See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups#Partial list of pages covered by the project]. I don't have a big issue with this, but Jews would probably be more normal for Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems that, besides this one, the only ethnicity articles where the singular is used are for "hyphenated" groups, like African American and Italian Brazilian. I wonder if we might consider pluralizing these as well. The thing is, I think these names were probably originally chosen for the ease of wikilinking, e.g. [[Jew]]ish. And then there is the very sensitive issue of how this would affect Wikipedia's erstwhile google war with Jew Watch.--Pharos 03:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the plural being more natural. The Jews are a group of people and the subject of this encyclopedia article. A Jew is a single person and more the subject of a dictionary definition. keith 05:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I, too believe that the title must be changed from Jew to Jews. This is how the title appears in the German and Dutch interwiki articles. There is an article for white (people), not white (person). The term "Jews" is a collective noun, and should thus be kept plural! Gilliamjf 06:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


I agree that the title should be "Jews", not "Jew". Regarding "African American", I know hundreds of them and they all refer to themselves as "blacks".

I know it's a stupid question but … if the title of the article is "Jew", how come the first word is "Jews" and the Hebrew word is plural? Nu? (Of course, I have to answer a question with a question …) Light Orlanu Brecker 05:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus to move it. I've added this page to Requested Moves since it can't be moved without admin assistance. --Kotzker 22:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any such consensus in this thin discussion. You don't have the right to unilateral decide a consensus, especially when it is to change a standing article name. Didn't you look at the chart I posted at the bottom, which would place the "Jew" article out of step with all similar articles. The article name is not changed, so there is no cause to take the pre-emptive step of changing the opening paragraph. I am also removing your "requested" tag because requests are made after consensus is reached and agreed, not by one user. See the poll I posted at the bottom of the page. -- Cecropia 23:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
My bad. It was a hasty move (pun intended). In my defense, with the debate split in two sections it's not exactly easy to follow the differing viewpoints. BTW, any objections to moving the section below to follow this one?
But I still vote for changing the name. It sounds more natural and I'm pretty sure is how it's used in other major encycopedias. (I don't own any so I can't check. Can anyone verify?) This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. And just to keep it so that we can fight Jew Watch is as kow-towing to anti-semites as it gets. Has there been a formal vote on this? --Kotzker 00:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Getting real

I hate to say this, but I just checked "What links here". If the article name is changed several hundred pages will need links fixed. "Jews" is currently redirected to this article. Light Orlanu Brecker 05:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • It would take just a simple find-replace script to make such a change. That's not a roadblock, by any means. —LeflymanTalk 22:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
It wouldn't even take that. We'd put a redirect at Jew to Jews; problem solved. But Humus is right below, it's not Wikipedia convention. -Joshuapaquin 01:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Help Needed

Vote To Keep —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SirIsaacBrock (talk • contribs) 1 Jan 2006.

I have no problem with people pointing out votes related to a page, but using the talk page of an article to lobby for a vote on a particular side of an issue is, shall we say, not kosher. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Delisted

I have delisted this as a good article, because while that is generally the case, it is not stable - in fact it is one of the most unstable articles in all Wikipedia. It thus does not meet the criteria, and makes us permanently and unwavering mark a frequently vandalized article "good." I think this is why it isn't featured, incidentally. --Tothebarricades 04:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like the rationale of that. Except for vandalism—universally identified as such and usually promptly reverted—this is a very stable article. Your rationale seems, in effect, to give any persistent vandal veto power over inclusion in "good articles". -- Jmabel | Talk 00:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't like it either, but there are obvious problems - for example, an anti-semitic version might be up for months as a "good article" at a wiki mirror, no? --Tothebarricades 02:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
But a mirror can do anything. We couldn't stop a mirror from sticking Swastikas all over the page, saying the Protocols of Zion is the Lord's own truth and spelling Jew with six extra Ws. Or doing the equivalent to any other article. We're not responsible for the content of mirrors. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Since this issue is really not specific to this article, I have brought it up at Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles#Stable. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Jew and German

Netizen, you wrote "For example, in early 20th-century Germany, a German of Christian faith was a "German" (German: Deutscher), but a German of Jewish faith was a "Jew" (German: Jude), even though both were equally German citizens." I find that claim unsubstantiated, please cite sources. Cyberevil 02:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Correction: It was not Netizen who introduced that line, but someone somewhere down there before a multitude of vandalism reverts. Still would like to discuss it. Thanks! Cyberevil 03:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure who wrote this either, but I believe it is accurate.
  1. Germany emancipated its Jews in 1871 (I could track down a citation if you doubt that) and there was no retreat from that until the rise of the Nazis in 1933, so being "equally German citizens" in the "early 20th-century" would seem correct, at least in terms of law.
  2. Certainly Deutscher and Jude are accurately translated as "German" and "Jew" (any dictionary will verify that).
  3. I would presume that it is uncontroversial that a "German"—one could more precisely say an ethnic German—"of Christian faith" was ein Deutscher.
  4. So may I presume that what you are questioning is whether a German citizen of Jewish faith at that time would have been more commonly called ein Jude than ein Deutscher? I'm hard pressed imagine a non-Jewish German at that time knowingly referring to a Jew as ein Deutscher (unless it was someone on the left, being polemical), but it's hard to prove a negative. The German Jews were quite assimilationist, so I'm sure there were times when someone simply wouldn't know a person's background, but that seems beside the point. Ein deutscher Jude would have been common, to distinguish (for example) from ein ungarischer Jude. But I don't have a body of work at hand in which to look for this and (after 20 minutes or so) cannot come up with a relevant web search strategy, because any search I can come up with for examples is swamped by materials from the last decade or so. Does anyone have an idea how we might cite for this? Or, at least, could a native German-speaker weigh in and either confirm or deny my general impression? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
There is no reason here to single out Germany. In many countries the word for citizen and the dominant ethnicity is the same. The sense in which Jews (and others) could be considered native-but-still-foreign has historically been widespread, even in countries with full legal equality.--Pharos 02:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
It's true that other countries distinguished between Christian = Countryman, Jew = Jew. Poland comes readily to mind. However, when seeking out an example, there is a reason to single out Germany. -- Cecropia 02:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I am based in Germany and can't find any indication that jewish Germans up until the rise of the NSDAP were referred to more often as "Jews" than as "Germans". In fact, many Jews fought for Germany in WWI, had quite patriotic feelings about their country and were recognized for such. Faith, astoundingly to what later happened, didn't play that much of an important role. And, to elaborate on what you said, in everyday life it was hard to tell what faith one followed and the Jews were quite in the fiber of German society, which may be one of the reasons why the Nazis marked them with a patch. So up until someone can positively prove the assumption in the current article, we should rather leave it out. Oh, and forgive me for being rather unprecise in my first statement on this talkpage. Cyberevil 19:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
As I said, "The German Jews were quite assimilationist, so I'm sure there were times when someone simply wouldn't know a person's background, but that seems beside the point." I suppose you would be right to ask for citation; "positive proof" in such matters is, of course impossible, and is not the criterion called for by any of Wikipedia's standards. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually it is not impossible, as historical documents or sources that had access to those would mention that. I read "Die Juden in Deutschland 1780-1918" by Shulamit Volkov, "Blick zurück ohne Haß. Juden aus Israel erinnern sich an Deutschland" by Klaus Bednarz et. al., "Bereit für Deutschland! - Der Patriotismus deutscher Juden und der Nationalsozialismus" by Hans J. Schoeps and other works, but can't find mention of segregation that clear. We cannot assume something is a fact as long as we can't find proof it isn't; which is exactly what WP:V talks about. Cyberevil 18:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Edits over the last three or four days have been almost exclusively vandalism from anonymous users, and reversion of said vandalism. Would anyone object to semi-protection for a short time? android79 14:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Since no one logged any objections here, and all that I've seen since I mentioned this has been more anti-Semitic garbage, I've semi-protected this article. I will lift it tonight to see what level of vandalism we get then. android79 19:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Jew, Woman and Objectification

To the anon who removed the para about the term "Jew" used as objectifation and comparing to "women," yes, absolutely the term "woman" or "women" can be used and has used to objectify half the population. In a petty sense, in phrases like "a man and his woman." But more particularly, if you were to refer to a population as "citizens and women," "Germans (meaning men) and women," "women" would be objectifiying.

