User:RK

Hello, I'm RK, a Jewish American New Yorker, and I'm here to contribute what I can to entries on a variety of topics, from Judaism to theism to videogames, and anything else that catches my fancy. My personal e-mail is [email protected] You need to remove the "XXX" in order to e-mail me.

I agree with the Seer of Lublin, who wisely observed, "I prefer a wicked person who knows he is wicked, to a righteous person who knows he is righteous".

Welcome, RK - great entries on Judaism! The format is a little idiosyncratic (external links inserted in the body of the article). I understan why they fit there given the way the articles run right now, but external links are usually clearly (and physically) separated from wikipedia content. I linked up some things in Zohar, for instance. I don't know it there's an entry for Kabbala yet, but there ought to be, and Zohar should be linked to it. Again, welcome! --MichaelTinkler

RK, could I make a format suggestion? when you're responding to a single Talk segment (e.g., Palestine, your responses to SKissane), it's easier to follow if you go to the end of what you're responding to and do it in one segment (indented is best! that's really obvious - just start your first line with a colon and it'll indent) or indent a response after each of the other person's paragraphs. I personally practice the former, since it doesn't do as much violence to the flow of that person's written statement. I agree with you about the points of millenial-old variants of Judaism; we can CALL them Judaism, but the one that lasted is it. I have similar problems with people equating Gnostic sects and the Catholic church, myself. --MichaelTinkler

RK -- I am too tired to make the necessary changes myself with any confidence that I wouldn't be making things worse. BUT I have to point out one thing about your most recent (and I think very good) addition to the Arab Anti-Semitism page: Not all Arabs are Muslims (and not all Muslims are Arabs). No doubt, a good deal of Arab anti-Semitism is justified through the Koran, plus the Koran provides a very important historical source. But not only is it important to point out that this book will incite non-Arabs (I think Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, and few if any are Arabs, and alas anti-Semitism is a problem there) -- I think it is REALLY important not to suggest that you (or Wikipedia) thinks that "Arabs" and "Muslims" are the same. I do not know if the easiets thing is to have a separate entry, "Anti-Semitism in the Koran," or to rewrite your contribution so it is clear that the Koran is one source of anti-Semitism for many but not all Arabs... SR

I was just thinking the same thing. Many Arabs are Christians (2%, 5%, more?) , a tiny percent are are of the druze faith (though they rarely refer to themselves as Arabs). In the western world a small number of Arabs are likely Unitarians, deists, humanists and atheists. And as you point out, a large number of Muslims are not Arab. Perhaps the current title of the entry should be re-titled "Islamic anti-Semitism"? I will not change the name of the entry today, to see if any other useful name suggestions come up. RK

RK I appreciate your addition ((to the entry on Karl Marx)) but I modified it. First, I moved it to open the section on criticisms of Marx. But I also rewrote it. I think it is an improvement, and hope you don't think I am just being possessive of the article -- you make an important point. I hope that in changing it I did not violate your intention, or undermine it. SR

Its an improvement. I really know very little about Marxism; all I can say is that its proponents only really seem to make their case by attacking straw-men. They look at the worst possible abuses, and claim there are only two choices - an anarchized form of unregulated capitalism, or a Marxist paradise. Frankly, I think their absolute belief in the divine truth of their arguments, combined with fanaticism and straw-men arguments against other systems, reveals that they are not atheists, nor are they merely proposing an alternate economic model. Marx, in fact, is a new Buddha, if not a god, and Marxism is a geunine religion in every sense of the word. After all, he is judged by his most devout followers as being infallible, and his texts are treated much like religious texts. This is how Marxism is discussed in "The Concise Encyclopaedia of Living Faiths", Ed. R. C. Zaehner, Beacon Press, 1959. See the last chapter "A New Buddha and a new Tao". Jungian philosophy is also identified as becoming a religious, rather than a scientific, philosophy. If I understand correctly, many others also have pointed out that the followers of Marxism, in practice, took on the behavioural characterisitics of adherents to a faith system.

