Talk:Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism

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[edit] Nominated article for deletion: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism

I've nominated this article for deletion because it appears to me to fail Wikipedia's notability guidelines. I note that the essay is not even mentioned in the article about the New antisemitism, except for a listing under "further reading" -- I presume if it were sufficiently important to the topic of the new antisemitism, a reference to it would appear in that article; if it doesn't even merit a mention in that article, it certainly doesn't merit a separate article devoted to it. --Rrburke(talk) 19:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I politely disagree. The article is inarguably notable for the amount of reaction and debate it has provoked within the American Jewish community. --HistoryBuff1983 20:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non RS source

I just removed this section from the article as it is sourced to a non-RS source (The Jewschool.com blog):

Daniel Sieradski, editor of the progressive Jewish weblog Jewschool, disputed many of the essay's claims, writing on December 29, 2007, that "All such behavior is no more than a reflection of the fact that there is no safe space for legitimate criticism of Israel within the Jewish community itself. Those who question Israeli policies are hastily isolated, demonized, marginalized and excluded." Sieradski adds that "The facts on the ground -- our very experiences of Israel -- are simply inconsistent with the picture Israel's defenders seek to project. Yet the response of this group to that assessment is to cover their ears and, instead, smear concerned Jewish voices as antisemitic, as this paper does."[1]

--HistoryBuff1983 16:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The source is offering an opinion, not facts, so it doesn't need to be reliable, only notable. —Ashley Y 20:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Sieradski's post merited an interview on Pacifica, as well as mention on Beliefnet's Virtual Talmud, Meretz USA's weblog, and at The NY Observer's MondoWeiss. 89.138.50.122 23:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like enough notability for inclusion? —Ashley Y 23:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
So why was Sieradski removed from the article? 217.132.17.243 06:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a preemptive defense before someone removes what I added...

Yes, I'm aware that [1] is not a reliable Secondary source, but it is a primary source (an interview) by an organization which doesn't espouse any specific viewpoint... and is therefore reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable sources.--Urthogie 01:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed material from "background" section

I have removed three separate passages from the background section. The first section, which follows, I removed because it is sourced to a blog. This is not an acceptable source and there is enough coverage of this in the mainstream media that we can find a more appropriate source:

Rosenfeld, a professor at Indiana University, described his motivation for writing the essay in an interview with a local IU blogger:
Over the last few years I’ve been focusing a lot of my research on present day anti-Semitism... In the course of my research I began to notice that some of the people who were voicing some of the harshest hostility were themselves Jews, especially Jews on the radical Left. I wanted to document and try to explain their words, which struck me as often being extreme.[2]
For the most part, though, I’m gratified by the response.[2]

This next two removed sections are more about reaction to the reaction of the essay and thus does not belong in the background section but rather the reaction section. This first part is about the NY Times calling the AJC a conservative group. The NYT corrected the article and this Wikipedia article does not mention that mistake thus I am not sure we should dedicate so much space to what is a distraction in my mind. But if people feel it is important, it would be better to put it further down in the reactions section rather than in the leading background section (as it is not background at all):

The AJC criticized the article for calling it a "conservative" group, and as a result, the New York Times issues a correction to the piece on February 3rd, making clear that "[the AJC's] stance on issues ranges across the political spectrum; it is not “conservative.”[3] Rosenfeld would later remark that the article's title was also misleading:
There are people who obviously don’t like what I said– many of them, I think, because they misread me– and much of that is owing to the way that the New York Times framed my argument. The headline of the New York Times article read, “Essay Linking Liberal Jews to anti-Semitism Sparks Furor”, and I never referred to liberal Jews, if you read my piece carefully you simply won’t find the phrase. By taking their cue from The New York Times article, a lot of people misread the essay as one more contribution, purportedly by a right winger, to the Culture Wars, and reduced my argument to a kind of Left-Right, Conservative-Liberal face off. That it’s not, although it’s been made out, erroneously, to appear to be the latest salvo in such a debate.

The following is more reaction to the essay from Gershom. But he is already extensively quoted in the reaction section thus I am unsure why we have to dedicate even more to him in the background section, especially since it isn't background. If someone wants to rework Gershom's response to be more inclusive of his whole reaction, I welcome the effort, but we shouldn't let one author dominate the whole response section, as people are free to read Gershom's original TNR article if they want to know all the details of his reaction:

Gershom Gorenberg of The American Prospect agreed with Rosenfeld in this regard:
"Gawd," I said, with my morning mix of disgust and voyeurism at a news item I wish I'd never seen and would surely read. Thus compelled, I clicked on the New York Times headline, "Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor." Here we go, I thought: Another right-wing American Jew with fantasies of his alternative life as an Israeli paratrooper is trashing liberal Jews for voicing criticisms milder than what an Israeli ex-paratroop officer might express over lunch with old army friends.
This expectation, I discovered, was unfair to Alvin H. Rosenfeld, author of the essay in question. In part, Rosenfeld was the victim of sloppy reporting. In her lead paragraph, Times reporter Patricia Cohen called the American Jewish Committee, which published Rosenfeld's essay, a "conservative advocacy group." Actually, the hard-to-pigeonhole AJC has endorsed creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. It recently voted against ejecting a left-wing Zionist group from a campus pro-Israel coalition. The Times story referred consistently to Rosenfeld's targets as "liberal Jews." The essay itself refers to "progressives," a group that overlaps with liberals but is not synonymous. The Times story thereby reduced Rosenfeld's essay to one more round in the conservative-liberal catfight over what may or may not be said about Israel.[4]