The problem in the paragraph, which I originally wrote, is that the attempt to make it politically correct (first remove the reference to "Christians" and then to "Germans" gutted it of its meaning, and I intend to restore it. If Europe had not so effectively wiped out its Jewish population, perhaps mentioning particular countries wouldn't be fair, but history is what it is. -- Cecropia 20:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Possible anti-semitic etymology

Just a thought, but this link to an 1828 dictionary's definition of the word Jew suggests a more derogatory etymology for the word jew.

JEW, n. [a contraction of Judas of Judah.] A Hebrew or Israelite.

Does this perhaps suggest that, instead of the middle-english origin of the word jew, it may have had an origin linked to a derogatory contraction, to perpetuate the common excuse for anti-jewish bigotry that the Jews were the betrayers of christ and therefore enemies of chrisianity.

Again, just a thought (coming from a non-jewish, non-christian, impartial commentator)...

http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=jew

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.243.5.186 (talk • contribs) 11 Jan 2006.

Just shows that the anti-Semites of the time could make up etymologies. Of course, this was before the rise of modern philology. It's also back before anyone bothered with Latinisms like "anti-Semite". They just called themselves "Jew-haters". -- Jmabel | Talk 08:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

JEW used as objectification, right here on Wikipedia

I see my extended entry explaining the nature of objectification of considering (e.g.) a German Christian = German; a German Jew = Jew, has been eviscerated again. If you think this is not an issue in our modern enlightened times, see the adminship nomination of Alex Bakharev under the third Oppose vote in which one Wikipedian Anittas refers to a fellow Wikipedian Node as follows:

"Can someone please tell this JEW - not Moldovan, but JEW - that he doesn't know Moldovan, but is only protending to speak the language? You do not speak Moldovan, JEW!"

Point made? But we have to pussyfoot on this point in our article text? Wow. -- Cecropia 05:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I raised this matter (not this particular quotation, but another, similar remark by the same person, to the same person) in an RFC. On the whole, the community did not back me, though some did; several users suggested I should apologize to Anittas for not presuming his good faith. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this (as well as offending the LGBT community) was severe violation of WP:CIV and WP:NPA and added a new section in that RFC - after assuming good faith, but the user flatly refused to apologize. This can not go on.
As for this particular article, let's not forget that some cultures still widely use ethnic slurs, sexisms, etc. I don't think this usage really belongs here, though. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 09:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
You have a point in saying that the term "Jew" was used at points to segregate Jews from the rest of a population, but your example was bad. Perhaps you can reword it to the era of nationalsocialism in Germany or find other examples. Cyberevil 17:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Certainly, it happened (and still happens) elsewhere than in Germany. And I'm not attacking Germany necessarily either. It's the only country that participated in WWII that has really made an effort to come to grips with what it did. Other countries, "victim" countries, may have hated being occupied, but didn't mind (or may have helped) get rid of their own "Jewish problem." But I hesitate to equate this ONLY with the Nazi era in Germany. This kind of objectification helped what happened in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. What wording would you propose? -- Cecropia 18:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Europe? I've been called "Judio!" in Argentina several times (and not in a nice or complimentary way)... and that's during the 80s and 90s... Sebastian Kessel Talk 19:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, NS Germany as the only example would most likely take away from the issue, which is still present now. So where else is the term Jew used in the described way? Two examples came to my mind: Iran, which has the largest jewish community in the Middle East, but where nonetheless Jews are predominantly seen as Jews and are discriminated for such, and the Lateran Council of 1215, which forced Jews into ghettos. See http://arizonapersian.com/iranopinion/_disc8/0000000f.htm and http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/344latj.html Cyberevil 02:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
FYI - where else? All over the U.S., actually. My goodness, 2 weeks ago I was in the house of a Christian friend in California who .... forgetting (I suppose) that he had a Jewish guest not 10 feet from him .... yelled at somebody on the phone about the "F-ing little Jew lawyer" involved in a case he was angry about. This was not used as description, but as derogation. This kind of talk makes it "OK" to look the other way when bad things happen to people whose very name you can use as a "bad word." This is the kind of talk that made it possible for Hitler to happen to Germany -Shulae 19:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I think this is an important page, and I hope you can fix its problems and put it back on the good articles status, protecting it from vandalism. Shulae 19:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
FYI, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Anittas 2 has been opened by User:Ronline. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 04:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Cecropia, I congratulate. A simple, yet elegant solution. Cyberevil 02:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ugliness? Or actual encyclopedic material?

A couple of editors seem to want to include this:

The words "Jewish" and "Jew" are now commonly used as insults. Phrases like, "You stupid Jew," "You nigger-loving Jew" and "That was a Jewish thing to do" are considered offensive regardless of race or religion.

It strikes me as pure ugliness that doesn't add anything to the article; perhaps I'm just a bit too sensitive, but I don't see how "nigger-loving Jew" really is an example of anything other than general vileness, and certainly nothing to do with "Jew". Thoughts? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  • This doesn't even need to be discussed. Revert this garbage as vandalism and block those that persist. android79 04:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed. This has been going on all night. The term doesn't add anything. Wisco 04:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

jp, we probably had a slight conflict there who would get that out first. I corrected it now. Cyberevil 04:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Completely useless addition. Any ethnicity can be used as an insult or a stereotype. Rhobite 04:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggested change

Could we improve the intro? I know the Jews are special, but I find this "is used in many ways" confusing. See Hindu for example. Is this intro better:

A Jew (Hebrew: יהודי transliterated: Yehudi) is a follower of Judaism or, more generally, a member of the Jewish people, an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion at various times and places. This article discribes some ethnic, historic and cultural aspects of Jewish identity; for a consideration of Jewish religion, please refer to Judaism. ...

I would leave the text "a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes." to the section Jew#Who is a Jew?. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Not bad, but howabout:
A Jew (Hebrew: יהודי transliterated: Yehudi) is a follower of Judaism or, more generally, a member of the Jewish people or nation, an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion at various times and places, though Jews in this broader sense may or may not be religiously observant. This article discribes some ethnic, historic and cultural aspects of Jewish identity; for a consideration of Jewish religion, please refer to Judaism....
I think the national aspect of identity needs to be kept in place, as does the fact that one may be a Jew but not be observant. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I strongly favor such change. I have written a similar introduction on nl.wikipedia, taking it even one step further, already quite a long time ago. I first renamed that article to Jews, just like the other articles on ethnic (or specifically ethno-religious) groups. I suggest also changing the name of this article into Jews. gidonb 22:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

My introduction at nl.wikipedia. This is a very quick translation, losing some nuance.

This article addresses Jews (also Israelites, the Jewish People or the People Israel) as a people or ethnicity. For a discussion of the Jewish religion and culture, see article Judaism.

The Jewish people live during at least three thousand years in the Land of Israel, where it developed a monotheistic religion and several times enjoyed self-determination. Most of the Jews were expelled by the Romans from Palestina and since had a troubled existence suffering poverty, discrimination, oppression and even extermination, but sometimes also cultural, economic and individual prosperity.

Throughout the years the Jewish religion, Judaism, was the prime binding factor between the Jews, although not strictly required (to follow) in order to belong to the Jewish people. Since the rise of modern nationalism and other change among the peoples around, Jews too have undergone a transition as a result of which gradually less people saw is itself as an independent nation and more saw themselves as an ethnic or etno-religious community within the nations around. Participation in all aspects of social life could now increase. Particularly from East and Central-Europe, where antisemitism was worst, a Jewish national movement had evolved, Zionism, that contributed to the growth of the Jewish popualtion of at that time Ottoman and later British Mandate of Palestine and eventually to the foundation of the State of Israel.