I am glad you think it is an improvement. FYI what you state above is one reason why many people, including myself, do not like the word "Marxist." I think you are right that there are some people who treat "marxism" like a religion -- in fact, this was encouraged in many ways by Stalin (both in and out of the USSR). I do not think Marx himself encouraged this. Moreover, there are a tremendous number of people todoy who have been influenced by Marx (theoretically or politically) but who are by no means dogmatic. A number of people reject some of what Marx wrote while appealing to other things that he wrote. Are they Marxists? Orthodox (i.e. dogmatic) marxists would say no. And I think that's just one reason that the word "marxism" is of little value. Few physicists today are strict Newtonians, yet most still rely on a good deal of what he did, and admire him. I think you can find plenty of similar examples with students of Marx. SR

RK thanks for the invite to work on what will surely be an immportant article. For the moment, I would be happy if you wanted to cut and past things I wrote in the talk section of other articles. I am a little too tired right now to think of how to begin such an article, especially out of context. I think it raises huge issues beyond specifically religious tolerism, and I hope it goes in those directions. In the matter of polltiics and civil-rights, how would the US government protect the rigths of people who do not believe in civil rights, for example. I know Stanley Fish has written on this and I am sure many other socila nd political theorists of whom i am ignorant; I really hope so poplitical theorists -- political scientists/philosophers/lawyers also contribute to this. I look forward to watching it grow, and contributing when I know I have something valuable to add, SR

RK, I have embedded my responses to your responses to my initial comments on the pluralism article inthe Talk section of that article. I hope you find what I wrote useful -- and I have to apologize, because although I am expressing some strong opinions I still don't feewl ready actually to make changes in the article. I am sorry that this puts something of a burden on you, but I do appreciate what you have been doing, SR

Hi RK, I don't want to clutter up or involute the relikgious pluralism talk page more, so let me just reply to your most recent comments with a couple of quick points: You ask, "SR, You write "What I mean is this: to me, this account of Judaism makes Judaism (at least according to some people at one time) non-pluralistic." In what way do you mean this? Judaism in many eras didn't grant other religions the same respect that it gave itself (and I think often for good reason)." I guess this goes to my point that we need to distinguish between a variety of pluralisms. To me, the strongest pluralism is entirely relativist (there is no absolute truth, all truth-claims are relative). I think this is different from people who claim "my system is better than yours, but yours still has some validity (especially when if converges with what I think!). And I think this second position is different from those like the one I was responding to, like "only Judaism was true." This seems to me to be inherently non-pluralist, but I will now admit that one could perhaps come up with a kind of pluralism that will make room for this statement and competing statments like "only Christianity was true" or "only Islam was true." I think it would take more work than the first kind of pluralism! Again, I am asking you to do more work, but I wish you could explore these three (or are there more?) kinds of pluralism, both abstractly, and as they may or may not be found in different varieties of Judaism.

One other point I want to make -- I am no Wittgenstein expert, but I do not think he backed down from his position. But I do think a lot of people misinterpreted his position, thinking that the word "game" necessarily means it is trivial. The Roman gladiators played games in which they died, and today people make and lose fortunes over games. I think Wittgenstein meant something else by "game," I think he meant it in the sense that there were rules that determined what constituted an intelligible (let alone effective) action. Thus, the rules for football and soccer are different -- in soccer you just cannot hold the ball and run with it, if you did you would be penalized and some people would think you were just nuts. But I think LW understood that different language games could have very very serious consequences.

I do think you and I agree on a lot of things; I hope you take most of my comments not as criticisms (I don't think you do) but as suggestions about things you could clarify or expand on in the article. Perhaps you think some of the things you have written in response to me on the talk page is evident in the article itself. A main point of my comments is that I think some points are in the article, but could be made more explictly or developed. Anyway, good job! SR

RK, I appreciate the position you have taken on anti-semitism and anti-zionism, but would like to make two suggestions (I hope you don't mind -- since you know more about this topic than I, and have done much of the work on it, I'd prefer to let you decide how to work this in, if you think my suggestions are reasonable).

First, I think it is important whenever introducing the anti-zionism=anti-semitism issue to define zionism clearly and succinctly. I know this risks over-simplifying, but I have recently discovered that many people really do not know what "zionism" means, at least to Zionists (i.e. the Jerusalem Program). My sense is, it means that there should be a Jewish state, and that the Jewish state should be a center for the Jewish community as a whole and not just Israeli Jews. Many people believe, on the other hand, that zionism is a rabid form of nationalism that considers non-Jews to be inferior (I think). I realize that you could argue that this itself is a sign of anti-semitism or the result of anti-zionist propaganda. My point is simply that in introducing the word in any new context, it is worth providing a brief definition.