I hope my reasoning for removing the above is perceived as justified. I am not against people reintegrating the above material back into the article (except for the blog sourced stuff), but please take into consideration the reasons why I removed it in the first place when reintegrating it in order to avoid those particular issues. --70.51.229.115 19:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You rationale are not valid for the following reasons:

  • A blog is not a reliable secondary source, but it's a reliable primary source. This is in accordance with wikipedia policies. Read them.
  • "This next two removed sections are more about reaction to the reaction of the essay and thus does not belong in the background section but rather the reaction section. This first part is about the NY Times calling the AJC a conservative group. The NYT corrected the article and this Wikipedia article does not mention that mistake thus I am not sure we should dedicate so much space to what is a distraction in my mind. But if people feel it is important, it would be better to put it further down in the reactions section rather than in the leading background section (as it is not background at all)" Actually, it isn't "about reaction to the essay", it's about reaction to the NY times article covering it. This fits the background section appropriately.
  • I've reverted you because your rationale were invalid. Thanks, --Urthogie 20:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
So I keep all the sources but I reorganized the article to be more logical and consistent. I also rewrote a few sections so that they relied less on length quotes as "quote farms" are bad Wikipedia style. You reverted me wholesale, but I have undone that as it is nonsensical and unnecessarily aggressive and reductive. Feel free to reorganize my contributions though. I also cleaned up some of the references and added an image of the essay's cover. I also wrote an article on Gershom Gorenberg. Please don't just be a revert warrior as it makes Wikipedia a combative environment rather than a collaborative one. --70.51.230.56 21:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I reverted these edits because they overly sectionize the article. The current sections are good. Usually its the style to avoid too many subsections, yknow?--Urthogie 22:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Urthogie, you know I wrote the original version of this article and thus I did come up with original organization and sections as HistoryBuff1983. You are ignoring the various other changes I made besides the changes to the organization in the most recent edits and are reverting quite blindly a significant amount of work I put into the article. Can you pick and choose when you revert rather than just being aggressive. I think you took my removals of the blog source personally and thus are determined now to just blindly revert me. If you read above on this talk page you'll notice it wasn't the first blog source I removed, the first was JewSchool concerning a lefty post. Again, I ask you to stop being combative and rather collaborative. --70.51.230.56 23:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, what do you think of my most recent edits as a compromise, then?--Urthogie 01:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks great. I don't like that we have three top level headings "The New York Times story", "Other news coverage", and "Other responses" all dealing with the response, I would group them together somehow but its a minor style point. --64.230.120.66 03:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related article requests

What we really need is an article on Alvin Rosenfeld/Alvin H. Rosenfeld that gives his full background separate from what is directly relevant to this article. I just made him a redirect to this article. I am assuming that he is notable in and of himself. I also think that Shulamit Reinharz, whom I quote in the article, could use her own article or a section of her husband's article (who is the head of Brandeis University), but she is of secondary importance in comparison to Alvin Rosenfeld/Alvin H. Rosenfeld. --64.230.120.66 03:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes an article on him would be good. He's a professor at IU, was in charge of the english department and holocaust studies... and also has written several books. Notable enough for an article, surely.--Urthogie 03:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] multiple wiki links

I tried to clean that up a bit. Thanks, --Tom 14:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is anti-Semitism tolerated on Wikipedia? Please review these complaints

Rather than contact individual editors, I am posting this request on a few talk pages where it may be of interest. I posted a complaint about an anti-Semitic editor at WP AN/I, with links to the talk page containing this editors anti-Semitic rants and Jew-baiting of me. An (16 year old) admin came in to that notice, told me to "shut the hell up, and closed the case. I filed again at Wikiquette alerts (since anti-Semitic rants and attacks, I assume, are not considered good Wikiquette) with relevant diffs, and bizarrely, I was told that the "the consensus from WP:ANI seems to be to let this go", even though the only "discussion" on ANI was between the "shut the hell up" admin and the anti-Semitic editor himself?! Since there seems to be a bit of difficulty in getting a clear-cut case of anti-Semitism (not to mention a serious and vile transgression of WP:TALK properly heard, I am inviting review by editors. Thus far, the main action has been for me (and not the anti-Semite) to receive warnings, even though I simply called an editor who a simple google search also shows to be a Stormfront member a nazi. I assume Godwin's law only applies when the term is used inappropriately, not appropriately. Thank you for your consideration. Boodlesthecat (talk) 16:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help !!!!

Added a link to the John Judis citation, which missed a source. It's now listed as reference 24. But somehow I did something wrong. Can anyone please take a look what it is. Thanks! LeaNder (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for adding the reference. I think the problem was a line break in the middle of the footnote, between the URL and the name of the article. Thanks again. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)