Talk:Jews

Older discussions may be found here:

The list of famous Jews...

... in this article is once again getting terribly long. There is a separate, more comprehensive list elsewhere. The list here should include only people who are internationally famous and whose Jewishness is somehow significant.

I would suggest removing:

Richard P. Feynman, unless someone can make a case for why it is significant that he is Jewish
Haym Solomon, unless someone can make a case for his fame extending beyond the United States
Judah Benjamin, unless someone can make a case for his fame extending beyond the United States
Edward Teller, unless someone can make a case for why it is significant that he is Jewish
either Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman: I don't see what we get by listing two Austrian School economists.
Kirk Douglas, unless someone can make a case for why it is significant that he is Jewish
Jerry Seinfeld, unless someone can make a case for his fame extending beyond the United States
Moshe Feldenkrais - I even practice the Feldenkrais Method, but I doubt that he is famous enough to belong here.
Either Sandy Weill or Andrew Grove: do we really need more than one present-day billionaire businessman?
Isaac Levitan: I simply think he is not famous enough.

In preference to Douglas and Seinfeld, I'd consider Woody Allen, as emphatically Jewish as Seinfeld and as internationally famous as Douglas.

I would also suggest that the list, which is woefully short on women, might include Anne Frank, whose fame is strongly related to the fact of her being Jewish.

I would also consider adding Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguably the most important pholosopher or the 20th century. Certainly he ought to be more important than Isaac Levitan. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:53, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

O.K., just so I'm sure, what criteria do you think should be used for inclusion here? Jayjg 03:51, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel, the point of these names was to give some examples of ethnic Jews in our times that are key historical figures, they needn't be famous for doing something Jewish, altho some of them did participate in Jewish life. But I agre that some names must go, as there are those "lists" of Jews by country now. IZAK 15:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case, then Feynman and Teller certainly make the cut, but I'd still trade the whole rest of this list for Woody Allen, Anne Frank, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Any list like this is going to be controversial.

As for criteria: I would assume a combination of general fame and that their Jewishness had at least some signficance in their life.

Further thought: maybe drop both Sandy Weill and Andrew Grove in favor of the much more internationally famous George Soros?

It looks like IZAK has already edited without waiting for a consensus here, so I will do the same. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:57, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Falling between two stools

Our current intro says, in part:

Ethnic Jews include both so-called "observant Jews," meaning those who practice the Biblical and Rabbinic laws, known as the halakha, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense.

This sets up a dichotomy that leaves out Reform Judaism and, arguably, some Conservative Jews as well. Reform Judaism generally rejects the bulk of halakha; Conservative Judiasm accepts it only in part. However, neither would necessarily consider themselves "secular", and they certainly would describe themselves as "practicing Judaism as a religion". -- Jmabel | Talk 00:04, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

You're right, the language is awkward, and definitely tends to leave out Reform, though I think you might get an argument from some Conservative Jews about them accepting halakha "only in part". How about:

Ethnic Jews include both so-called "religious Jews," meaning those who practice Judaism, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense.

I think this neatly gets around the whole issue of defining Judaism, halakha, etc., since the Judaism article will do that for us. And as a bonus, the sentence actually makes more sense that way. I suspect that it probably looked something like that once upon a time, until someone felt a need to insert something about halakha in the article. Jayjg 03:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm happy with this. I'll edit accordingly. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:37, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

I second that. The original version would also have left out all Non-Rabbinical Jews who observe the Biblical laws, but do not observe the Rabbinic Traditions.--Josiah 00:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Deleted Zionist Propaganda

Deleted "as they view it as their only true home in a world rife with Anti-Semitism rooted in a long history of anti-Semitism and hostile to the Jewish people." and added fact that immigration has slowed and many Jews have left Israel due to economic pressure and disillusionment with the right-wing militarist policies and ongoing conflict. --Alberuni 17:23, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I certainly concur with the deletion. I'm not sure that the addition is any less POV. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:09, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to be. Jayjg 21:21, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I didn't use the term "right-wing" in the article. My language was 100% NPOV. If you have an issue with the language used, raise it now. And your snide remark violates Wikipedia policy of assuming good faith. Keep your discussions in Talk about the content of the article not about the editors. --Alberuni 22:00, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

LOL! Jayjg 22:06, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Alberuni, you have absolutely no groud to stand on when it comes to assuming good faith. You are known to be one of the most common violators of this rule.--Josiah 02:13, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Haha, if you assume bad faith on my part, I guess we are all hypocrites then. --Alberuni 02:37, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Reform Judaism

I thought that Reform Judaism came about in the 19th century following the teachings of rabbis like Samuel Holdheim and Isaac Mayer Wise. I'm not an adherant to this particular strain of Judaism so I may have my facts wrong, could someone please clarify. The article suggests that it emerged in the late 20th century, along with Reconstitutionist Judaism, which I'm sure is not right. Rje 04:05, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Looks like the result of some sloppy editing. I'll do a minimal fix, others may want to work on this further. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:55, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Rje