Second, I think it is important to distinguish between anti-Zionism as such, and any specific criticism of the Israeli government or Israeli society. One can oppose the occupation of the West Bank without being an anti-zionist. I think it is important that readers know that the equation "anti-zionism = anti-semitism" does not mean that "any criticism of Israel = anti-semitism."

granted, these fine points will not matter much to anti-semites. But I really do believe that there are many out there who do not want to be anti-semitic, but are very critical of certain Israeli policies, and are confused. I think these two suggestions will help them, at least. SR

Wow. Every one of these points is a good one. I have therefore (hopefully, with your approval!) "stolen" your ideas here and worked them into the main article on Anti-Semitism. Take a look when you get a chance, and see what you think. These clarifications are most important, and I thank you for pointing them out; this will help illuminate the issue to Wikipedia readers. RK

RK, I just looked at your recent changes to the Anti-Semitism page, and they seem to be very clear and I hope helpful. We'll see -- anyway, I like the changes you just made, SR

Hi. I think you're too quick to alter major portions of articles related to Middle East questions. I also think your alterations are biased, not in the sense that they contain directly biased statements, but in that you appear to be satisfied with having stated the Israeli position (although you correctly identify these as positions, not facts). The same goes for facts, you seem to be content with listing up the facts that fit with the Israeli view. Had your viewpoints been opposite, I'm quite certain Uriyan would have switfly moved them into the Talk pages. In fact, between you and Uryian, I find the prospect of bringing some degree of NPOV to many of these articles daunting. I understand that you feel strongly about these issues, and that you know a great deal about them. But if this combination serves to create bias, perhaps it would be better to concentrate on other parts of Wikipedia (like I am avoiding the communist/socialist articles). --GayCom

I find your rewrite of Historical revisionism can create some confusion. By example, the phrase :

"However, advocates especially of political causes have consistently sought to promote and defend their views against those of their opponents, particularly by omitting mention of evidence which contradicts their point of view, and occasionally by outright fabrication. "

can suggest that many historians use the same method as holocaust-deniers. Ericd 23:40 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

Hello RK, I don't know if you have followed the recent discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict on the mailinglist. I see many of the pages as biased, as most others do, too. Therefore I started a Wikipedia:Arab-Israeli conflict editing project (currently participating Uriyan, Ed Poor and me). There's much need for a general discussion how these pages need to be modified, so I invite you to state your views on this and help to work this out. greetings, --Elian

I just saw that you did some modifications to the article on Israeli settlements, where you removed a lot of essential qualifiers. I'd ask you to reflect on this change. It brings in a lot of POV. --Elian

Isnt it rather POV of you to insinuate that all children removed from their parents are removed for justifiable and moral reasons? 129.186.80.124 02:20 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Oh no, I never wrote any such thing; Please re-read my comments. I merely removed a paranoid conspiracy theories about social workers; the comment that was removed was so off-the-deep-end that it took one's breath away. The social work entry has since been expanded and rewritten in a much saner fashion, and it also includes valid criticisms, mentioning the many problems that do exist in this field. RK

In the Book of Revelation article, what is your basis for distinguishing the "Fundamentalist Christian Historicist" school from the "Historical" school? Historic interpretations belong together, and the interpretation which you relabeled "historical", if it is indeed such, would be one instance of the historicist school. Whether that is indeed the case would only become clear if the writing was significantly improved for clarity.

You're distinction between fundamentalist/non-fundamentalist, and mention of Catholicism in this context, indicates that you seem to see a Catholic/Protestant dichotomy at work here. That is not correct: many Catholic writers endorsed the historicist interpretation including the concept that Christianity would apostatize over time. Indeed, the interpretation which you relabel "historical" specifically cites the role of apostate Christians. It would not be correct, therefore, to suggest that "historicist" is inherently an anti-Catholic polemic--though it is occasionally used as one. So the distinction you make appears invalid. Can you justify it? --User:LenBudney

I never even imagined that anything there could be interpreted as anti-Catholic, or anti-Protestant. I am not aware of any of these issues! All I know is that the three schools of thought, as were outlined, were held by Christians of all branches, but what I term the historical school of thought (now listed as the fourth school of interpretation) was held by non-Christian Bible scholars. I mentioned that this is held by many Catholics, as I have read a friend's official Catholic Bible commentary, and was (pleasantly) stunned to find that its editors accepted the results of modern-day biblical criticism and historical scholarship for the Book of Revelations. I have tried to rephrase this in the article, to make clear that this view isn't part of any polemic. (Although I imagine that someone could use this view as a pro- or con- polemic against anyone they didn't like.) RK