Before the Second World War the number of Jews was worldwide estimated as approximately 18 million. After the Holocaust approximately 12 millions were left. Today the estimates diverge from 13.0 up to 14.6 million Jews. Of the low estimate (13.0 million in 2005) live approximately 5.7 million in North-America (of which 5.3 million in the United States and 0.4 million in Canada), 5.3 million in Asia (of which 5.3 million in Israel), 1.5 million in Europe (of which 0.5 millions in France), 0.3 millions in South-America, 0.1 millions in Australia/Oceania and approximately as much in Africa. gidonb 23:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course we do not have to copy another Wikipedia, but what I suggest is setting a very different tone than starting with the disscussion who is a Jew. The article should be about how, who, what, when, where, and why the Jews are. The suggestions by Humus sapiens and Goodoldpolonius2 are positive developements in that direction. gidonb 23:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer to have smth. like that for an intro. Can we merge these two proposals? ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is clearly an improvement. Feel free and just go ahead. gidonb 00:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, I took a plunge. I changed the word "suffering" to "surviving" and made some other changes. ←Humus sapiens ну? 04:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Was there a reason to keep the main template for this article in the section Jew#Jewish culture? I've moved the up to the top. ←Humus sapiens ну? 03:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
My guess is that it's still down there from when I put {{TOCright}} into the article...an edit that was undone by another editor who is clearly less-enlightened and has a poorer eye for æsthetics. ;-) Since the TOC is back where it was, no, there's no reason for the template to stay down there. :-p Tomertalk 21:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Unprotect

I think the page should be unprotected. It's been semi-protected for over a week, which is just too long. Superm401 - Talk 07:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Sprotection and this article

It took about 12 hours from last unprotect for vandals to discover it, followed by a half dozen vandals in the following hours. Before uprotecting, consider that the nature of "Jew" will always attract vandals and ask what purpose is served by requiring someone to have an account for a few days (which can be blocked effectively--an IP may not be) in order to edit it. There are a handful of articles on Wikipedia which will always be vandal magnets and we should ask what shining principle is being served when we allow anons to edit them, in view of the reality that the overwhelming number of anon edits are vandalism to this article.

There is history to this and we should be open but not naive. Futile unproection is rather like requiring the KKK to take off their hoods for a few days after a lynching, then allowing them to put them back on again after to see if they've learned their lesson. Or perhaps more to the point, banning the Nazi Party for a week after Kristalnacht. -- Cecropia 15:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


I know I'm joining the debate pretty late on (17 days after last comment), but I think this article should permanently be protected. Every time the protection is lifted some scum-bag Neo-nazi cunt vadal comes along and ruins it. There seems to be no point in lifting the ban as it will only result in more vandalism.
PJB 18:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the problem is that people are assuming that the same policy should apply to sprotection that applies to full protection. Full protection must be temporary and as short as possible because noone (even admins who technically can) is supposed to edit it. Sprotection can only be temporary when it treats a temporary condition. Ethnic hatred, sadly, is not a temporary condition. -- Cecropia 20:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
It is unfortunate that racist vandalism seems to be endemic to this article.
I must confess that being a new wikipedian I'm not quite sure what Sprotection is (I thought it was a typo!). I just think that the current protection of the article (that prevents anonymous and new users editing the article) should be permanently maintained...well, until there is officially no more anti-semitism/racism (is that Sprotection? I must plead ignorance). Do you advocate/support this?
PJB 16:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC) (Talkin' to me?)


I think we should try it out and see if it brings any worthwhile edits from anons. Occasionally they do occur, even on the George W. Bush article which is permanently semi protected. Calwatch 09:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

In an age of free speech should we stop new users to wiki from making their contribitions as these may provide good information that has before been missed. The majority should not be punished for the actions of a few neo-nazis it is just not right. Any decent person would relise that if they came across this vandilism they would know that it wasn't true and would delete it immeditaly. I have been discrimanted aganist countless times because of my race and I have learnt not to be offended by this as it is done by small minded ingornart fools who repeate the same insults as they cannot think of orginal ones, Jews and all other groups should just recongise that this is the way that the world is and has always been and they should accept that it will happen and when they come across it it will be deleted. No article in wiki should be protected to any degree as wiki prides itself on allowing anybody to alter its texts.

Wikipedia is not a democracy, nor is it a soapbox. It is an encyclopedia that is supposed to contain truthful, neutrally presented information. There are many fora for expressing free speech rights, including the right to bias, and the right to lie. The semi-protection is not permanent, but so far it has had to be reimposed each time it is removed, because a handful of articles like this one, attract outright vandals. If you are genually concerned that anons, such as yourself, cannot edit this article, then you are free to open an account which is just about as anonymous, but allows others to understand the "track record" of the person who is editing. And please sign your posts, even the anonymous ones. -- Cecropia 20:04, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I need to append a point. You say: "Jews and all other groups should just recongise that this is the way that the world is and has always been and they should accept that it will happen and when they come across it it will be deleted." This is not about Jews. Many people (including myself) edit articles who are not adherents or advocates of the group or concept described in the article. This is important to Wikipedia or any encyclopedia. The issue, as you seem to imply, is not that Jews are incapable of seeing someone writing nasty comments, but that this is an encylopedia where the reader seeking valid information should be free from seeing moronic expressions. -- Cecropia 20:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

If a neo-nazi has written something moronic as you put it then they (the user) will realise that this is not true and so will either delete it or take no notice of it. As for the issue that this is not about Jews, if it is not I think it may be a bit misleading to have this discussion under an article called Jew.

Google searching

When searching with keywords "wikipedia down" in google.com, the search results yield the article "Down syndrome" with a subreference to "Jew". Is this pure coincidence, and should this be rectified (it gives the impression that jews are related to down syndrome, which is false).

"Jew (Disambiguation)"

When is a disambiguation not a disambiguation? When it amounts to publicity for a minor rock group.

I removed the disambiguation link to Jew (disambiguation) since it only tells us that "jew" can be used as a racial slur (which is already covered in the main article and is a dicdef anyway, and that it can be an acronym for said rock group. "Jew" is not ambiguous and anyone who seacthes for "Jew" in an encyclopedia looking for a rock band is intellectually challenged. -- Cecropia 16:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

In that case, the disambig page should probably be deleted. It's not useful and nothing links to it. android79 16:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Why is there a disambiguation page for the Christian article then?
This is just more discrimination against christians. --TheEmoEater 19:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
You can stop trolling now. android79 19:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Because, if you look at the Christian disambiguation page, you will see that "Christian" can refer to a number of things other than the religion, including as a given name of prominent people. I hope you will come to understand Wikipedia better and want to contribute, but I am disturbed by two aspects of your actions: (1) you are claiming that not having a "Jew" disambiguation page is an attack on Christians (persecution, no less): How?, and (2) that you decided to have a "Jew" disambiguation page on the ridiculous premise that there is a rock band whose name as an acronym would be "JEW." As any reasonable Wikipedian, I checked to see if the band in question was commonly called JEW, and why, and found (from there own website) that the initialism is a coincidence, that noone on the band is Jewish, nor are they a "Christian" band, nor do they express any religious affiliation whatever. Do you understand what POV means? -- Cecropia 19:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

World Jewry

Ryan asked me to discuss here whether the term "world Jewry" is anti-Semitic, as he's been removing it from articles. As far as I'm concerned it's fine, and replacing it with "the Jewish population," as Ryan's been doing, often leaves the sentence unclear. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

"World Jewry" is a phrase very commonly used by Jewish groups, e.g. [1] [2]. "Jewish population" doesn't mean the same thing at all. Jayjg (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
How can it possibly be reinterpreted as being antisemitic? I have to agree with Jay--"world Jewry" and "Jewish population" are not synonymous. Edits like this change the meaning of the sentence; notice I didn't say "improve the meaning..."... Tomertalk 23:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The term "world Jewry" may not have started explicitly as a slur, but my point is that the use of a term in one context does not change its meaning in another. You might not read the term as offensive or unprofessional, but others do. The first two contexts in which I heard "world Jewry" used were in translations of Nazi radio broadcasts from the middle 1930's, and again from a modern white nationalist organization. In those contexts, "world Jewry" is used as a synonymous term with the international Jewish conspiracy, since it is assumed that all Jews are innately "in" on the conspiracy. This ambiguity in meaning and perceived unprofessionalism of the term was shared with a few people I checked with before I started removing it and I have asked them to comment here as well.

