Talk:Jew/Archive 9

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 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Contents

Archived the talk page

I archived the 74 KB talk page, because it seemed to me many discussions had become self-perpetuating. JFW | T@lk 11:33, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article is disputed thus it is not feasible to backup all of the talk page

I'l present back the disputes I find interesting. Others can restore the ones they are attending in / pushing forward.

Could you sign, please? You may have noted that some snowballed discussions have been stopped as a results of my move. JFW | T@lk 00:34, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dispute about the nature of concentration camp versus extermination camp:

My take on this: I'm am not aware of any documented atrocities happening in the working camps (Danny seems to know otherwise/better?), except towards the end of the war lack of food and hygiene. The article should first of all point out that the concentration camps were not only for the Jews and there didn't happen any organized killing there. The camps weren't even initially built for the ethical Jews - they were for criminals and political dissents.

Then the PC history records, that there were the six? exterminations camps (Rudolf Hess confesses three in Nuremberg trials), which were used to gas Jewish/Roma/Soviet POW victims to death. They should be mentioned AND the number of these camps should also be noted, so the reader makes a clear distiction between a normal and an extermination camp. 141.76.1.122 15:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • What the heck is a "NORMAL" (Nazi-run !!!!) camp? Are you nuts? IZAK 09:43, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Discussion about concentration camps

I haven't been following this article but, as regards Sam's points: Point 2 is correct. Concentration camps were first built to incarcerate, not kill opponents (though many died in them from abuse, malnutrition, disease, overwork, summary execution, etc.) In fact, until November 1938, the vast majority of prisoners in concentration camps were not Jews. It is important to distinguish between concentration and death camps. I am not sure about Sam's objection to statement one. Yes, Holocaust deniers deny that six million Jews were murdered. Sam, please clarify what your objection to the sentence is. Danny 01:24, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually I am disputing "slaughter". Read above. Sam [Spade] 01:44, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Would "persecution and murder" be better? Danny 02:12, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The first sentence is gone, the second sentence has been clarified. It is now more or less in the form it was before the furor erupted, with some clarifications around concentration camps. Jayjg 04:58, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This article is obviously a farce considering the truth and NPOV, but basically 'political correct' historical view is what wikipedia stands for and that it truly provides. The Holocaust(R) is a religious (and polical) matter for the Jews, where Spielberg provides the facts in black and white 'documentaries'.
Oh yeah, the holocaust never happened. Uh-huh. And those numbers on my grandmothers arm were made up as part of the "Jewish Conspiracy". Take your crud elsewhere--Josiah 10:33, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Of course, if your grandmother had been gassed and cremated, she wouldn't have had a tattoo to show you, right? I hate to break it to you, but the tattoo on the arm of your LIVING grandmother is not particularly persuasive evidence for a holocaust. -- Igor.
That's one of the most hateful things I've ever heard said on this website or any other. Jdavidb 20:14, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hateful? I stated a rational, dispassionate argument against the person's suggestion that a tattoo constitutes evidence of a holocaust. If you feel that a tattoo on his grandmother's arm constitutes proof of a holocaust, then please state your reasons why. Your statement above is a bunch of knee-jerk, sentimental bunk, it's not a rational argument. -- Igor.
By the way the zealots forgot to revert the last of my edits, the one that used to claim that "Nuremberg laws were fascist". Of course if it were so, then the very similar laws of modern Israel should be also called "fascist and racist" (e.g. the right to return for an ethnic jew, non-Jews secound class citizens).80.221.0.204 10:06, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
And another ignoramous shows his ignorance.--Josiah 10:33, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The edit seemed reasonable; facism and racism are not particularly tightly linked. Agenda based commentary attempting to link Israel and Nazis ignored. Jayjg 16:22, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dispute about the nature of the whole wikipedia Jew article: neo-Nazi's, White nationalist and Jewish agenda

Restored back. 141.76.1.122 15:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A threat?

I just received this message from a user here: "Stop trolling on Jew. Your agenda is obvious. This is also your first and final warning. JFW | T@lk 17:14, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)." Sounds an awful lot like a threat, doesn't it? Unsigned by Igor, User:149.99.133.209

who is it from?Zestauferov 17:23, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's from me. Adding the inflammatory link from the National Vanguard is trolling, and will lead to banning. Yes, this was a legitimate threat. JFW | T@lk 17:26, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Also from you:"Your response on Talk:Jew is noted. I have every right to issue this "threat" if you insert links to the National Vanguard that have little to do with Jew/Judaism and more with Google (and perhaps Wikipedia), and are clearly intended as trolling. JFW | T@lk 17:33, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)". The National Vanguard article is relevant to this page on many levels, most notably in that it specifically mentions this - Wikipedia's - "Jew" article, and explains how this article came be ranked as Google's #1 search result for the search term "Jew". According to the article, it came to be ranked as #1 through the UNETHICAL practice of 'linkbombing' Google in a campaign organized by Jewish lobby groups and Jewish individuals. Jewish censorship on the internet (and elsewhere) is certainly relevant to the "Jew" topic and should be discussed in the article. The fact that you - JFW | User_talk:Jfdwolff - have attempted to block me from Wikipedia is a BLATANT example of Jewish censorship of the internet. -- Igor.
To more fully explain, the anonymous person is pushing Nazi propaganda, Holocaust denial, and is linking this article to Nazi websites. What could constitute a greater case for banning? RK 17:43, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you're resorting to Ad hominem attacks and censorship because you're unable to refute the charges made in the National Vanguard article? -- Igor.
Hi, I'm a Gentile. We do not worry about refuting charges here on Wikipedia. Our purpose is not to determine the truth or falsehood of charges, only to report appropriate information in the proper context. We report what various groups believe and allow readers to determine truth for themselves.
This is not a case of Jewish censorship. I'm a Gentile, and I'll cut out Nazi junk from Wikipedia, too.
It's not even a case of censorship. It's a case of removing something that does not belong in a particular encyclopedia article. This is what makes WIkipedia a source of unbiased information for all.
For more information, please read about the Wikipedia:NPOV policy. Jdavidb 18:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The article in question - which I don't believe you've made any effort to read before classifying it as 'Nazi junk' - most certainly IS relevant to the article, and the attempts by certain individuals to ban me from Wikipedia for posting a link to this article most certainly ARE censorship. -- Igor.
I can't read it. My employer's internet system blocks the article as being hate speech. Sounds like Nazi propaganda to me.
You "can't read it", and yet it "sounds like Nazi propaganda" to you. I'd say it is YOU who are having a problem with NPOV, not I. -- Igor.
You will not be allowed to use Wikipedia to promote this stuff. There are plenty of Gentiles AND Jews who will prevent it. Jdavidb 20:16, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Incidentally, you're not being censored. If you were, the right to download Mediawiki and make your own website saying whatever you want would have been taken away. Why don't you go do just that and leave the rest of us alone? Jdavidb 20:18, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia does not belong to you or to the little Jewish gang that tries to control this page? -- Igor.
Dude, wake up. It's hate speech. Jdavidb 20:56, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Dude, read the article or zip it. Oops, you can't read it - someone's censoring your internet access! (Gee, I wonder who would do that?). So on second thought, just zip it. -- Igor.
The link is not relevant to the topic of this article. You could try linking it to articles on Google rankings; that might be more appropriate. Jayjg 21:23, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You don't know if it's relevant or not since you haven't even read it. You are clearly very biased and are unable to maintain NPOV on this matter. You are simply arguing for argument's sake at this point. -- Igor.
Why on earth would you assume I haven't read it? Regardless, the link is not relevant to the topic of this article. You could try linking it to articles on Google rankings; that might be more appropriate.Jayjg 23:02, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I didn't assume anything. You state above: "I can't read it. My employer's internet system blocks the article as being hate speech." You're being very disingenuous, you know. -- Igor.
That was me, not him. Try to pay attention.
Also, care to respond to my suggestion that you download the freely provided Mediawiki and make your own website and leave us alone? Jdavidb 01:14, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I read the link once you remove all the unsuported antisemtic nosense what is left is already covered in this articleGeni 22:07, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Page protected due to edit war