RK, you seem to be on a bit of a crusade here! Interpretations of Revelation are just that: interpretations. They are not inherently anti-semitic; indeed your assertion that historicist interpretations make "all Jews die except those that convert to Christianity", you're simply talking through your hat. Almost no interpretation takes that view, in the sense you suggest. (If "Christ rules the world", then everybody on earth converts or suffers the consequences, I guess, but this in no way singles out Jews.) VERY POV of you, to say the least. Please stop fabricating nonexistent "schools of thought" to satisfy a personal agenda. --User:LenBudney

Len, as for the claim that all the Jews will die, that is a very mainstream Chrisitan point of view here in the United States. Most Protestant Chrisitan authors and preachers hold this view, publish this on their wbesites, preach it on their television shows, and hold it to be a tenet of Christianity. In fact, this has always been the traditional Chrisitian view. Only in the last cnetury have many liberal Christians, especially Catholics and liberal Protestants, moved away from this view. But most Christian preachers in the United States publicly teach that all of the Jews will die in the nect coming of Jesus, except for that fraction of them that abandon Judaism and convert to Christianity. If this belief offends you, then it seems that your problem is with other Christians. I cannot imagine how you would accuse of me of lying. Since you are totally unaware of this very mainstream view, I can only conclude that you are totally unread on this particular issue. RK

RK, it is most emphatically not mainstream: the historicist view is itself far from the mainstream. If any view is mainstream, it is the futurist portrayal of Jews as collaborators with Antichrist. And if there were a common insistence on this bit of interpretation, you would insert it in an NPOV way, such as "some versions contend that...". The summary into which you inserted it emphatically represents the elements which are common to all historicist interpretations.

I do not disagree that the futurist view is more common than the historicist school. I have no problem with revising my comments, or having you do so, to state this. But the historicist school is not that rare, either. And in the futurist school many American Protestant Christians also believe that all the Jews will die, except for those that convert to Christianity. This is a mainstream belief in the US. I don't like it, but that is what is preached. RK

Len, no one here (let alone I) claimed that any of the interpretations of the Book of Revelations were inherently anti-Semitic...

In an inappropriate, POV way.

...I just mentioned one more details about what one of the mainstream interpretations was...

No, it is certainly not mainstream--as the entire school of thought is presently out of the mainstream! I added the real mainstream treatment of Jews in the section on futurism. You are confused, and should as a result be hesitant to insert statements as fact.

I'm not confused; you simply are attributing motives to me that I don't have. RK

...Its not my preference, obviously! I understand that you apparently disagree with this view, and it appears that you find this view either embarassing to say aloud, or morally repugant...

No, you are distorting what mainstream interpretations actually say. Since your insertion is not accurate, one readily infers that you are advancing an agenda--apparently, the charge of Christian anti-semitism. The charge is valid, but the "fact" you insert here is not.

Len, calm down. Stop attributing motives to me that I do not have. I am not rewriting that entry in order to portray all Christians as anti-Semitic. However, if you feel that this one additional fact makes Chrisitans out to be anti-Semitic, then this only means that you believe that Christianity is anti-Semitic. Since I am not a Christian, this doesn't affect me directly. RK

Fine; in that case you should beware of inserting inaccurate facts concerning the existing interpretations of the book, and also of confusing the issue by confounding interpretation and criticism. In addition, I request that you do not make cavalier references to predictions of a new holocaust; such issues are both controversial and highly emotional, and their cavalier mention creates an inaccurate and non-NPOV impression. Look at the compromize offered on the Talk:Revelation page and in the Book of Revelation article itself.

...So do I. But it is a mainstream Christian view among Protestants in the USA. Do Jews find such beliefs anti-Semitic? Yes; in fact, many Jews find this attitude dangerous, and a cause for concern. We have seen in the recent past where such apocalyptic views lead. But if millions of Chrisitians have these beliefs, they need to be discussed in the article. And as it currently stands, it has been done without any polemics. RK

RK - Can you tell me the name of the original author of the article "Documentary Hypothesis"? I need it for a bibliography reference. [email protected]

RK: I am contesting your addition to the list of mediaval philosophers. Would you look at my comment in talk and see what you think. BevRowe

RK: The links you added to the Ben Franklin article contains an erroneous repeat to the anti-semitic example rather than a link to the debunking site.