In general, I think that "world Jewry" either refers to an amorphous international mass consciousness of Jews (as the Nazi's seemed to believe it was), or more generally "Jewish people around the world", the "Jewish community", or a "Jewish population". In general I've been replacing "world Jewry" with "Jewish population", but depending on context, there may be some other term that would be better, and I don't believe any meaning would be lost in so doing. --Ryan Delaney talk 00:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Jewish organizations use the term. There really isn't a problem using it, and it's hard to find a succinct and accurate replacement. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
What you've just said is the argumentative equivalent to "no it isn't." You really haven't given me anything to work with there. Can you please amplify your statement? --Ryan Delaney talk 01:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what else to say. Jews use the term. Jewish organizations use it. There is therefore no problem with Wikipedia using it. In addition, replacing it with Jewish population may alter the meaning of the sentence. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with those who say the term is fine. This seems like one of those overly protective euphemisms, such as using "Jewish people" instead of simply "Jews", etc. We are talking about the Jewish diaspora + Israel, a diverse disorganized ethno-religious group of people who often disagree with one another, with no single government, dissimilar allegiance and full spectrum of political beliefs and affiliations. I expect someone to contradict me here to confirm this ;). ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
LOL!! SlimVirgin (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm more or less neutral on this issue, but if the phrase is going to be used, it would be helpful if something existed to explain it- Jewry exists as a redirect to Jew, perhaps that could be expanded into a proper article?--Sean Black (talk) 02:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

  • An article to say that "Jewry" is defined as "the Jewish people" or "Jews collectively"? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 02:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

To put in my traditional two cents, you need to deal with context and meaning. "World Jewry" in and of itself is not anti-semetic. But even in a well-meaning article such as this, it does not have the same meaning as "world Jewish population." "World Jewry" has an institutional implication to it, suggesting a hierarchy or infrastructure capable of expressing an "official" Jewish position on things. "World Jewish population," OTOH, expresses a more organic sentiment, saying "this is something that people who identify themselves as part of the Jewish communities would tend to agree with or support." So which are we meaning to say? As a semantic point in context, I believe "world Jewish population" is more appropriate. -- Cecropia 04:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Where are you getting this "institutional implication" of "World Jewry" from? It certainly doesn't carry any such implication in the first use of "Jewry" in the article: the Central European base of Jewry; nor does it in the second: massacre of European Jewry. The next usage appears as shifts in the population centers of world Jewry; where's the institutional implication here? Scratching head in puzzlement. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

We also need to keep in mind that many readers of English-language WP are not native speakers and that cultures vary widely even in English-speaking countries like Singapore. The chances are that someone from Singapore or Hong Kong would not understand the term "world Jewry" without an explanation. Light Orlanu Brecker 05:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I guess I'm missing some subtlety. The sole use of the phrase is as above, shifts in the population centers of world Jewry. What might these readers from Singapore or Hong Kong construe from this use of "Jewry" distinct from the other five uses of the term in the article? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Unprotect request

Why should the majority be punished for the minority? This page should be unprotected, anything that is vandilsed can be changed back to the way it was before. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.135.77.85 (talk • contribs) 19:40, March 19, 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm not even sure it's the majority being punished. When the article is not semi-protected, the history shows that almost all of the anonymous edits are vandalism. Every time. Generally within minutes of being unprotected. The vast majority of legitimate Wikipedia editors are registered users; feel free to join us - it makes life here much easier. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree. The privilege of editing by anons has been debated many times in Wikipedia. IMO it is an important privilege in that it encourages newbies who might hesitate to even make an account to see how easy it is to contribute. After a certain point, anons should fish or cut bait. If they want to continue with Wikipedia, and be able to edit the tiny number of articles that are persistent vandal-magnates, it is not such a great burden for them to register, which requires nothing more than choosing a username and a password. -- Cecropia 20:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Wiki has prided itself on the ability for anyone to edit it's articles, the Wiki home page demonstrates this, you say it is not hard to sign up for a Wiki account, I agree, ironically I think it should be noted that it will not be hard for vandals to sign up with an account use then get another when that is blocked.
        • I have signed up with a username now but I still think that because of the way Wiki promotes itself I still think that all articles however much they have a potential for vandalism they should be unprotected. --Rhydd Meddwl

Vandalism by anons has the character of random drive-by shootings. Creating a login seems to be an effective threshold: the number of vandalisms by (newly) registered users is much lower during semi-protection. Everyone can still edit this article, but here the ratio serious_contrution:vandalism from anons approaches 0. JFW | T@lk 21:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag

NPOV tags in Wikipedia should not be placed simply because someone feela that the article has POV aspects. To place such a notice is in itself POV, since it is presenting an unsupported opinion. Please explain in talk what specifically in the article is POV, and how it may be fixed, before placing such a tag. -- Cecropia 20:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Paradox

"Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population [the table says 15,471,000], accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population. Higher estimates place the worldwide Jewish population at over 14.5 million." So "low-end estimates" are actually higher than "higher extimates". I guess this should be corrected.

L.

Article name change to Jewish people

When people want to know more about the Jewish people, they tend to use either the plural "Jews," or the term "Jewish people," and not the singular form "Jew," which might have derogatory connotations, as cited by Google [3]. Therefore, I suggest the name of this article be changed to "Jewish people" instead. --141.213.196.250 01:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

  • (after edit conflict) I would have to vigorously oppose such a move. The last thing we need is Wikipedia supporting the pathetic trend that panders to antisemites by considering fundamental the idea that the word "Jew" is derogatory, and therefore feel compelled to use "Jewish people" instead. To me, it's far more insulting to have someone say "are you a Jewish person?" than "are you a Jew?" or "are you Jewish?". This circumlocution implicitly states that there's something not-quite-kosher about being a Jew. The strongest argument in favor of changing the name of the article is so that Jew Watch will again become the uncontested #1 search result for "Jew"...not a very compelling reason in my mind. Tomertalk 01:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

How about simply "Jews"? Makes more sense, doesn't change any meanings, and has no derogatory implication (like 'Jew' does).Miskin 02:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Any name besides "Jew" is more meaningful and appropriate. The name of the article is not to fight against anti-semitism, as with the google search, or to represent appropriate language usage as in "are you a Jew?" but to enhance the meaning of the topic. The title "Jewish people" is just as good as "Jews." "Jewish people" fits well as a title since it deals with anything Jewish, such as Jewish culture, Jewish cuisine, etc. It also goes with other titles for ethnic groups as in Chinese people or Japanese people.--141.213.196.250 03:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The repeated insinuation that the word "Jew" is derogatory is rapidly becoming offensive. The statement that anything but "Jew" is more meaningful and appropriate is not only incorrect, it verges on insane. We should name an article about who and what a Jew is "Any name besides 'Jew'"? What convoluted logic leads to such a bizarre assertion? Using the Google disclaimer demonstrates almost unspeakable ignorance on the subject, since the disclaimer was written, it could easily be argued, in defense of the name of this article being "Jew" !!! The title "Jewish people" is not just as good as "Jews"; "Jewish people", and its singular "Jewish person", is a circumlocution invented by people who are hypersensitive about letting their antisemitism out into the light of day. The articles Chinese people and Japanese people refer to people from China and Japan, respectively. There are, as it happens, Chinese and Japanese Jews. I'm gonna stop now before I actually bite my tongue right off... Tomertalk 05:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The anon is not being anti-semitic, let's not be paranoid. IMO the singular declares some sort of generalisation, hence it's derogatory by definition. The fact that Hitler continuously mentioned "The Jew does this" and "The Jew did that", makes things even worse in the case of the Jews. 'Jewish people' is ugly and nothing but a wikipedia trend, "Jews" however sounds good. Miskin 05:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Jews would follow the general standard of using plural for ethnic groups, and Jewish people would also be reasonably OK. The article name Jew doesn’t follow any widespread standard on the English Wikipedia. My personal favourite would be the name Jews. Simple, precise, explicit and in accordance with general naming principles and tendencies here. -- Olve 06:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I have since long been in favor of changing the article from Jew to Jews and changing the focus from who is a Jew to who are the Jews. I made both these changes previously in the Dutch Wikipedia. gidonb 06:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns. I am curious where "widespread standard on the English Wikipedia" comes from? I think Jews should be a redirect here. ←Humus sapiens ну? 07:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
It already does. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
You may want to take note of Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(plurals), and the extended discussion on "always singular" at SOME article titles should be plural. It's also useful to note that in addition to being the first word to the article, the vast majority of links from this article are phrased in the plural "Jews":
—LeflymanTalk 08:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
It has always been my impression that "Jewish people" was a bit of a euphemism, like "Afro-americans", a fear or shame of calling a thing by its name because of former derogatory use. Thus it should be avoided. But "Jews" is an improvement. Haiduc 10:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the term 'Jewish people' is not needed since "Jews" already exists as a word. For example in the case of "English people", the word 'people' is needed to disambiguate between all the things that plain "English" (which has no plural form) could mean. In cases like "Jews" or "Greeks" or "Danes", disambiguation via the word 'people' is unecessary. Miskin 15:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If other arguments are not convicing enough, compare [[Jew]]ish and [[Jews|Jewish]], [[Jew]] and [[Jews|Jew]], etc. ←Humus sapiens ну? 19:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Important reason for article to remain "Jew"