I've protected this page as of 17:39, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC) due to an edit war. BCorr|Брайен 17:39, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Brian. It was more vandalism than a proper edit war (unless you count my months-spanning disagreement with User:Zestauferov whether the fringe organisation Netzarim is a legitimate form of Orthodox Judaism).
The problems at the moment are relatively minor, and AFAIAC (as far as I'm concerned) protection can be removed in a day or two. JFW | T@lk 17:43, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'll check back in a couple of days. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 21:06, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This is fascinating - why did you just remove the link I had placed below to the controversial National Vanguard article? Why are you editing my messages without saying so? An impartial observer might be tempted to believe that some people here don't want the National Vanguard article to be seen by anyone. Oh well. Here's a link to the article again: REMOVED BY JDAVIDB BECAUSE YOU'RE VANDALIZING WIKIPEDIA. It only seems fair that people get to read it, since it's what JFW tried to ban me from Wikipedia for posting. -- Igor.
Go make your own website and post it there.
And don't call this "Jewish censorship" -- I'm a Gentile. Jdavidb 01:14, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am not a vandal, or a troll, and you Jfdwolff, are a shameless liar and a censor (the article in question is NOT an "anti-Google" article, as you mendaciously claim). I can think of no better first-hand example of Jewish censorship on the internet than what has just transpired here. I propose that a category in the external links section be called "Jews and Censorship" and that the controversial link be placed there. Wikipedia is meant to be an unbiased educational resource for all, not a showcase for Zionist propaganda. -- Igor.
"Zionist" propaganda? The Google rankings for the article Jew have nothing to do with Zionism, though this is an interesting demonstration of the way anti-Semites use "Zionist" and "Jew" interchangeably. Thanks, it will come handy in a discussion I've had on another Talk: page. Jayjg 21:26, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So why is there a link to ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), among others, at the bottom of the article? Those links lead to Zionist propaganda. -- Igor.
There are over 30 links at the bottom of this article, to various Jewish organizations, secular and religious movements, etc. One is to the Zionist Organization of America; I hardly see how it makes Wikipedia a "showcase for Zionist propaganda". Wikipedia also has links to CODOH, IHR, Zundelsite, etc. Does that make Wikipedia a "showcase for Holocaust Denial propaganda"? Jayjg 23:06, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You claimed that there was nothing having to do with Zionism in the article "Jew". I proved you wrong. I did not say that I considered Wikipedia, in its totality, to be a showcase for Zionist propaganda - I said that Wikipedia is not *meant to be* a showcase for Zionist propaganda (i.e. I do not want to see Wikipedia turn into a forum where a tiny clique of Zionist Jews and their uncritical supporters have ultimate editorial control over every article they feel pertains to the image of their ethnic/political group). You would do well to stop skewing my words, seeing as your lies are so easy to refute. Now if, by your own logic, linking to revisionist websites like the IHR doesn't turn Wikipedia into a spotlight for holocaust revisionist "propaganda", then why this nearly fanatical opposition to having ONE SINGLE LINK among 30 to an article which directly discusses the page in question, as well as numerous sociological/political issues pertaining to the ethnic group under discussion? Why is a link to a Zionist organization acceptable for the article "Jew", but not a link to an organization which is critical of Jewish/Zionist influence in Western society? It's obvious why - the little gang of Jews writing this article will only allow information which paints Jews *favorably* to appear in the article. They will fight tooth & nail to prevent any information unflattering to Jews - regardless of whether it's true or not - from surfacing in the article. Is that NPOV? No, it's not, and you're preaching a hypocritical double-standard. -- Igor.
On the contrary, I made no claim that there was nothing having to do with Zionism in the article "Jew"; I challenge you to find the statement. Rather, I pointed out that your insinuation that the Jew article was a showcase for Zionist propaganda was false. Your various statements about a "tiny clique of Zionist Jews and their uncritical supporters" trying to "control" things is a classic anti-Semitic Conspiracy theory first advanced in the Tsarist forgerty The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The link itself is about the Jew watch website and Google rankings, so irrelevant to the topic at hand (which is Jews), but it has been added to a more relevant article, Jew watch. Your various Ad hominem arguments, false statements, and Red herrings are noted with amusement. Jayjg 16:44, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I, Jfdwolff, am not a shameless liar or censor, but I'll proudly bear your small-minded insults. You are the one with the hypocritical double standard, or shall we call it cognitive dissonance? You are being "censored" because the article defends the notorious hate-peddler Jew Watch, which was ranked highly due to Google bombing and seems to be a repository of everything mindless that has even been written about Jews. Wikipedia will suppress links to hateful sites - they are not encyclopedic because they do not rationally examine information (but peddle scary stories about Jews slaughtering Christian babies and baking their blood into their matzos instead). If you don't get this, you should rightly be denied the right to edit Wikipedia articles. JFW | T@lk 17:00, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Locked from editing. It seems that rather then there being unbiased editorial of Wikipedia, its been hijacked once again by insidious 'jewish interests'.. much like every other media source on this planet. User:62.252.0.5

No, "every media source on the planet" does not represent your views because they are so untrue and so reprehensible that "everybody" sees right through them. But I won't try to change your mind - your racist beliefs have skewed your ability to appraise information and draw a conclusion that is in alignment with reality. JFW | T@lk 09:33, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
JFW, I don't feel you're terribly objective. Mr. Jones 09:10, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That Jewish persons control most of the Hollywood, newspapers, television channels, book publishing etc. in the United States of America is a statistical fact, and the only thing one can argue (fallaciously) is that the owners being Jewish doesn't in anyway add pro-Jewish interests influence to these medias. The Internet is truly beginning to be the last forum, on which self-aware non-Jews can express their opinions on, and discuss, the Jews without being persecuted by their respective Western world governments. Of course Jewish interests know this very well and organizations like ADL are openly pushing for Internet censorship. Did I say censorship? I meant "providing effective hate crime prevention and intervention strategies" (ADL). Like already an invidual on this talk page proved ("I can't read it. My employer's internet system blocks the article as being hate speech." - Jdavidb), this basically means proxies, which filter webpages Jewish groups don't want people to see.

Hate? If any group on this planet is notorious for hating other people's customs (Jews are always happy to tell about how their ways are better than anyone else's), traditions (worldwide MTV culture), messiahs (Jesus), self-pride, right to a homeland (Palestinians) and finally right to exist (White Europeans as a race are dying), then it must be the Talmud followers.

Let the personal attacks begin. 141.76.1.122 19:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't give you the gratification. -- Jmabel 20:47, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
I can't type and yawn at the same time. --Zero 01:07, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So predictable and so boring. Jayjg 16:57, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Now that the Jewish choir of the snoring has performed... Here's what they didn't say: They couldn't deny the facts about the media ownership. They couldn't deny that ADL pushes for internet censorship. They can't deny that such proxies/filters are already operational throughout the U.S. (in private businesses/universities/internet providers as the constitution somewhat still ensures freedom of speech for public facilities). Love is hate. Truth is anti-semitism. 141.76.1.121 19:02, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh dear. Do you think we've hurt his feelings by not engaging? -- Jmabel 22:17, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
Well, the fact that we aren't engaged may have hurt his feelings, but what about my feelings? What about me? Now I've got to tell my family that I'm not marrying this nice Jewish guy I just met...  ;-) RK
This isn't the place for discussion of these topics: Zionism, Censorship, Ethnicity of owners of mass media

However, you might be able to raise your concerns on those pages, User:141.76.1.121. I'd be interested to read about the views expressed by specific groups (it's important to make attributions), particularly those who see themselves as the anti-semitic and anti-zionist equivalents of the ADL. Oh, and try signing in, it's more private in many ways. Mr. Jones 09:10, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The most famous Jew

You forgot to mention the most famouse jew in the whole human history. Jesus Christ. (anon)

  • Actually, he is mentioned five times in the article. However, the article currently fails to mention explicitly that he was a Jew. Given that many Christians have a misunderstanding about that, and given that the article does include a list of famous Jews, perhaps there should be an explicit remark to that effect in the article? -- Jmabel 20:35, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

I forcefully dispute "the most famous Jew" being linked to Jesus. He is not famous for being Jewish. Can we please reserve this appelation for the patriarchs or Moses? JFW | T@lk 00:34, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Our section "famous Jews" includes (among others) Karl Marx, Benjamin Disraeli, Leon Trotsky, and Sigmund Freud; unlike Jesus, none of them were practicing Jews. I think there is a certain hypocrisy in systematically excluding Jesus from such a list. Jesus is "famous" precisely for reasons deriving from his (arguably heretical) interpretation of Judaism. In his lifetime, his notability was entirely within Judaism. I've never seen any indication that he intended to found a Gentile religion. I don't think lengthy discussion of Jesus particularly belongs on this page -- in fact I think the 5 extant mentions of him are (if anything) a bit excessive. Still, it is odd that we with so many mentions of him there is not a single mention of the fact that he was a Jew. -- Jmabel 05:20, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