Protection

Hi, I just wanted to let y'all know that I protected the page following the recent onslaught of vandals. -- Schnee 21:40, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've blocked several of them; I'm investigating now. -- The Anome 21:44, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Schnee 21:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - just to let you know, my last revert was to the 20:14, 9 Nov 2004 by Jmabel. As far as I can tell that was the most recent non-vandalized pages. Most of the other reverts had "PENIS" in the text as well -- Jwinters | Talk 21:45, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No problem, you're welcome. As for the page's contents, it's currently identical to Jmabel's version from November 8, 7:01 UTC, except for the "vprotected" tag. (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Jew&oldid=7214154 ). So I guess it's clean; feel free to check, though. ^_~ -- Schnee 21:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The IPs appear unrelated, although some are Cox customers. Guesses: either co-ordinated attacks by a group of people, or someone using a set of open proxies. -- The Anome 21:50, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Considering they're all ISP customer addresses (i.e., dial-up or broadband), I'd think it's probably a group of people acting coordinatedly. -- Schnee 22:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've unprotected the page now. Please reprotect if the vandalism resumes. -- The Anome 07:06, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Remember that it is the serpents of kingdom of israel that edit wikipedia, or their goyim servants. There is an army of scurrying zionist Jews reading and editing everything here to make sure their relgion and their nation of israel is always championed and nothing negative, even if fair, is said about them. Take everything that Wikipedia promotes as 'established fact' with a giant pinch of salt, as more often than not it it just the ranting of prozionist israeli's or those that follow the faith of judaism. I have also noted that a lot of the vandalism of the site and subsequent locking of the threads occurs after someone attempts to legitimately edit misinformation of propaganda on the encyclopedia entry. As soon as this is noted by certain editors, then an anonymous 'hacker' will come along and take the whole entry down or replace it with insults, thus justifying the editor/admin blocking the article and then replacing the original valid edits with their 'idea of the truth'. This is the same tactic that certain unscrupulous individials do in real life situations. An example being jews staging anti semitic attacks on themselves or on synagogues to try and keep the myth of antisemitism ticking over, or so they can continue to promote the idea they are 'socities victims' in the public mindset. It is also done so they can justify their obsession with promoting themselves at the expense of all others.

Wow. You sure are paranoid, aren't you? -- Schnee 15:46, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whew. That's really quite an ... unusual worldview. -- The Anome 15:59, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Sadly, it's not as unusual as one would hope. Jayjg 15:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Off-topic

Excised text:

This is off topic, but this entry does not use the word "Jew" enough. The new Microsoft search tool is replicating the problem that Google had and now is showing (see http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=jew&FORM=QBHP ) an anti-Semitic site on top when people search for Jew. It appears that MS is looking more closely at the content of the page (if it contains the word Jew more then other pages) as well as links to it. People have done a great job linking to this page with the word "Jew", but this page needs more references to Jew.

Removed from the article, unprofessional and a questionable form of search engine optimisation in any case. -- Tim Starling 15:21, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

The point of the off topic entry was that it was going to be removed, but hopefully it would encourage people to use the topic in the body more often. To think that Wikipedia is somehow removed from "questionable form of search engine optimisation in any case" is naive. The only reason this page gets so much traffic is because of that optimisation.

Huh? Reform different than Liberal????

One section of the article says: "Progressive Judaism (an organization to which both Reconstructionist Judaism and U.S. Reform Judaism belong) accepts bilineal descent; notably, the Reform movement in the UK does not, while the Liberal movement in the same country does."

I was under the impression that outside of America, Liberal Judaism = Reform Judaism. Did I miss something?--Josiah 02:48, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See this: [1]. Jayjg 17:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The document seems to affirm what Josiah thought and what we all know. Gidonb 20:07, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Jayjg, but doesn't make more sense to say that some Reform Jews accept Bilineal Descent, and others don't? (Sorta like Polygamy - Askhenazim generally view it as forbidden because of R. Gershom's edict, whereas other Jews do not)--Josiah 21:06, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the difference is that in the U.K. there are two movements, one called Liberal, and one called Reform, and the U.K. Reform movement still insists on matrilineal descent whereas the Liberal movement follows the U.S. Reform view. Jayjg 23:21, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but they are still both "Reform" Judaism, just like Satmar and Chabad are both part of "Orthodox" Judaism despite their differences.Josiah 00:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does the Liberal movement still consider itself part of the Reform movement? I get the impression it doesn't, and considers itself its own entity (say like Reconstructionist), but I could be wrong. Jayjg 03:41, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think one could say, very roughly, that the UK Liberal movement is to the UK Reform movement what the US Reconstructionist movement is to the UK Conservative movement. The UK Reform movement is in many ways actually closer to US Conservative than to US Reform. -- Olve 18:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chile

Does anyone know if the anonymous, uncited, and uncommented addition of "Chile: 30,000 (est.)" is correct? Sounds likely enough, but we've had so much vandalism on this page I begin to doubt anything anonymous and uncited. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:28, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

Jews a majority in Israel

Zain Engineer, Palestinians worldwide are not living in Israel, and Jews are a majority in Israel. Jayjg 19:19, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

First even counting legal Palestenian living in gaza strip, west bank and 'israel' make almost as many palestenians as jews, in Israeli control land there are illegal palestenians (not having israeli approved identity cards) living in Jerusalem and other cities if these currently living in Israeli controled areas are counted there are almost as many palesteians as Jews then if you add other minorities like christians, Jewish Majority will be very difficult to prove. and Taking Palestinian refugee in account eliminates majority by all statistics.

What I need to say that majority is debateable (even if not to count refugees) and after counting it becomes impossible. We should tell the facts as they are from NPOV So it is more acceptable with people of different opions so that's why I added worldwide so if some body dont thing palestenians should be added he will take jews as majority and if some body wants to think Palestenians should be counted he will take as minority. So let's put facts on Wikipedia not opinions and Let readers make opionions by them selfs.

Exact statistics are

Segment	Population
Jews in Israeel according to this Page	5.2 Million
Total Population of Palestenians World Wide	9.6 Million
Percentage Living in Palestenian Authority	3.7 Million (38%)
Total Population of Israel (Wikipedia)	6.8 Million
Non-Jews Living in Israel Excluding PA	1.6 Million (6.8-5.2)
Total Non-Jew Population in Israel and PA	5.3 Million

Non Jew population can be further increased if Illegal Palestenians are counted in Jerusalem and other cities.

And if refugees are counted Majority becomes out of question.

Zain 21:22, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)