This is not simply my observation--it has been noted in the press and discussed online. Do a Google search on "Jew" and what do you get? Right at this moment number one is "Jew Watch," the rabidly anti-semitic site masquerading as scholarship, and number two is the Wikipedia arricle. These two have been running neck and neck for years. Make "Jew" a redirect and the Jew Watch people will have the field to themselves. -- Cecropia 16:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Unless you believe that there's only one, hidden, true Jew on the planet, I can't see a rational change of meaning from "Jew" to "Jews". I really don't care of renaming the article, but I just find the arguments against it extremely funny. Miskin 16:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
The underlying semantic problem, as noted in Google, is that. in long-time and virtually worldwide history, "Jew" is a powerful concept, in addition to describing a person or people. "Jew" is perhaps the only group-descriptive term which, spoken or written in a certain way by certain people, is pejorative in itself; but I don't see any viable alternative, because no other comprehensive term quite makes it and seems like euphemism, or worse, an acknowledgment that there really is something wrong with being a Jew. -- Cecropia 18:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with you. The singular form used in such context is an old attribute of the English language. "Constantintinople" - they used to say - "heart of the Turk" (or of the Greek in older times). Such use of singular of form has no special connection to the Jews. Anyway I'm a Jew-sympathiser, but not Jewish myself, hence I don't know whether what you say has a cultural importance within Jewish ethnic sentiment. If that's the case, then I rest my case. Otherwise I find the article name "Jews" closer to the modern ethnoreligious definition of the people. Miskin 19:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope we are not going to change the title Who is a Jew? to Who are Jews? ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The "Jew Watch" issue is a tale-wagging-the-dog argument. We shouldn't name articles based on that kind of consideration. Paul August ☎ 20:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Maybe, maybe not. Doing petty things to prevent Jew-haters from getting even minor satisfaction can be quite soothing. But you do have a point; we shouldn't not rename it because of that, in the same we shouldn't rename it because of the first arguments in the previous section (that "Jew" is sometimes used pejoratively). Howabout a compromise: "The Joooz"? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 21:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
    • If the concern is Google searching, it would have no effect to change the article to "Jews" so long as "Jew" redirects to it. The short description of the Wikipedia article was made by Google staff, and its ranking is based on linkage to the article; which likewise the title would have no effect on. In order to get it ranked higher, simply get a whole lot of friends to point to the page. See: Googlebomb, and the history of the effort to place the Wikipedia article as the top search at: Accomplished Googlebombs—LeflymanTalk 02:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • It wouldn't be a good reason to change the article from something else to Jew. But I think it is a consideration in changing it from "Jew." -- Cecropia 21:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Other Wikipedia religious/ethnic adherent article titles

Group name Singular ("Adherent") Plural ("Adherents") "Adherent People" Logical variant
Jew Main Article Redirects to "Jew" Redirects to "Jew"
Muslim Main article Redirects to "Muslim" No article or redirect No "Islamic people" either
Christian Main article Redirects to "Christian" No article or redirect
Catholic Main article, inter alia" Redirects to "Roman Catholic Church" No article or redirect
Protestant Redirects to "Protestantism" Redirects to "Protestantism" No article or redirect
Hindu Main article Redirects to "Hindu" Redirects to "Hindu"
Buddhist Redirects to "Buddhism" Redirects to "Buddhism" No article or redirect
Shintoist Redirects to "Shinto" No article or redirect No article or redirect

-- Cecropia 21:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

good work (and nice chart), I hope this end the issue once and for all. Jon513 21:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. An ounce of research is worth a pound of debate. ;) -- Cecropia 21:55, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to spoil the fun, but most of the designations above are hardly ethnic. Ethnic singular designations generally lead to disambiguation pages. As to the issue being discussed by itself, I have no reasoned opinion, although my inclination would be not to change the article's title. LambiamTalk 10:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Lambiam. IMHO as much all designations above are non-ethnic and thus irrelevant (not withstanding the attractive design). These are religions, not ethnic groups. The Druze are an ethno-religious group and their concepts seem to very close to Jewish concepts. Yet Druze is both plural and singular, so here no problem exists. I would go for the plural for all poplations, which is answered by Druze. gidonb 12:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually Druzes redirects to Druze; (Merriam-Webster: Druze; Inflected Form(s): plural Druze or Druzes – never mind that Druze (like e.g. Tuareg) is originally an Arabic plural form). What about the following principle: use the singular in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Prefer_singular_nouns unless there is a specific good reason to use the plural form – one being the avoidance of ambiguity. See also exceptions at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals), none of which applies here. LambiamTalk 14:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is my preference. Druzes may exist but is uncommon. Druze is the common plural and first in Webster. gidonb 15:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
The point is that comparing "Jew" to other religious groups is more appropriate than any other comparison. It's the way almost any non-involved searcher would understand it. Terms like "German" and "Pole" lead to disambig pages because these words have common meanings beyond the names of an ethnic group, nationality, or people: German (language), German (given name), and the ever popular "Pole," which you fly flags from. No one speaks "Jew," there is a "Jew's Harp" and a "Jewfish," but noone says they are "playing a jew" or "going fishing for Jews." I understand all the disabilities of the word "Jew," all of which are externally imposed, but we shouldn't be doing handsprings to come up with an article renaming that shrinks before bigotry. -- Cecropia 15:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Crecropia, this table is comparing inconsistent usage: unlike every other religious nomenclature on the list, "Jew" is a singular noun which refers to both a member of a religion and a member of an ethnic group, but is never appropriate to use as an adjective. While all the others can be used on a list of religious identifiers, Jew would not be. The correct usage would be Judaism in reference to the religion, and Jewish in the descriptive form. One can say "Buddhist religion" or "Protestant faith" but one does not say "Jew religion" or "Jew faith"; one can find academic reference to "a Muslim text" (as well as "Islamic work") but one won't find "a Jew book" or a "Jew writing", while "a Jewish book" or "a book on Judaism" would be acceptable. The proper parallel to what is in the table would have been the outdated religious identifier "Hebrew" -- which appears to be what you're really looking for. Incidentally, the etymology for the word "Yiddish" is derived from "Jewish".—LeflymanTalk 01:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Try that logic on Who is a Jew? ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
      • It might help if you were explicit as to what you are referring to; the use of "Jew" in that article is in keeping with the singular noun form, and not contrary to what I've written above. In fact in that title, "a Jew" could be easy replaced with "Jewish".—LeflymanTalk 01:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Leflyman, you are essentially arguing that "Jew" or "Jewish" is more an ethnicity than a religion, so you are comparing to other ethnicity articles rather than religious articles. That doesn't wash. Without the religion Judaism, there wouldn't be any Jews, religious or ethnic. Though I don't know that it's a topic for Wikipedia, calling Jews an "ethnicity" is a stretch, since it is unlike almost any ethnicity, which assumes a great and identifiable commonality of cultural background, national origin, and/or genetics. With the worldwide distribution of Jews practically everywhere, and so ethnically diverse, these commonalities are probably weaker than in any other accepted ethnicity. I also think that trying to justify the article title as "Jews" on comparison to ethnic articles in Wikipedia is ingenuous, this is really an attempt to expunge the term "Jew" from the article title, not adhere to a Wikistyle. -- Cecropia 02:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
      • No; I'm arguing that you are using the word "Jew" as though it is equivalent to "Christian", "Protestant" et al. Which it is not. I've not made any claim to religious versus ethnic significance. Please re-read what I have written: "Jew" is a singular noun, while all the others can be used as both a noun and an adjective; thus your comparison is invalid. Again, one can say "a Christian man" but one can not say a "a Jew man." (well, I suppose one could say that, but it's likely to get some strange looks.) Your table looks nice but it fails because in effect, it's a false analogy.—LeflymanTalk 03:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Photo of cheap storefront as a Jewish culture

I find the image unrepresentative at best. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC) I replaced it with Chagall's painting for now. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Semi-Protection-Pros

I think that it is a perfectly justified move to Semi-Protect the Jew article as Jews have always been more susceptible to perpetual vandalism and , therefore, must be more protected. It is neglectable to deem the Jewish people impervious to the vicious onslaught of insults it has had to endure through history. In response to the people who want to know what makes the word jew a negative term comaparitively to other religions my answer is that the nations of the world have made the very essence of the Jew a negative component time and time again. More recently, Michael Jackson uses the term "jew you" in his music as a negative phrase, mearly reiterating and affirming the disposition that being a jew is a negative trait. Protection is not a weakness or a sign of extreme sensitivity to the slightest back-handed comment, the Jews have had enough assaults to their values and priorities to understand that one must ignore the ridiculers and stick to who you want to be. Protection is a defence mechanism every single human has a right to, and the greater the need, the more protection is neccessary, and certainly justified. UriKest

  • I think you are confusing a people or a person with an encyclopedia article. Jew is not a human being. Yes, it's a frequently vandalized article, and it's also one of the most carefully monitored articles. At any rate, it's been semi-protected now for a couple weeks. If it gets uprotected (which it will; there's an unending supply of optimists out there), it will get vandalized again by anons, and then it will get semi-protected again. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Poll on possible name change

One user has taken upon himself to request a name change from "Jew" to "Jews" without any consensus having been reached, so I think we need a formal vote of the traditional week to more accurately gauge sentiment.