I would definitely include Jesus as a famous Jew. He shouldn't be resented for what his followers may have done, IMHO> But honestly, when I saw the head "most famouse Jew," I thought someone was going to list Art Spiegelman. ;-). -- Cecropia | Talk 06:16, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No catty remarks, please. -- Jmabel 06:44, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Meow IZAK 09:46, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe this has already been discussed, but I just noted the comment presented as fact that "The abandonment of Jewish law and the subsequent deification of Jesus by early leaders of what would become the Christian church, by, for example, Paul of Tarsus, and the publication of the New Testament, ensured that Christianity and Judaism would become completely different and often conflicting religions." Most Christians would hold that Jesus was God all along, not just since Paul decided it was so. Thus this statement is really pushing a point of view... Could we change that at least a little bit? Maybe "The abandonment of Jewish law and the teaching that Jesus was God..."? -- Mpolo 15:22, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
He wasn't deified or worshipped in his lifetime, nor is there any evidence he was worshipped in the years immediately following his death, so any deification was "subsequent". Jayjg 16:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If you're a Christian (and not a Jehovah's Witness), which, after all, lots of people are, you believe that, regardless of whether he was worshipped in his lifetime, Jesus was deified at the time of his begetting, i.e. well before his lifetime. - Nat Krause 17:41, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
And if you're not a Christian you don't believe that. Regardless, the existing evidence is that the people of his era did not consider him to be a god until the time of Paul or later. Jayjg 21:07, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That's why I suggested "the teaching that Jesus was God". It limits the belief to Christians, but doesn't outright say (as the article does now) that all Christians believe a doctrine that Paul pulled out of a hat or indeed that Paul is even greater than God, since he was able to magically turn a Jewish preacher into God himself. I object to the term "deification". It doesn't matter what the people of his lifetime thought -- the article states (or implies) as facts that Jesus is a person who was not God (POV!) whom Paul "deified" at a later date (also POV!).
The whole "people of his era did not consider him to be a god" is kind of silly since there is exactly ZERO evidence of what they did or didn't believe, since all writings about the subject postdate his life. That is, it would be just as accurate to say "there is no evidence that the people of his time did not consider him to be God". I'm not proposing anything as radical as that. The point is that we are supposed to maintain a neutral point of view, which means that even in an article about Judaism and its practitioners, we cannot assume the point of view of the Jews, especially when describing another religion. Mpolo 07:22, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Now this is an odd thing that User:Mpolo says:"...even in an article about Judaism and its practitioners, we cannot assume the point of view of the Jews, especially when describing another religion..." which makes absolutely no logical sense. Are we now going to give "POV" about Judaism from a zillion and one perspectives (and not the one by "Jews"?)? In any case, this is not an article about "Judaism" , it's about Jew and Jesus was most certainly a Jew first, and the religion which sprouted up after him known as Christianity has NO meaning without first taking into account Jesus as a Jew and how he is viewed by the people he supposedly came from and their religion with its belief in a Jewish Messiah. This is really not the place to engage in Supersessionism debates. IZAK 08:01, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please. I have nowhere claimed that Jesus was not a Jew. He was. And I say that even though I'm in Germany, where I've been told it's illegal to say that. I have nowhere claimed Supersessionism. I have claimed that stating as a fact in the article that "Jesus was an ordinary human being whom a group of loonies decided to declare God" (as it stands now in the article, in slightly less inflammatory terms) is Point of View. To say that "the teaching that Jesus was God" led to dispute with the Jews seems to me to fit with your POV and with mine just perfectly. We shouldn't state for a fact that "Christianity is wrong" on the Jew page, the same way we don't state that "Judaism is wrong" on the Jesus page (I haven't read the Christianity page, so don't know what it says there.) Mpolo 10:59, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
I went ahead and attempted an edit here. As my text stands, it does not say that Jesus was God or when Christians came to believe this, but indicates that the teaching is due to "early" church leaders. I think that should satisfy all, I hope. (The link to deification had nothing to do with the article -- it links to an article about how Christians are made divine through the actions of the Holy Spirit and reception of the Eucharist, which is not what this article had in mind.) I also indicated that supersessionism is weakening in some churches without mentioning which ones -- it's some left-wing Protestant churches and the Catholic Church -- but that might be divisive, so I left it out. (The Catholic Church complicates the issue anyway. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, but the Jews are still saved through their faith in the Name and the Law. And I judged this too much to try to clarify in this article. I may be compelled to mess with it over in Supersessionism, which seems to want to put Nostra Aetate and Dominus Jesus at odds, which they are not. But I digress...) Mpolo 08:32, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

A non-controversial topic :)

Have an easy fast, and a joyous Sukkot everyone--Josiah 09:24, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Karaites

I'm sorry, I'm still learning how this Wiki stuff works. Anyway I wanted to suggest to edit the Karaite section to add that the Jewish authorities in the Nazi era also denied the Jewishness of Karaites in order to save them from the Nazis. 69.70.145.243 00:03, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It would probably go better in the Karaite_Judaism page.--Josiah 14:58, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jews CLAIM to be a nation descended from Abraham

Religions are based on origin myths. These are claims not facts. What about the converts? Are they also descended from Abraham? Alberuni 15:57, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We needn't argue about this. Some Jews (not monolithic "Jews") believe Jews to constitute a nation. It is one of a number of definitions to describe what is meant by a "Jew." Others include a religion, an ethnicity, a cultural tradition, a fact of birth, a race, or a combination. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:03, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure how universal this is, but at least among some Jews there is a tradition of considering conversion tantamount to adoption in this respect. Also, I don't think most Jews (except the very literal-minded) are concerned with the degree to which there is a biological descent from Abraham. I also believe that there is a great deal of divergence among Jews as to the degree that any pre-Mosaic events in the Bible are to considered as history rather than legend. The current wording of "the ancestry of Jewish national identity is traced from..." is a bit passive and ambiguous, and his been the subject of several edit wars, but I don't think it is actively misleading. I'd probably write "according to Jewish tradition this nation is descended from..." but I don't think the difference is worth fighting over. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:54, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Nation

Describing Jews as a "nation", and especially as "the people" is more than problematic as a core definition. That external belief has led to much anti-Jewish feeling in the form of accusations of dual-nationality or even foreignness. In ethnography, meaning groups consider themselves "the people," "God's people," "real people," etc.

The historical belief among many Arabs, for example, that they constitute a "nation" that does not have borders, especially with regard to non-Arabs, has itself been a problem. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 15:59, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, most Jews believe themselves to be a people and a nation, and the text now reflects this. Jayjg 16:09, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Do you have a source for this claim other than yourself? Alberuni 16:10, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Nations are usually defined by their members, not outsiders. It's funny that this question is being raised here, because Jewish national identity goes back for millenia. Compare to e.g. "American nation", "German nation", "Russian nation", etc. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 00:18, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Are Muslims a nation? No, ummah means community and even non-Muslims are considered members of the ummah if they live in Muslim societies. Are Christians or Buddhists a nation? No, they are religions. Did Jews consider themselves a nation for thousands of years when they had no land area, currency, or diplomatic recognition? Alberuni 01:18, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, they have. That's Judaism 101, which even the Anti-Zionist Satmar groups will tell you. In a similar manner Tibet does as well.--Josiah 02:08, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Josiah on this point. In this respect, it may be instructive to see Exilarch. Agreed that most religions don't coincide with self-perceived nations in the way that Judaism does, although the various Eastern Orthodox Churches are more like it in this respect than any of the examples given above. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:41, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
If you accept Jewish nationalism, Zionism, as a fact with no concern for the consequences to others who get in their way then you should have no objection to Islamists pursuing a similar nationalist agenda with no concern for those who get in their way. Alberuni 00:22, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Excuse me, have I ever shown signs of "accept[ing]... Zionism... with no concern for the consequences to others"? I've probably spent several hundred hours of my life protesting on behalf of Palestinian rights and I don't even want to think how much time on other related matters. I'm not thrilled with nationalism of any sort, and I believe I place Palestinian nationalism and Israeli nationalism on pretty much exactly the same level. Your remark here is exactly the sort of thing I meant in the comment below about abrasive rhetoric.
It's also important to differentiate Jewish belief in constituting a nation or people from Zionism. Zionism is a specifically political project, dating back little more than a century, to create and later to preserve a Jewish nation-state. For many of us, our sense of Jewish nationhood has nothing to do with a nation-state, more or less as someone in Barcelona can consider him/herself to be of Catalan rather than Spanish nationality, without advocating Catalan secession from Spain. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:54, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
What do you want? A medal? You accept the Zionist promotion of Jewish "nationhood" out one side of your mouth and denounce nationalism out the other. Congratulations on your high sense of moral purpose. Alberuni 14:24, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As I said, I place Palestinian nationalism and Israeli nationalism on pretty much exactly the same level. It's hard to see what you find objectionable in that. I don't necessarily tie the existence of a national identity to the need for a national state (nor, apparently, did, for example, Edward Said, who argued for a unitary secular state embracing both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and my only problem with that idea is that it seems very unlikely ever to occur), but — given that we live in a world of states — I believe in a two-state solution.
But this isn't an article about Zionism. It's an article about Jews. And the Jews have always considered themselves a nation as much as a religion; historically, most Gentiles, especially in the Christian world, have been only too happy to agree, since it has allowed various societies to exclude their Jewish population from their national identity (e.g. ethnic Romanians do not usually consider Romanian Jews fully Romanian. I suppose in many cases others have considered them a race rather than a nation, and maybe we should say as much in the article, insofar as we are representing historical views rather than present-day understanding of race). This historical aspect seems to me to be pretty much a settled matter of fact; is this what you are disputing, because if it is, I don't think we'll have any trouble finding abundant references. This is an almost totally separate question (at least in my view) from any claim on the right to a state, especially a state on what was historically other people's land. The exploitation of this fact in Zionist rhetoric does not turn the fact into a lie. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:42, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Concentration camps vs. Exterminations camps

Concentration camps and Extermination camps were different; extermination camps were built for the express purpose of killing Jews. Please read the related articles; the original article on Jew reflected that difference. Jayjg 16:33, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the article on the topic says that Nazi concentration camps (cf. concentration camp) is the general term, and these were subdivided into labor camps and extermination camps, while the extermination camp article distinguishes concentration, labor, and extermination camps as three different things. Two of the seven extermination camps are in German Wikipedia as KZ (concentration camps) -- Auschwitz and Majdanek. The distinction is useful, however, and more accurately shows the difference between the purposes of the camps. But I don't think there's evidence for a cut-and-dried distinction in usage. Note, I do not object to your change here (I'm totally uninvolved in that paragraph), nor to the distinction. Just musing about the topic... Mpolo 18:31, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)
Auschwitz was actually complex of concentration camps and an extermination camp. The extermination camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau. Majdanek was unique, in that it was used for several purposes over the years. Jayjg 20:26, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Non-Jews were also systematically killed in the concentration camps. Why do Jews feel it is necessary to monopoloize the victimhood of the Holocaust? Is it because guilt over the Holocaust is used as a political tool to justify the creation and continuing atrocities committed by Israel? Alberuni 01:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, non-Jews were also systematically killed in concentration camps, though Hitler's focus was on Jews, as he viewed Jews as being in a war with Germans for world domination. Be that as it may, in what way was your political polemic related to my point? Extermination camps and concentration camps were different, and extermination camps were created for the express purpose of killing Jews. Jayjg 20:09, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Usually Jews readily acknowledge and empathize with the suffering of other ethnic groups who were similarly targeted for racist "extermination" (such as Roma). But if anti-semites acknowledge this fact, their loony (my POV here, feel free to strike out) theories would collapse. May I suggest an addition to a reading list of anyone, friend or foe: Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars by Yaacov Lozowick (a liberal Israeli from the "peace camp"). A quote: Like the story of the dissappearing Jewish communities of the Muslim world, the remarkable absense of of Jewish revenge for the Shoah never occurs to anyone... Jews do not take revenge. When they were a persecuted minority they did not turn in rage on their tormentors, which apologists for Palestinian violence would have us believe to be a natural response to oppression... (p.118). ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
We're not discussing what you think Jews are like. We're discussing this article and its claims that the Nazi extermination camps were established exclusively for Jews. This ignores the millions of non-Jews who were also persecuted victims of the Holocaust. By the way, your claim that the Jews meekly went to their deaths (and your wish that the victims of Israel would do the same) ignores the Jewish partisans who fought against Nazi oppression - just like the Palestinians who are fighting Zionist oppression. Alberuni 20:15, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The article is using extermination camp in a technical sense -- it is not the same as a concentration camp. If you check the article on Nazi concentration camps, you will see that Wikipedia admits that more non-Jews were killed (or otherwise died) in the camps than Jews. The extermination camps, of which there were only seven (or eight, depending on your counting), were the ones with the mass-production gas chambers to kill a maximum of people with a minimum fuss. Those were almost exclusively used for Jews, homosexuals and gypsies. (Which is not to say that the starvation bunker in the ordinary concentration camps was a nice place.)
This article states: "They later built extermination camps for the express purpose of genocide against Jews,". That is false and does not jibe with the sttements in Nazi concentration camps. The rest is pointless. Alberuni 00:18, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Why is it false? Jayjg 22:32, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As to your other point, I just want to say, it would be nice if both sides of the debate could separate "Ariel Sharon's/Israel's policies" from "Jewish behavior". That is, criticism of Sharon shouldn't be perceived as or stated as criticism of the Jews in general. But it seems like any criticism of Sharon or Israel is immediately greeted with charges of "Anti-Semitism", and that the current actions of Israel are just fuelling the negative feelings of the other side.... Mpolo 20:46, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Comparing with Nazis is highly offensive to Jews, but leaving the immorality considerations aside, it is also factually wrong argument that works against your political cause, Alberuni.

  • From dryly arithmetic point of view, the scale of atrocities of the Shoah cannot be trivialized and compared with anything Israelis have done or do. Not to say they are angels, but it is wrong to expect them to be angels in the first place. User:Humus sapiens
    • Millions of palestinians are refugees from the Israeli state. Thousands of civilians have been killed in countless massacres to make room for Jews in Palestine. We don't have to wait for Jews to kill 6 million Arabs to recognize fascism when it is oppressing us. Alberuni 14:19, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • The Nazis mass murdered Jews simply because they were Jewish. Imagine a Nazi state with 18% Jewish population. User:Humus sapiens
    • The Israelis murder Palestinians and other Arabs, and discriminate against millions of people in their own homeland, simply because they are NOT Jewish. Alberuni 14:19, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • A lie. See Demographics of Israel. Instead of building their own state they were offered several times, the Arabs tried to destroy the Jewish state several times. The Israelis' "fault" is, they prevailed, against all odds. I wonder why the rants about Palestinian expulsions are always directed at Israel but never to Jordan (remember the events of 1970, Black September or Kuwait, 1991)? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 23:10, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Discrimination against Arabs within Israel is not "a lie". Enormous portions of the land in Israel can be owned only by Jews. I don't think there is another country in the world with a comparable amount of discrimination along those lines. And they are excluded from the military (of course, some would say that's a benefit, but that's not why the rule is in place). I imagine a much longer list could be drawn up, but those are the first things that leap to mind. But that has little to do with this article, except for contributing to the importance of the Israeli government's definition of "Jew". -- Jmabel | Talk 04:10, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
          • "Only owned by Jews" in what sense? And of course, Arabs are not excluded from the military, that's just nonsense. Jayjg 19:34, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Jewish partisans of WWII fought Nazi troops to prevent further atrocities. It would be wrong to expect from Jews not to fight the Nazis and their active collaborators. User:Humus sapiens
    • Palestinains also fight against Zionist troops and their active collaborators, like the settlers who steal Arab land in the Occupied Territories. Alberuni 14:19, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Glad you cleared your position regarding Palestinian terrorism. I suggest you check your statistics. See [1] ←Humus sapiens←Talk 23:10, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Well, for what it's worth, guys, while I'm not happy about anyone solving things force of arms, a strong case can be made under international law that the Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in the Territories. That doesn't include attacks within Israel, and attacks on civilians in general are dubious in international law, but certainly Israel is guilty of far more attacks on civilians than the Palestinians are. Not to say for one moment that the conduct of one side in attacking civilians excuses the other, but to say that the fact that Israel is a recognized state and the Palestinians are not does not give Israel a legitimate monopoly on the use of force.
      • Again, none of this has much to do with this article. This is getting really tangential. And I find very contentious Alberuni's use of Zionist troops: Israel has a universal draft, assuming every Israeli soldier is a Zionist is even more dubious than assuming every U.S. soldier in Iraq favors the war. It takes a lot of nerve, and a willingness to go to prison, to resist a draft. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:10, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • It was the Arabs who supported the Nazis (the mufti, Sadat, etc). The Jews fought the Nazis. Your turnspeak is duly noted. User:Humus sapiens
    • Jewish capos collaborated with the Nazis as did American Zionists who saw the Holocaust as a great opportunity to steer European Jews to Palestine. Alberuni 14:19, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Certainly some Arabs and (amazingly) a few Jews worked actively with the Nazis. I think it is safe to say that few the Jews who did so were almost all simply opportunists (either a twisted version of Zionism or, in Europe, trying -- and usually failing -- to survive). I would imagine that many of the Arabs were also opportunists (after all, they had far more room for grievance against the UK than Germany), though a few were clearly admirers. But so were a lot of other people. I'm replying because this discussion is happening here, but what does any of this have to do with the article at hand? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:10, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Jewish treatment of Palestinians

I have taken the liberty of inserting this subhead after the fact. Clearly the dialogue that folllows is not about Concentration camps vs. Exterminations camps. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:29, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