Leave article name as is: "Jew"

  1. Jew is the standing title and is consistent with Wikipedia name conventions as to the prefered use of singular nouns and with all other religious based articles. See my chart above. The ethnic articles that use a plural ("Germans") do so because the singular is a disambiguation page reflecting other uses of the term. -- Cecropia 23:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. I've already made my argument above. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. Leave. In addition to all the arguments mentioned above, compare [[Jew]]ish and [[Jews|Jewish]], [[Jew]] and [[Jews|Jew]], etc. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • That argument is flawed. A simple redirect from Jew to Jews takes care of that. -- Olve 06:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Redirs should be avoided. Could somebody explain what is wrong with this: "Taglit-birthright israel - a partnership of philanthropists, Jewish communities and the citizens of Israel - believes in the importance of promoting Jewish peoplehood and Jewish renaissance, and is committed to providing a first, free, peer-group trip to Israel as a birthright of every Jew."[4] (the highlight is mine) ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
  4. Leave as it is for the reasons above. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. Leave as is. LambiamTalk 02:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. Leave as is. I have not read a single reason to change it that makes sense to me. There is no need for the English (which is in some ways the main wikipedia) should conform to the German or Dutch; they should change to how the English does it! I don't know of any official wikipedia policy in regards to collective nouns, but will admit that Jews would fall in that category. And just because Jew might be a racist term does not mean that the article should change its name. An encyclopedia does not need to change because of the word that racists are using. If racists starting using the word egg offensively should we change it to eggs!? Jon513 12:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC) amended 22:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
  7. Leave as is. And I find the claim that the word "Jew" has a negative connotation to be distasteful at best. Jayjg (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I hope you are note voting against Jews just to prove a point. The article is about the ethnicity(/ethnicities) ‘Jews’. The term/concept ‘Jew’ does not have an article yet. (And it should probably be a disambig pointing to ‘Jews (people)’ / ‘Judaism (religion)’ anyway...) -- Olve 06:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
  8. Retain current name. Tomertalk 22:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  9. Retain current name. PhilipPage 00:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  10. Leave as is to keep linking simple and for consistency. Jonathunder 04:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
    • What consistency? This article is about the people/s ‘Jews’, not about the religious term ‘Jew’. -- Olve 06:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Change article name to "Jews"

  1. Support name change to standard plural for an ethnic group; "Jew" could redirect to it, without losing any Google ranking/linkage. —LeflymanTalk 00:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. Change it. "Jews" sound more natural and is consistent with modern usage. I believe it's the term used in most major encyclopedias. "Jew" also has a negative connontation. --Kotzker 01:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. Change it. Jews works much better than Jew as the name of an article about Jews/Jewish people(s). -- Olve 01:18, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. rename to Jews. gidonb 12:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. Rename to Jews. There are plenty of reasons to change it, and I don't feel that a mere consensus must be reached to do so: 1). Other interwikies that I understand pluralize Jew, such as de:Juden (German) and nl:Joden (Dutch). 2). Jews is a collective noun, and thus should be pluralized. 3). Agreed that Jew could have a negative connotation (especially when used as an adjective), as documented in this article, such as in "Jew lawyer". This may cause this article to experience higher vandalism.GilliamJF 03:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
    With respect for your points, "mere consensus" is what Wikipedia runs on, without compelling other reasons. -- Cecropia 03:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
    Comment: I only wanted to point out that editors should explain their vote, as results are not tabulated merely by the numbers, right? GilliamJF 20:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. Rename to Jews or Jewish people. As per stated reasons above.--Ryz05 20:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
  7. Name to Jews. Jewish people are not a big collective Jew.Onsmelly 04:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
    Nor are Hindus a big collective Hindu, so what's your point exactly? Tomertalk 19:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
    The article “Hindu” is about primarily about the word Hindu. (Though it has to be admitted it includes more ethnography than the parallel terminology-oriented articles Christian and Muslim.) The article Jew is not currently not at all primarily about (the word) “Jew”, but about (the) Jews (as a people). I am surprised and frustrated how perfectly intelligent and knowledgeable people keep belittling this request for a well-justified move. -- Olve 20:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
    I'm not belittling the request, I'm belittling the illogic in the above vote. While I agree with your assertion about what this article covers, I think a much better way to deal with it is to chop this unwieldy article up into smaller articles instead of renaming it. While we're talking about frustration tho, let me reiterate how frustrated I am by people asserting that being a Jew is analogous to being a Christian or Muslim, as though the only thing that serves to differentiate between Christians and Muslims and Jews is a minor religious disagreement. Conceptually, what the word "Jew" encompasses has a much stronger analogue in "Hindu" than it does in either "Christian" or "Muslim". Tomertalk 21:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
    I agree, and that is what I find to be the strongest argument of them all to have the article names Hindus, Sikhs and Jews in plural (to reflect the aspect of ethnicity) as opposed to the articles Christian, Muslim and Bahá’í in singular (to reflect their character as adherents of a faith more-or-less regardless of ethnicity). -- Olve 21:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
  8. The Jewish people are an ethnicity, and per Olve, should be treated like other ethnicities. The Christian and Muslim articles are rather ill-defined, being a mish-mash of etymology and status-of-individual-in-religion. If someone were to write an article on the religious-Jew-as-individual-in-an-organized-faith, then that would be fine, but that's just not the scope of this article. I understand this will make wiki-linking slightly less convenient, and that factor may be behind the singular naming in the first place, but it's hardly a criterion of established naming policy. Neither is the "competition" with Jew Watch, as odious as those folks are.--Pharos 01:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support move to Jews or minimally "Jewish people" JFW | T@lk 07:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  10. rename to Jews. It's the colective noun, it's used by other major references, and it's not deemed derogatory by Jews themselves.--KevinR 10:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Other

  1. Rename to Jewish (people) Crumbsucker 15:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. I don't really have a preference between Jew and Jews. I'm a little inclined against Jewish people, but not for any rational reason. As one can see from the large but partial list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups#Partial list of pages covered by the project, all of these forms exist. Most European peoples use either the plural (e.g. Serbs, Romanians, or the "people" form French people, Irish people). However, for many non-European peoples, the singular is used (Tuareg, Zulu, Haida). Since the Jews are not clearly either "a European people" or not, there is no real prevailing pattern. - Jmabel | Talk 03:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm just someone who happened across this debate, so I don't have a stake in what's apparently a heated debate, but I should point out that every "singular" article you cited is a case where there is no "plural" name, and they all start with the form "The Zulu are". --Vedek Dukat Talk 22:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Tuaregs and Zulus are perfectly good English. - Jmabel | Talk 22:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment

  • Comment: Jayjg (whose opinion I respect) states, "I find the claim that the word "Jew" has a negative connotation to be distasteful at best." I don't believe that the sole argument for changing the title is that the word "Jew" is negative and should thus not be used, but that the singular form is encyclopedic inconsistent as an title with other similar groups of "people" titles. This is not the article on the religion itself— such as Christian, Catholic, etc.— that is Judaism, which itself has the following statement at the top: "For a discussion of Jews as an ethnicity or ethnic group see the article on Jew." Now that does read kinda odd! "Jews" or "Jewish people" just makes more sense linguistically. For example:
Thus, those of you who are voting to leave as is may be doing so under a misapprehension of the reasoning behind the suggested move, and I'd ask you to reconsider for the sake of consistency with what appears to be WP standards. —LeflymanTalk 21:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Is consistency really your chief concern? You're worried about a style issue? The name of the article has been "Jew" for as long as I remember. Now you're insisting that it must be changed on the basis that Jewish is an ethnicity before it is a religion. Even if we could make that case, Wikipedia style is still to prefer singular nouns. I am not accusing you of bad motives or questioning your good faith in wanting the change; but I can't see that your stated justifications are the actual reason you are so intent on a change. Please share--if there's some more relatively reason that might sway us, state it. -- Cecropia 22:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Cecro, did you actually read this article? It's stated at the beginning: "This article describes some ethnic, historic, and cultural aspects of the Jewish identity; for a consideration of the Jewish religion, refer to the article Judaism." Your argument that Wikipedia preference for singular nouns requires that "Jew" be used here is invalid; I've listed numerous examples (from the many more WP usages) of collective forms used for ethnic group titles. Oh, and as for "questioning" my justification, you might want to take note on my user page that I speak (albeit poorly) Hebrew. If that's not a clue enough, I'll state it more clearly: I think I've got a bit of understanding of the basis of Jewish culture and religion being that 1) I'm a Jewish immigrant; and 2) I've lived in various places of the world, among the local Jewish population. Contrary to your assertion "I am not accusing you..." that's exactly what you follow-up with, and I find your insinuation of ulterior motives to be pointedly insulting, and particularly inappropriate here.—LeflymanTalk 00:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Wow--talk about using false analogies! Kurd, Turk and Slav should be located at Kurd, Turk and Slav, although I can understand why they wouldn't be if there's a need to disambiguate. What is now at Turk, however, should be at Turk (disambiguation) and Turkish people should be moved to Turk. Slavic peoples should redirect to Slav, which should contain a disambig note on the top, to Slav (settlement). There's no reason I know of to disambiguate Kurd--the only reason I can think for arguing that the article "really belongs" at Kurdish people is that some excessive and unreasonable attachment to strict adherence to some perceived interpretation of WP:NC. "Palestinian" as a redirect to Palestinian people looks like the same kind of thing, although it may actually be a politically motivated name choice...that notwithstanding, there also exist Palestinian Arabic and other articles related to the Palestinians. Persian is usually more frequently used (in English) to refer to the Persian language, not the people. Native American isn't an ethnicity at all, it's a convenient collective term analogous to White (people) or Black (people)...and its location at Indigenous peoples of the Americas is as politically neutral as possible, which, I'm sure is why it's located there. Irish should be a disambig. The fact of the matter is, as has been said previously, Jews as a people would cease to exist as such in the absence of Judaism. The Kurds, Persians, Turks, Slavs and Irish have an ages-old common culture that binds them together as a people, regardless of what their popular or even predominant religion[s] might happen to be. It can easily be argued that Judaism is the source of all Jewish culture; no similar argument can be made for any of the other terms listed above. The fact that Catholic and Protestant can be used as adjectives as well as nouns is a result of the fact that they are adjectives, which are used as nouns, not the other way around. For that point to have any relevance to this discussion, instead of calling Jews Jews, we'd have to be using Jewish as a noun, which nobody does. The "consistency" you use above (in "what appears to be" a clever combination of appeal to emotion and misbegotten appeal to authority) applies within articles, and applies across articles only upon consensus with other interested editors, through the establishment of guidelines and policies. The "consistency" you're talking about in your argument doesn't exist, instead it's something you're quite clearly trying to create here. Tomertalk 23:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Tomer, you're welcome to make that argument on their appropriate pages. I've pointed out that the use of the collective "people" for an ethnic group is not only precedented, but appears to be more than widespread. Of the many searches I did, the only one which seemed to use a parallel singular form was Hindu which discusses the ethnic and religious components of Hindus. I could find no other usage of the singular title that was comparable to "Jew". For additional examples, Sikh redirects to Sikhism; Iranian disamb to Iranian peoples; Spanish to Spanish people. Of other random nations, we have French people, Italian people, Russians, Korean_people. (How many more examples do you need?) Finally, with all due respect, when you say, "It can easily be argued that Judaism is the source of all Jewish culture" you are flat out wrong. This is a huge topic in and of itself, but would you consider that Sephardim, Mizrahim, Ashkanazim and the various sects of Haredim (not to mention the so-called "Falasha Jews", now Beta Israel) share the same "culture"? —LeflymanTalk 00:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • You misunderstand. I'm not the one on a renaming crusade here. To go through your latest spate of "examples", Hindu and Jew are analagous inasmuch as the religion is the source of the culture that defines the people who practice it. The weakness of the Sikh example is that your analog would be having Jew redirect to Judaism. Iranian is rightly a disambig bcz it refers to a group of peoples whose languages are Indo-Aryan, but also to natives of Iran. Spanish people is a necessary disambiguated name to differentiate from Spanish language. The analogous example would be to have Spanish people be at Spaniard, but because of the fact that not all Spaniards speak Spanish, there enters a serious NPOV concern. The same holds true with the French, Italians, Russians and more for political concerns, Koreans. How many examples do I need? You've only given one example that's really applicable (i.e., Hindu), and that seems to support what I've been saying, not you. We can argue about my hypothetical statement that Judaism is the source of all Jewish culture if you like, but that really has nothing to do with the name of the article, only with what defines a Jew. I would not say that sfaradim and ashkenazim share the same culture (shudder!)...nor can my statement you used to invent that straw man be reasonably interpreted to imply that I would. ...at least not by someone who knows something about the non-"monolithicness" of Judaism. שבת שלום Tomertalk 00:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Additional note, before I have to run for services: take a look at List_of_ethnic_groups (which I just came across). I think you'll find that most of the groups (if not inherently a plural form) are structured "X people". Incidentally, the list doesn't use "Jew" or "Jews", but "Jewish" (not sure why, however). תודא ראבא—LeflymanTalk 00:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Leflyman, now you are using an in-article explanation of what the article contains to impeach the title. It is setting aside the personal aspects of Jews from the specific practices of the religion. Jew to Judaism is the comparison of Christian to Christianity or Muslim to Islam. I regret your feeling of insult, but I wish you would address the point that the relationship of Jews to Judaism is top down not bottom up. That is, whether or not an individual Jew is an active practitioner of the religion, a Jew is defined in relation to the religion, even if apostate. Every single person on the planet identified as a Jew has either Jewish parentage, which must eventually trace back to the religion, or is a convert to the religion. You cannot become a Jew by being part of Jewish culture if you were not born Jewish or converted religiously. There is no core Jewish ethnicity, as with most every other ethnic group, comprising a people who exist as a coherent group but may practice any number of religions, even if one is dominant; and I will say again--I challenge that "ethnic Jew" is even a viable term. It is a term of convenience to describe all people considered Jews when you don't want to make assumptions about a person's religiosity. You say that you speak Hebrew and are a Jewish immigrant. What does that mean? Is that what is called an "authenticity argument"? How does that give you a better perspective that other Jewish or non-Jewish (bot knowledgable) contributors to this article? -- Cecropia 01:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • My response was to your rather strange implication that I had some sort of hidden agenda in arguing for consistency in titling. Your questioning my good faith in this discussion was frankly vile and contemptible, and your supposed apology, "I regret your feeling of insult, but..." is hardly an improvement. State it clearly: what do (or did) you think my motivation is when you say, "I can't see that your stated justifications are the actual reason." Further, you've written multiple times that I've claimed, "Jewish is an ethnicity before it is a religion" -- nowhere in anything I've written has such a claim been made. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else. What I have said is that this article— as stated at the top of the page— is about Jews as an cultural and ethnic group; whereas the article Judaism discusses the religion, and points to this one for discussion of ethnicity. You've used the word "Jew" in your table in comparison with other religious nomenclatures, when the actual analogy should have been "Jewish"— a point which you still inexplicable fail to see. That core error makes your table invalid, as others have pointed out. As for whether usage of "ethnic Jew" is an feasible term, that is a matter of a separate discussion, and is appropriate to Who is a Jew, which has an entire section, which begins "Ethnic Jew" (also known as an "assimilated Jew," see cultural assimilation) is a term generally used to describe a person of Jewish parentage and background who does not actively practice Judaism but still identifies with Judaism and/or other Jews culturally and fraternally." —LeflymanTalk 18:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Addendum, Leflyman: You said:
Finally, with all due respect, when you say, "It can easily be argued that Judaism is the source of all Jewish culture" you are flat out wrong. This is a huge topic in and of itself, but would you consider that Sephardim, Mizrahim, Ashkanazim and the various sects of Haredim (not to mention the so-called "Falasha Jews", now Beta Israel) share the same "culture"?
Yes, as I stated in the paragraph above, There is no Jewish culture in the world which doesn't trace back to the religion, no matter how altered and how different. But you seem to be contradicting yourself, you claim that Judaism is an "ethnicity," no? But you name a number of Jewish groups and ask how I can say they share the same "culture"? What do you think an ethnicity is? If they have such diverse culture, and can be so physically diverse, they are not an ethnicity. Jewish religious heritage is what links them all. -- Cecropia 01:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, his inquiry regarding the quotation in question was addressed to me [at least I presume so, since he basically quoted me in asking it...]... That said, I believe I addressed the straw man that "point" raised. As for Leflyman's purported knowledge of Hebrew and all things Jewish, I have to say his horrific misspelling of "toda raba" throws that claim into serious and well-deserved doubt. Tomertalk 10:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
There was no "straw man" point; I was addressing a different matter altogether on a statement that appeared to claim that all Jews share the same culture, one that has no bearing on the titling of this article. Further, as I noted above, I speak Hebrew-- not write it-- nor do I have a Hebrew keyboard, and inadvertently substituted alephs for hey while switching to "qwerty" Hebrew as a key-setting. Is this better for you: תּוֹדָה רַבָּה ?
Oh and consider re-reading Assume good faith before making uncivil assertions like that above. —LeflymanTalk 18:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Lexicographically, the article in question is actually centered around Jews as an ethnicity. Compare with the article Muslim, which mainly treats the noun “Muslim” and its usage. The difference to the article Christian is also fairly noticeable the same way. It is fine with me if we have an article about the word and concept “Jew” and we call that article “Jew”. As it happens, this article mainly treats Jews as an ethnicity. Pretty symptomatically, the first word — and one of the most frequent words in this article — is “Jews” in plural. Forcing the hence misleading name “Jew” on an article that is about “Jews” to prove some external point (“the singular ‘Jew’ {does|does not} have negative connotations”) is unencyclopaedic, leads to imprecise naming and may give readers a bad impression of Wikipedia. -- Olve 01:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Leflyman, I was trying to give you an opportunity to state your core argument succinctly so I could address it, and only it, but I suppose I shouldn't have included an implied apology-in-advance (i.e., not accusing you of bad motives) because you immediately refused to assume good faith on my part and went straight to an attack on me on the basis that my saying that I wasn't accusing you really meant I was accusing you. Win-win siuation for your style of argumentation, if others accept it. I've been around Wikipedia for a while and I think anyone who knows me knows I am not that subtle: I try to say what I mean. So I will tell you my view of the issue, briefly:

  1. At base, either "Jew" or "Jews" is an acceptable title; but
  2. Jew has been the title of the article as long as I can recall, and believe it always has been the title;
  3. Wikipedia policy is to use the singular noun for an article title.
  4. Wikipedia policy is not to rename an article without compelling reason and is prejudiced toward keeping the article name (i.e., consensus is usually understood to be a supermajority required to overthrow a standing title
  5. "Jew" is consistent with other religious practitioners;
  6. and, a core point, your equivalent of which you will not convey, unless I have missed it somewhere in your writings: I believe that the primary arguments in favor of change (to Jews or Jewish people) is to manipulate language because the title "Jew" is somehow offensive and requires euphamism or at least "softening." Why?

I asked quite plainly for your motivation above ("Is consistency really your chief concern? You're worried about a style issue?") but you blew right past that complaining that I'm insulting you by saying I'm not trying to insult you, then you directly insult me by saying my question is "vile and contemptible" (wow, and that without me even trying!). So now I'm insulted! Shall we stand here and slap each other in the face with wet (presumably Kosher) fish until one of us apologizes in a completely acceptable form? You have answered none of my questions: Especially why you consider the article should be changed? (Is it consistency? That's it? Say so!) You have only offered rhetoric to support a change without stating a core reason. Others have (more, IMO) compelling evidence to keep it; and I asked you a straightforward question as to why you cite the fact that you speak Hebrew and are a "Jewish immigrant" and why this makes your opinion better than anyone else's. -- Cecropia 18:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Cecropia: Please forget for a second everything that has been said about connotations, stereotypes, etc., and just have a look at the article itself. Does the article treat the term ‘Jew’ (parallel to the articles Muslim and Christian), or does it treat the Jews as a people. With all due respect, I think the question about whether this article belongs under the title Jew or Jews is fair and justified. Personally, I believe Jews is the most consistent name of this particular article in its current form. -- Olve 06:44, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As has been requested, the poll has been reponed. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 08:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Does reponed stand for reopened??? I believe that the change from Jew to Jews actually creates consistency as most subs are in the plural form:

  1. Ashkenazi Jews
  2. Black Jews
  3. Bukharan Jews
  4. Galician Jews
  5. Jews in India
  6. Jewish Americans
  7. Italian Jews
  8. Italkim
  9. Jewish Canadians
  10. Persian Jews
  11. Yemenite Jews
  12. Kurdish Jews
  13. Maghrebim
  14. Mizrahi Jews
  15. Mountain Jews
  16. Sephardi Jews
  17. Gruzim

Not plural:

  1. African Jew
  2. Atheist Jew (not sure it belongs in the list, as this one is not ethnicity related)
  3. Chuts (both plural and singular, yet refered to as "they" in the article and sometimes chut is used)
  4. Palestinian Jew
  5. Yekke

In conclusion, the usage of the word "Jew" or any singular name for that matter in an article name discussing the Jews does not not only come across as awkward, but is also very rare among the articles discussing the Jews. gidonb 23:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Jews in India

I dont understand why the statistics of jews in INDIA are not in this section. They are more than 50 thousand jews in INDia, esp in bombay, cochin, delhi and calcutta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.163.197 (talk • contribs) 00:21, April 7, 2006

  • They do get mentioned in the table Jews by country, which points to Jews in India, but the table only estimates the numbers as 5401, which seems low given the numbers in Jews in India. Perhaps you might wish to help correct these numbers, providing us with some verifiable sources for the 50 thousand claim? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Jew article ahead in google search

I think this whole debate about changing the title really surged up this article's rankings on Google. Now if you search "Jew," the first link that comes up is this article on wikipedia, and no more "message from Google" links anymore. So congratulations to all those who are involved in making this happen.--141.213.196.250 04:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

  • The discussion here would have no effect on Google ranking, unless there was a demonstrative sudden surge in links made from external Web sites to the page. That "other site" and this article fluctuate as to the first position. It may be just as likely that Google decided to tweak the order manually-- kinda like they wrote the inaccurate description of the article ("Discussion of the difference between Jewish religion and ethnicity..."? Not so much.) As I mentioned above, changing the title would not effect ranking, either. --LeflymanTalk 05:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Population

First we say "Today, there are an estimated 13 million [2] to 14.6 million[3] Jews worldwide…" Then we note: "Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population. Higher estimates place the worldwide Jewish population at over 14.5 million." Then we have a table that shows a number of 15,471,000. These statements do not sit well together. I'm not really an active participant in this article lately, I've just been keeping an eye on it; would someone who is more actively working on it be interested in sorting this out? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 01:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Considering the dispute as to how "a Jew" is defined, I would also want to know the assumptions behind any figure. Only those who are a member of a synagogue? Anyone who self-identifies? Children of mixed parentage? I'm not trying to reargue the definition here, but what assumptions are made with come up with widely varying figures. -- Cecropia 06:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The numbers shown in the table under "Significant geographic populations" do not match those in the source given in the Notes section (Note 6: Jewish Virtual Library). This may be due to updated figures in the source. Since there are some significant differences, can the table be changed?--KevinR 10:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Question Regarding the use of "Jewish American" in first line of autobraphies

There are a TON of articles on folks who are of Jewish decent. I notice that in approx 90% of the AMERICAN BORN people, they are not "labeled" as "jewish-american" rather they are called americans and then their Jewsishness, if you will, is addressed further down in the article. I won't even go into foreign born folks here, but STRICLY American born "celebrities", how should this be addressed and is there ANY concensus on this issue or standard. I know I'll probable get 10 different answers and views but I find it to be an interesting issue. Thanks in advance and I know this has probable been covered quite ofter before.198.176.188.201 03:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If nationality is relevant to description for a person, I