  • A few facts regarding "Zionist oppression": mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electricor gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967. I can go on. (Data from Prof. Efraim Karsh, Commentary Magazine July 2002) BTW, this needs to be put in one of those Brutal Israeli occupation articles. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:32, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • The Palestinian diaspora living in squalid refugee camps should be grateful that the Jews have brought them such prosperity and freedom that they never would have had without the civilizing hand of the great Jew. Where would the Palestinians be today if itr wasn't for the riches lavished upon them by their generous masters? Arbeit Macht Frei! Alberuni 14:19, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Y'know, Alberuni, I happen to feel that what Israel has done to the Palestinians is comparable to what the white South Africans did to the Blacks under apartheid, but to say or imply that either of those was equivalent to the Holocaust is pretty much Holocaust denial in my book. There is a difference between a racist ("race" is not the operative word, but I can't think of a better one) system of oppression, which exists right now in Israel/Palestine, and a serious attempt at genocide. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:50, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
I agree with your analogy between Zionism and South African apartheid. I also understand the reticence to declare the Nakba and ensuing 56 years of Israeli oppression as "genocide" in the strictest sense but the Palestinians will never feel grateful for the honor of being evicted from their homeland to make room for the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide. Please read the Genocide article. Genocide is defined more broadly than just the levels of racist destruction inflicted in the Holocaust. "The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" etc. The Zionists would like to monopolize the word genocide to be limited mainly to the Holocaust, like they monopolize the use of the term anti-Semitism, so that the slogan "Never Again" is never applied to Israel's racist crimes. --Alberuni 03:56, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
While I fully agree that there are people who when they say "never again" mean "next time we get to wear the jackboots" (believe me, I know, I grew up about 20 miles from where Meir Kahane started the JDL), I hope you understand that I am not one of them.
Genocide is a matter of degree. I would apply the word "genocide" to the U.S. giving malaria-infested blankets to Native Americans. I would apply it to the German policies toward the Herero in South-West Africa, and certainly to the Turkish policy toward the Armenians during World War I. Also, I have no problem saying that there are Israelis and were, prior to the founding of Israel as a state, groups of Jews in Palestine with genocidal intent: certainly Lehi, arguably the Irgun, certainly Kach and Kahane Chai (who, it should be noted, were banned from the Knesset for their racism). But the article Jew is not the place to discuss that, any more than the article ethnic German is the place to discuss the genocidal policies of Hitler (or of Imperial Germany against the Herero).
No, the Palestinians in the camps shouldn't be the least bit grateful to the Israelis,and I think Humus sapiens is pretty out of line in what he says above (and also off topic, but since it came up here...): statistical studies have also shown that Southern U.S. Blacks were healthier and better-fed under slavery than in 1900, but that doesn't in my mind provide the slightest justification for slavery, nor mean that they should have been grateful. Nor, I might add, should the Palestinians be particularly grateful to the Arab states, nor to their own supposed leaders: in general, they've been screwed all around.
But, again, this article is not the place to discuss any of this, nor is this talk page the place to discuss this at length. This is an article about the Jewish people as a people, not Israel as a nation state, let alone the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main reason the modern state of Israel comes up in this article (other than demographics) is that the relation between Israeli law and halakha on the question of who is a Jew. What I find most objectionable in this article with respect to Israel is that the section on "Wars against the Jews" refers to "...modern wars and Jihad via "suicide bombing" and violence against Israel's Jews" without providing any context: certainly in sheer numbers of deaths, not to mention imprisonments, Israeli violence against Arabs has exceeded Arab and Muslim violence against Jews. Clearly the Arab-Israeli conflict is a very different matter than the rest of what is discussed in this section. And it seems absurd to place this under the heading of "decrease and growth": the Arab-Israeli conflict may have had a significant demographic effect on which Jews choose to live in Israel, but it has not had a significant demographic effect on the world's total population of Jews. (Slightly off-topic: I'd bet more Jews died in World War I and the following influenza pandemic than in the Arab-Israeli conflict. At that time, most of the Ashkenazim were still in Europe, and what European population didn't take a major hit at that time? But would we ever think to mention that in terms of the "decrease and growth of the Jews? Of course not.) -- Jmabel | Talk 18:29, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel:The article is about (what is happening to) "Jews" NOT Arabs and NOT of "how many people have died in road accidents" or whatnot. See Violence against Israelis (2000-2004) as an example, and try to understand that when over one thousand Jewish Israelis are killed due to Palestinian/Arab violence, look at it PROPORTIONALLY: Out of over five million Jews living in Israel, how does that compare to the death of three or four thousand Arabs (who have chosen the Intifada over peace) out of about 300 Million Arabs living in the Arab world, or take it further, how does it compare, that when one thousand Jews are killed out of a total of NOT more than 13,000,000 Jews (and many are intermarried and living as gentiles as it is) in the world, compared PROPORTIONALLY to the approximately ONE BILLION Muslims (minimum estimate, see [2]) and maybe as high as TWO BILLION (maximum estimate, see [3]). So the loss of even one Jew is infinitely higher TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE proportionally, which is what this article is about, which should be abundantly clear factually and logically. IZAK 20:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So are you saying, in effect, that the life of one Jew is somehow "worth" the life of 100 Muslims? Becuase, if you are, that is something I will never accept. How would it strike you if I said, from a similar proportionality, the that life of a Pequot is worth the life of a thousand Jews? This is horrible, anti-human sophistry. The life of each person is the life of a person, and it doesn't gain or lose value from that person's ethnicity. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:58, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

We're also playing fast and loose with the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" here. In order to minimize the meaning of the loss of Palestinian life, IZAK is looking at their deaths as a fraction of all Arabs or all Muslims, rather than as a fraction of all "Palestinians". Mpolo

I must say, I find the discussion above quite disturbing. Try to argue in a court of law that intentional victims of violence can be compared to those killed unintentionally, as a result of police action to prevent further attacks, or from flu epidemics. Also, I am against the view that one human live is relatively more valuable than another, based on nationality or race. I'm not going to refute the remaining silly arguments above because the discussion here should be aimed to improving the article. For that reason, I am taking the liberty of moving one particular comment to User_talk:Mpolo#Your_comment_on_Talk:Jew. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 21:48, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stormfront

Many members of Stormfront have been quite open about their goals on Wikipedia, and you can find that information here. The players so far:

  • Igor is none other than Svyatoslav Igorevich, an active, dues-paying member of Stormfront. Location: Charleston, S.C.
  • 62.252.0.5, aka Enforcer. Location: U.K.

Feel free to update this list. --Viriditas 23:26, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why no description of the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry under Islam?

This description of Jews is just a litany of complaints about Jewish victimization throughout history in order to justify the need for Israel as if it is the only place Jews could survive. Where is the positive history? Didn't Jews accomplish anything and prosper before Israel? The article even states that Jews have never had a natural increase in population except in Israel. What false trash. Israel's population is increasing because of mass immigration, not by natural increase. The US population of Jews underwent natural increases in the early 1900s. There is no balance in this article to indicate that Jews lived freely (as much as anyone else) and prospered for centuries under Islamic rule and in the United States. It is largely an inaccurate, Zionist POV propaganda piece written to paint the world as a hostile place for Jews so as to justify the creation of a Jewish state. The article reads as if it is written by the Israeli Aliyah Council. Alberuni 01:07, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is a natural increase of population in Israel. Ever looked at the birth rates of Haredim?--Josiah 02:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is a natural increase among Haredim but there is not a natural increase among all Israeli Jews. The increase in Israel's population is due to immigration, not natural increase. Alberuni 20:15, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Does not Israel have a natural growth rate that is higher than natural growth rates outside of Israel? I'm not arguing where it's primary source of increase is, but rather that it does experience a higher "natural" increase than outside of israel--Josiah 01:26, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
While there is a lot in the above remark [by Alberuni] that I don't agree with, I do feel that the situation of the Jews in medieval Spain is shorted in the article. The one time I tried to add a bit more, it was reverted. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:35, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
Spain was under Islamic Control? I thought there were only a few attempts of taking it over. Well, I guess you learn something new every day.--Josiah 02:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
At their height, Muslims controlled over 80% (maybe more, not sure) of what now constitute Spain and Portugal. The only holdouts I'm sure of were in the extreme north (other than the Basque regions, roughly present-day Asturias and maybe part of Galicia). See Al-Andalus: modern Andalucia is the part that held out the longest (almost 800 years), but the term Al-Andalus once meant the whole penninsula. It can be a bit disconcerting sometimes to come across Muslim (and Jewish) architectural remnants as far north as Segovia, but they are definitely there. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:41, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, at one point there was an Golden Age in Spain, but when the Almohads took over, they oppressed the Jews to the extent that Maimonides was forced to flee the country. Jayjg 22:04, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That's still a good 300 years of decent relations to show that it is possible. This artoicle doesn't indicate that. This article is written as if the world has always hated the poor Jews who then had no choice but to pursue the religious nationalist colonization of Palestine. I look firward to your NPOV write-up. --Alberuni 22:56, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm basically with Alberuni on this one. No question about the Almohads having been hell on philosophers, but I'm not sure they particularly singled out Jews. There was a pretty major exodus of Jewish and Muslim scholars to Christian-held Toledo in the mid-12th century, which led to the beginning of major translation of Arabic-language works into Latin. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:27, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power. I don't think all 5,000 of those Jews were philosophers. Jayjg 05:22, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In this respect -- both in terms of bearing out that there was a Golden Age of Spanish Jewry and that it had its limits, the article [Spain] in the Jewish Encyclopedia is likely to be very useful. I would hope we can all agree that such a source is not liable to understate any Jewish sufferings; Alberuni or someone else may feel that it overstates them; in any event, the article does not hesitate to refer to 10th-century Spain as a "the golden era for the Spanish Jews and Jewish science." -- Jmabel | Talk 02:16, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

For a couple of centuries Jews were definitely better off in Muslim Spain than just about anywhere else; however, your assumptions about the Jewish Encyclopedia are actually incorrect. In the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries the relationship between Muslims and Jews was romanticized, in part because it was used as a contrast with the definitely poor treatment Jews received at the hands of Christian Europe, and in part because the authors were Ashkenazim, not Sepharadim, and did not use Sepharadi sources. The Jewish Encyclopedia reflects that. Perhaps the world's most eminent historian of Islam Bernard Lewis did much to de-mythologize this history; he said ""The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam." Jayjg 05:22, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I strongly dissent from this characterization of Bernard Lewis. He's a capable scholar, but he has become a strong anti-Muslim partisan. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:52, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
Oh, much more than a capable scholar. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation describes him as "the pre-eminent historian from Princeton University" and "one of the West's foremost authorities on Islamic history and culture". I'm sure I can find dozens of similar citations if you want. Jayjg 04:12, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Good point. Lewis is the English-speaking world's most eminent Zionist Orientalist, popular among North Americans and Israelis because he reinforces their neo-colonial biases and stereotypes of the Arab and Islamic Other. [4] --Alberuni 04:08, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Written by M. Shahid Alam, a professor of Economics. Jayjg 04:14, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Economists are quite smart, aren't they? They are well qualified to comment about the racism of their colleagues in academia, more so than academic Orientalists are qualified to promote imperialist war policies. I won't ask what you do you do for a living, aside from editing Wikipedia content. I'm sure the national health service is generous to people with disabilities. Would you like to criticize the occupations of other authors who don't venerate your eminent professor of Zionist propaganda? [5], [6], [7] --Alberuni 04:56, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Alberuni, are you able to string together three sentences in a row without saying something nasty to someone? Because I've now found myself interacting with you on about half a dozen different matters and I haven't seen you do it yet. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:17, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I can string three sentences together without being nasty. Wasn't that question nasty? But who is counting? Despicable Zionists deserve much worse and I'm sure it awaits them. --Alberuni 05:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Economists may or may not be smart, but they're not particularly well qualified to comment on the quality of the works of historians, nor on imagined racism on the part of those historians. As for the other links, the first reviewer describes him as "the fastidious scholar of Middle Eastern subtleties", though decrying his political views. The second reviewer is Edward Said, the man who falsified his biography [8], and the less said about this man the better [9]. The third reviewer dislikes a specific anomalous book of his, but describes him as "a usually very good author" and "a profoundly learned and highly respected historian, whose career spans some sixty years". In summary, your links confirm what I said; thanks for providing them. As for your latest amusing attempt at a personal attack, I just snigger. :-) Jayjg 05:13, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You spit your petty venom at Edward Said and Noam Chomsky while venerating Bernard Lewis. I can suspect you are a big fan of Daniel Pipes and Judith Miller too, am I right? You are so biased it boggles the mind. You can read critical reviews of Bernard Lewis and select lines out of context to suit your profoundly warped vision. You quote some smear blog and neo-fascist FrontPageMag to tar Edward Said, a brilliant intellectual that makes Bernard Lewis look like the Neanderthal he is. Edward Said's prominent family was Palestinian and they also owned property in Cairo. So what? They were displaced by the creation of the racist Jewish state you love and defend so much. Less said by you about Said the better, indeed, lest you reveal your contempt for the man because of his politics of anti-Zionism. Your POV is so obvious; spit your venom at Edward Said and Noam Chomsky and Shahid Alam because they oppose Zionism, and venerate Bernard Lewis because he promotes a warped worldview that defends the Zionist project. Your presence is Wikipedia's loss. --Alberuni 05:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Um, interesting speech. Jayjg 18:26, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'll tend to assume from his record that Bernard Lewis is pretty accurate on specific statements of fact, but his opinions, interpretations, and omissions are an entirely other matter. And I'll trust his early academic work a lot more than his very often polemical work from the last 20 years or so. And the swipe at Said is absolutely uncalled for, and even more off-topic than the rest of this. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:17, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
I wouldn't trust much of anything Bernard Lewis writes because he is partisan hack with a bias that forms the basis of his Orientalist work. --Alberuni 05:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What one can "assume from his record" is that Lewis is a pre-eminent historian of Islam, which is all about his facts, opinions, interpretations, and lack of omissions. As for the "swipe" at Said, that's "uncalled for", but the swipes at Lewis are just fine? Jayjg 05:31, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't think I was taking a swipe at Lewis. As I said, I'll trust him on specific matters of fact, but I don't like his politics, and I won't necessarily yield to his judgment on broader matters as readily as his accuracy on specific facts. The wording in his statement their -- "Golden Age of equal rights" -- biases the matter. No, I don't think Jews necessarily had "equal rights" throughout the Golden Age of Spanish Judaism, but I think they were basically pretty well off for a few centuries and flourished. Looking to any society circa 1000 CE to have had a first-rate regime of equal rights is pushing things beyond the probable. I'm not saying it was a bowl of cherries -- as I understand it, the one Jewish grand vizier at Toledo ended up executed, but compare it to what was typical North of the Pyrenees. The equivalent of a Jewish grand vizier in medieval Christian Europe would have been unimaginable. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:49, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
Well, as I said in an earlier comment, "For a couple of centuries Jews were definitely better off in Muslim Spain than just about anywhere else"; in that sense it may have been a "Golden Age". However, I think it gives a false impression that things were wonderful, or even comparable to the state of Jews in Western countries in the 19th century. Jayjg 18:26, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've added a sentence about the Golden Age. Now I know it's silly and unrealistic to call on everyone to join hands towards comprehensive peace in our lifetime, but I feel like that today. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 08:54, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dhimmi laws

A recent edit by User:Alberuni more or less reverses the sense of this passage. Originally:

In addition to the above examples, one must review the historical record of the destruction and persecution of the Jewish communities throughout the Islamic world. As the empire expanded during the centuries, the status of the non-Muslim communities remained precarious and subject to dhimmi laws. The Jewish communities were not second class citizens, they were not considered to be citizens of the larger community at all. Repressive measures against their persons occurred with regularity as the Muslim majority massacred them with impunity. There was no protection under the laws and the word of a Muslim was sufficient to subject any Jew to harsh punishment. +

Changed, without a single citation or explanation to:

In addition to the above examples, one must review the historical record of the destruction and persecution of the Jewish communities throughout the Islamic world. As the empire expanded during the centuries, the status of the non-Muslim communities prospered due to dhimmi (protected person) laws. The Jewish communities were not second class citizens, they were considered to be citizens of the larger community as long as they paid tribute to the caliph (as did Muslims).

I'm not going to weigh in on this right now, except to say that we obviously have two editors presenting nearly opposite views as fact, both without citation. I suspect we could find reputable authors close to each of these views, and suggest that the appropriate way to resolve this would be to cite various authorities, not to choose between these views and pretend there is a single "true" view of this. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:30, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Here's a reference to the particluar period to which I am referring: [10]. The entire history is written in a clean NPOV historical style Jewish History (Gates to Jewish Heritage). Compare the style to the crude Zionist polemic of the Wikipedia article. Pathetic. Alberuni 02:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You know, people would probably listen to you a lot more if you could write three sentences in a row without insulting them. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:41, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
Who did I insult? I pointed out the crude Zionist propaganda polemic style of the article. I didn't mention any names. Please read for comprehension. Alberuni 20:15, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Examples of abrasive rhetoric:
  1. "Why do Jews feel it is necessary to monopoloize the victimhood of the Holocaust? Is it because guilt over the Holocaust is used as a political tool to justify the creation and continuing atrocities committed by Israel?"
  2. "What false trash."
  3. "...crude Zionist polemic..."
These are not exactly phrases calculated to win friends and influence people. I happen to agree with about half of what you are saying, but, speaking as Jew, the rhetoric you are using really gets my back up. I have never "monopolized the victimhood of the Holocaust. In fact, I have been very publicly critical of other Jews who do so, and I don't see anyone doing so here. Nonetheless, it remains a fact that there was a distinction between concentration camps in general and extermination camps in particular, and that the latter were almost entirely focused on Jews (plus, as I understand it, some Gypsies, for similar reasons. If there is one under-told story in all of this, it is the persecution of the Gypsies).
While I do feel that the Holocaust probably did add some justification for the creation of the state of Israel — a statement with which one can agree, regardless of whether one feels that the level of justification was insufficient, barely sufficient, or superabundant — it in no way justifies Israeli oppression of Arabs. Nonetheless, "atrocities" is an awfully loaded word, and pretty much all sides in the Middle East have been guilty of those. The asymmetry between Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine in not an asymmetry in the commission of atrocities, it's an asymmetry in the ability to carry on day-to-day repression.
There now. Does that sound like a "crude Zionist polemic" to you? Because if it does, I have damned little interest in advocating for your views even when you happen to be correct on a particular point. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:11, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
I don't criticize you for advocating your views on Talk Page but you seem to think you have a right to criticize me for expressing myself on Talk Page. The articles are written as crude Zionist propaganda. Neither of us, nor others, have a right to advocate our views in the article and that's what I was criticizing. These articles are written with a crude Zionist slant. They are not NPOV. They need to be fixed. The rest of the discussion is superfluous. Alberuni 00:13, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Alberuni, I have agreed with you on several specific points about the substance of the article, but I truly find it absurd to call it a "crude Zionist polemic". I'm not criticizing you for advocating your views. I am suggesting that you are not putting them forward in a manner liable to get them listened to, though I think that if you look at this page you will see that I have done my damnedest to engage substance with substance. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:54, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
I haven't criticized you. I am criticizing the article. It is biased. It is biased like so many Wikpedia articles dealing with Jews, Muslims, Israel, Arabs, etc, even Palestinian charities because extremist Zionist hacks push their disgusting ideology onto every page as if they own Wikipedia. If I sound brusque, it's because I am sickened by their relentless propagandizing and censorship. It's not directed at you. Alberuni 05:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Oh that's right, it's not as if Jihadist (i.e. Pro-Falistine, we can use names intended to insult all we want and see where they get there) haven't been guilty of the same.--Josiah 02:19, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Is that your best defense? Let's make a deal. Let's go out there and take down all, (what, 10?) pages with Islamist POV and the (hmmm, say abut 500?) pages with Zionist POV. We'll be honest and take out all POV slants and biases and diatribes and extraneous whining and polemics and propagandizing. We'll make Wikipedia truly NPOV. OK, think you can handle that deal?--Alberuni 02:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You have the proportions exactly reversed. Jayjg 17:07, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Actually, Alberuni, I was cynically reffering to the rude way you use the word "Zionist" in reference to certain users and/or edits. It would be no different than if I accused every edit by users with Pro-Palestinian views as "Jihadist POV hacks" (or similar wording, you get the idea). It is the manner you conduct yourself, not your POV, that has caused many to dislike you. A little bit of courteousy goes a long way.--Josiah 20:05, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Really think so, Jayjg? It may be a matter of what articles I read, but I haven't seen a single article in Wikipedia that I would characterize as written from a Jihadist point of view. Or maybe you use that word very differently than I. I presume that at the very least it would mean an actively Islamist point of view. I cannot think of a single example of that I've seen. Could you oblige me with, say, three examples? -- Jmabel | Talk 18:14, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, my numbers were about anti-Israel vs. pro-Israel, which is the more relevant comparison, and in any event were merely hyperbole mirroring Alberuni's constant hyperbole. And it all depends; given the flurry of articles being either created with or POVd into an anti-Israel POV right now, and the subsequent determined efforts to NPOV them, it's quite difficult to tell at any given time how many anti-Israel articles there are. Jayjg 21:18, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Glad to see you backing off from that, but may I take it that you concur that you have never seen a Wikipedia article written from a Jihadist point of view? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:57, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
First of all, the term "Jihadist" is not mine, it was Josiah's, perhaps you should be addressing your questions to him, as I've never made any claims about any "Jihadist" articles. Second, as I said, I've seen things written from an outrageously anti-Israel point of view (see for example, this [11]) - as far as I know, Islamists have a similar, if not identical, view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Finally, Alberuni has said he has seen 10 or so pages written from an Islamist perspective; you might want to find out which ones he meant from him. Jayjg 22:13, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That example was briefly there during an edit war, obviously way out of line, and leading to page protection. Again, in my reading around Wikipedia, I've seen quite a few articles that seem to have a somewhat Zionist POV (though almost none, and none long-lived, that I would call "crude Zionist propaganda"), and would be hard-pressed to identify any that I've seen remain more than very briefly in the opposite POV. Of course, this is made infinitely more tricky by the different ways people use the word Zionism. To some of them, it seems, anyone who acknowledges Israel's right to exist is a Zionist, which to my mind puts them in the interesting position of calling Yasser Arafat a Zionist and having to concede the Zionist leanings of the Syrian government. Yes, I'm being ironic. I'd just like to see the rhetoric ratched down on all sides and get on with trying to work out what the article should say. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:41, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I've never used the term. And I'd like to see the rhetoric ratcheted way down also, but given the dismal failure of my recent RFC to make even a dent, I'm highly pessemistic. Jayjg 01:50, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Adding an NPOV balance to the Nazi section of the Jew article

Taking a lesson from the techniques used by Jayjg and colleagues "to add an NPOV balance" to Muhammad al-Durrah, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Medical Aid for Palestinians articles, I will be adding an NPOV balance to this and other articles by including Robert Faurisson and Ernst Zündel's critiques of the veracity of claims about extermination camps. These don't reflect my POV on the subject but, like Jayjg, I feel it necessary to "just report who says what" in an effort to bring NPOV balance to these articles. --Alberuni 20:33, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The article is about Jews, not about the Holocaust or Holocaust Denial. Please put material in the appropriate articles. Jayjg 03:24, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If this article is going to discuss the extermination camps, then it is only appropriate to add balance by providing the critiques by other groups. This adding of balance is akin to your insistence that NGO Monitor's opinion be included in articles about Palestinian NGOs like Medical Aid for Palestinians, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, etc and that IDF investigations and Atlantic Monthly articles denying IDF responsibility be included in articles about the IDF murder of Muhammad al-Durrah. I'm sure you will understand. --Alberuni 03:43, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I understand all too well; the Holocaust article deals with Holocaust Denial Jayjg 04:18, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I note that Alberuni is inserting the identical Holocaust Denial material into Nazi concentration camps and Extermination camp. Jayjg 06:20, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I trust that you will clean up those articles as I have cleaned up Muhammad al-Durrah, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Medical Aid for Palestinians of irrelevant material, as suggested by Mirv/Noone Jones on my Talk page. --Alberuni 06:28, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Deleting criticisms of those NGOs by an organization which monitors NGOs is hardly "clean[ing] up" "irrelevant material", but something entirely different. Holocaust Denial material belongs in the Holocaust denial page. Jayjg 06:36, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How is it different? Critiques by POV organizations need to be moved out to their own pages. I've explained it 5 times to you.--Alberuni 07:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Opinion about NGOs belongs on various NGO pages; for example, criticism of the Anti-Defamation League is found on the Anti-Defamation League page, including many links. So too with Greenpeace etc. Now is your claim that Holocaust Denial is actually not historical revisionism, but rather a "critique" of Jews? Or is it that Jews are an NGO? Jayjg 07:16, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Israeli athieists"

I just deleted the following rather odd anonymous insertion into the lead: "Jew may also be used to refer to Israeli atheists who identify themselves with the greater Judaic nation for socio-economic or political reasons." Very weird. On the charitable assumption that this is well-intentioned but confused, let me try to explain (and hope that I don't mis-step in what is, in some ways, tricky turf).

For whatever it's worth, as the article discusses, it is entirely possible to be an atheist in terms of belief but a Jew by ethnicity. This may make you (well, me) an apostate (although even that word is tricky, since my parents were not believers, either), but under Jewish law, it doesn't make me "not a Jew". It has nothing to do with whether one is an Israeli: I've never set foot in Israel (although, to complicate matters, because I am ethnically Jewish the Law of Return would include me if I wished to do so). And one might argue that my reasons for calling myself Jewish are in some measure "political", but I would contend that (having no known non-Jewish ancestors) they are consideraby less so than Bob Marley's decision to identify with his mother's African-Jamaican ancestry.

Also: one can be an Israeli citizen without being in any sense a Jew. 18% of Israel's population are Arabs; virtually none of these are Jews, and while it is possible for one of them to convert, it's complicated, culturally unlikely, and extremely rare. Non-Jews in Israel can't just decide one day to "identify themselves with the greater Judaic nation" and be considered Jews. Actually, Israel would probably be the single most difficult place in the world to do so. I the U.S., for example, an unfounded claim to be Jewish would, likely as not, be accepted. In Israel, where it is a legal matter, it would not. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:49, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

You should read Demographics of Israel where you will find that Russian Christians and other non-Jews are categorized as Jews for census purposes. As usual, the ploy is political, as it helps pad their statistics and reduce the apparent proportion of their oppressed Arab minority. Your claim that a practicing atheist can be ethnically a Jew is a self-contradiction. Maybe you mean "ethnic origin". Ethnicity refers to practice. If your ethnic origins are Jewish ethnicity but you practice Christianity or Islam then you are a Christian or Muslim with ethnic origins in Judaism, but you are not an ethnic Jew. Same goes for atheism. If you are a practicing atheist whose ethnic origins are in the Jewish tradition, you are not ethnically a Jew. See also my questions about the false categories used by Israel to define its population in Talk:Demographics of Israel.--Alberuni 23:45, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Huh? Ethnicity does not refer to "practice", religion does. Ethnicity refers to ethnicity. Jayjg 01:44, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ethnicity: Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that connect a particular group or groups of people to each other. "Ethnicity" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "race", or as a synonym for minority group. While ethnicity and race are related concepts, the concept of ethnicity is rooted in the idea of societal groups, marked especially by shared nationality, tribal afilliation, religious faith, shared language, or cultural and traditional origins and backgrounds.... An Ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of either presumed cultural or biological similarities, or both. Like race and nation, the notion of ethnicity developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. <This was added, unsigned and I'm not sure written by whom, after my remarks that follow. It is not written by me. I'm not sure whose it is. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:31, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)>


Alberuni, I'm not talking Israeli politics here, I'm talking Jewish tradition and Jewish law. I believe that the opinions and decisions of the Israeli government on the matter have enough political effect to merit mention in this article, but no government gets to tell me who I am.

I have literally no idea what you can possibly mean by "Ethnicity refers to practice." What "practices" do you have to follow to be a Serb or a Chinese? So, by your definition, "atheistic Communist Jew" (something I've been called a few times) is an oxymoron? Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Emma Goldman, Ana Pauker, none of them were Jews? Noam Chomsky, whose first political involvement was as a Zionist in the narrow sense of the word, is not a Jew? I suppose by this logic Hitler didn't kill anywhere near six million Jews: by your standard, many of the Nazis ostensibly Jewish victims (especially in Western and Central Europe) were, according to you, merely "people with ethnic origins in Judaism." No wonder you inserted material contesting the number. (That last was a joke, albeit a bitter one.)

I won't claim to say anything definitive about the question of someone of Jewish origin who practices Christianity or Islam, since the former typically involves and the latter necessarily involves a renunciation of Judaism (there are people here in the U.S. who actively practice both Christianity and Judaism, as did many Early Christians). I believe that unless someone bothers to excommunicate them, other Jews would still consider them Jews. However, I believe I have literally never heard a Jew suggest that one ceases to be a Jew simply by not actively believing in the Jewish God.

When you refer to "Russian Christians and other non-Jews are categorized as Jews for census purposes", do you mean anything beyond what is said about that in the article? I am not surprised at all if Israel chooses to legally expand its secular legal definition of a Jew to include (for example) Christian spouses of Jews: I'd be interested in seeing that expanded on either here or in Demographics of Isreal. However, religious law (and, I dare say, most diaspora Jews whether we practice the religion or not) would not properly consider these people Jews unless they actually converted (although we wouldn't go poking around in their pasts, and if they introduced themselves as Jewish, we'd probably take the claim at face value). -- Jmabel | Talk 01:58, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

If you are a Jew, you are not an atheist. If you are an atheist, you are not a Jew. Unlike Nazis, Israelis, Zionists and apparently "most Jews" (according to Jew article), I do not consider Jew to be a race or a nation. It is a religion. People can practice the religion or they can choose not to. If they stop practicing Judaism, they are no longer Jews. To answer your question, Serbs and Chinese are nationalities. To the extent that they are ethnicities, depends on the practices that people perform that could be dubbed "Chinese cultural practices". If Chinese people come to America and their children drop Chinese cultural practices, they are no longer ethnically Chinese, although their ethnic origins may be Chinese. Some people use "ethnicity" like the word "race" was used before racist concepts were discredited. --Alberuni 02:30, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Did you actually read the first sentence of that article? "The word Jew (יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to either a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or a member of the Jewish culture or ethnicity." The traditional definition of Jew is that the child of a Jewish mother is a Jew regardless of what faith they profess or do not profess. Please stop trying to re-define who Jews are based on your political views. Jayjg 02:39, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Haha, Judaism is a religion, just like any other religion. That has nothing to do with my political beliefs. That's just a fact. The "traditional definition" of who is a Jew or the belief that Judaism is a nation or race, is based on a particular interpretation, a Jewish POV, and needs to be explained as such in NPOV terms in Wikipedia. Stop trying to force your extremist political and religious POV on Wikipedia. It's ridiculous and offensive that you think ethnic identification is an external label that can be applied to someone against their will and that someone can be identified as being of Jewish ethnicity even after they have explicitly rejected Judaism as their religion. They may be of Jewish ethnic origins but they are not Jews if they are practicing some other religion. If the Israeli state or Jews around the world consider them Jews, that's just their POV. It is not a neutral fact. You seem to have trouble distinguishing between your religious beliefs and reality. --Alberuni 05:01, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Speaking of trying to impose ethnic identity against someone's will, Alberuni, you are trying to deprive me of my ethnic identity against my will. I am a Jew (ethnically). I am an atheist (in terms of belief). Live with it. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:34, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
It's a common tactic; whining about "revisionists" trying to "deprive Palestinians of their identity" while simultaneously trying to deprive Jews of their identity. A sad hypocrisy. Jayjg 18:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why are "languages spoken" in the past tense?

Jews still speak Farsi and Arabic. --Alberuni 05:19, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So what? Jayjg 07:01, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Alberuni, is there a specific edit you are proposing, or are you just picking a fight? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:36, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

If I was picking a fight, I would make edits to the article without coming to Talk first. According to the way the article is written, "Jews today" refers only to Jews in Israel. "Jews today speak Hebrew." It's a Zionist POV that affirms the modern reincarnated Jewish state and its new national language. "Before the Holocaust they spoke Yiddish, ...Judeo-Arabic and Farsi." This article is written as if Jews have all moved to Israel and forgotten their native tongues. It's not true, they still speak their native tongues in Israel and around the world. Also, more Jews speak English than any other language. "Almost all Jews in the State of Israel today speak Modern Hebrew also called "Israeli Hebrew", based on the Biblical Hebrew, ..... This next sentence is the most true of all but is quickly buried under the rest: Jews mostly speak the languages of their countries of residence. Is Yiddish dead? I think it still has currency in Tel Aviv and Miami Beach but maybe it is dying. Prior to the Holocaust, Yiddish (Judaeo-German; the very word means "Jewish") was the common language of Eastern European Jews. Is Ladino dead? I really don't know. Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) was spoken by many Sephardim. Are there no longer any Arab Jews? Have they all forgotten their Arabic, moved to Israel and adopted Biblical Hebrew? Do Palestinian, Egyptian, Yemenite Jews no longer speak Arabic? What is Judeo-Arabic? Couldn't they comunicate with other Arabs? Do they not speak Arabic, not even in Israel? Not even the Shin Bet interrogators and assassins? Jews in Arab lands spoke Judaeo-Arabic;' Iranian Jews all forgot their Farsi? It's a dead language like Aramaic? in other Islamic countries they spoke Aramaic or Farsi I think it is poorly written and reflects some bias - and it's not the only poorly written section. --Alberuni 05:12, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Are you sure we are reading the same article? I don't see the statement "Jews today speak Hebrew" anywhere in the one for which this is the talk page.
In the infobox I see "Jews today speak the local languages of their respective countries," which is the primary truth here.
The article could expand slightly on Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic, since they are specifically Jewish languages. The article Jewish languages mentions quite a few others, but says nothing about them.
There are very few communities left who speak Yiddish as a primary language; I belive the only native Yiddish-speakers I've ever met who were born after World War II were Orthodox Jews (mostly, but not exclusively, Hassidim) from Brooklyn. I've met a good number of younger Jews (and even a couple of Gentiles, one of them an African-American jazz musician who plays klezmer) who have learned it pretty well as a second language. Besides Miami Beach and Tel Aviv, there are also Yiddish-speakers in New York and doubtless in a few places in Europe, but I think that while probably not dying, the language is becoming a bit of a museum piece. The State Jewish Theater in Bucharest, for example, still has Yiddish-language plays in its repertoire, but I'm not sure any of the actors are really native speakers and when I was there all but a handful of people in the audience had headphones for simultaneous interpretation in Romanian. (I decided to do my best to track the Yiddish, but I wouldn't have made that decision if the simultaneous interpretation offered English.)

I believe Ladino is in a similar situation to Yiddish; I'm not sure about Judeo-Arabic, but I'd guess that with so many of the Jews from the Arab world having moved either to Israel, France, or Spain, there are not many young people acquiring it as a native language, and I bet that there are fewer institutions trying to keep Ladino or Judeo-Arabic alive than Yiddish.

I don't think anyone has "adopted Biblical Hebrew" as a language of conversation, but from what I gather, most young Israelis, regardless of where their parents from are growing up with Modern Hebrew (not Biblical Hebrew) as their primary language. Of course the older generation of immigrants to Israel don't forget their old languages and of course they use it among themselves (the immigrant Russian Jews certainly use Russian), but as is typical of immigrant populations, I'd have to guess that the rate of transmission down the generations will be relatively low.

I do think that it is appropriate that this article gives significant attention to Modern Hebrew, since this language which only came to exist in modern times is now the primary language of somewhere upwards of four million Jews. However, I agree with Alberuni that we could appropriately say a more about other languages. Sadly, Jewish languages is little more than an outline, so we can't crib from there. Does someone want to take a shot at this? Preferably someone genuinely knowledgable? Or can anyone suggest good references? Or would anyone like to take a serious shot at writing Jewish languages so we can do a digest here? If no one steps forward in the next few days, I'll willingly draft a replacement for this section, but since I'm not really expert it may not be much of an improvement.

-- Jmabel | Talk 07:35, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

In terms of mother tongues, I suspect that the two most significant mother tongues for Jews would be English and then Modern Hebrew. Yiddish would probably be next, and Spanish and Russian following that. Other significant mother tongues would be French, Arabic. Most Jews of the Maghreb spoke French or Spanish as their mother tongues, not Arabic. Judaeo-Arabic were the unique dialects of Arabic spoken by Jews in Arab lands; they were most prominent in the Middle Ages, and I don't think many speakers survive today. Ladino was mostly spoken by the Sephardi community in Turkey, with scattered speakers elswhere. I don't think there are too many Jews left who have Ladino as their mother tongue. Jayjg 18:50, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Most Jews of the Maghreb spoke French or Spanish as their mother tongues, not Arabic" - actually, this was not historically the case. Before about 1900, most spoke Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, or "Judeo-Berber" in that order; after the turn of the century, French and Spanish were widely adopted, as the Jews of North Africa, especially Algeria, came to identify more with France (and gained French citizenship.) However, a more useful general introduction to this fascinating issue is Jewish-Languages.org. - Mustafaa 20:45, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and while Ladino may be dying, it is very far from dead; there are still several Ladino newspapers, notably in Turkey, and a fair online community of speakers, as you'll find if you Google muestro. - Mustafaa 20:49, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can we agree that this section could use some work, and that the present text there ought to be given only a little more deference than we would give a stub? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:56, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa, you've done a great job on this section, thanks. If I were to quibble, I would say that the section doesn't really give any idea of the proportions of Jews who spoke these languages at any time but the distant past and the present. Thus it doesn't really indicate that at the turn of the 19th century a majority of Jews spoke Yiddish, or that Yiddish was the language hardest hit by the Holocaust. Jayjg 03:49, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)