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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:

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)


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[2] 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)

Hang on Zain - Israel means "lands officially annexed by Israel or taken in 1948", not "lands controlled by Israel which it hasn't annexed precisely because it doesn't want a majority Palestinian population." No reason to endorse any more Israeli expansionism than we absolutely have to... Now if you said "in the region of Palestine, that would be a different matter. - Mustafaa 00:30, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think we have to be consistent we have to decide either population of occupied lands are part of Israel or Not. If they are, Majority should either be removed or at least have foot note like I mentioned earlier. The reason for which I see serious inconsistency is following:
When Jewish Majority is considered population of PA areas are not considered but when population of Jews in Israel is considered population of Jews in Occupied land is counted!!!!
This is ridicules
According to CIA World Fact Book [3] and I quote
"There are about 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem (July 2004 est.)"
So in the article where Jew Population is mentioned we should reduce the population in Israel by about 400,000 (To also count for Jews in other occupied cities). And Make a separate entity for Jews in Occupied Lands (which will be come fourth largest after Palestine, America, and France(600,000) more then in UK Or Canada).
We can't have it both ways.
And till we settle this issue, that is chose one of these ways either to Remove the Jewish Majority statement or Reduce the Population of Jews in Israel and Add a separate Entry of Population Entry for occupied Lands (which is very :significant Number), we should add arguably or disputably with that statement.
Zain 09:58, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Zain, while I understand what you are trying to do, this is politicization of an article that does not need to be politicized. The number of Jews in a country is defined by the number of Jews who are citizens of that country. There are 5.2 million Jews who are citizens of Israel, out of a population of 6.8 million, and about 1 million citizens are Israeli Arabs. I understand that you want to make a point about the government of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but this article does not need to be the place to do it -- there are plenty of other articles focusing on the conflict, or on Israel. From all legal and international law perspectives, Israel is a majority Jewish state, some of whose citizens live in territories not recognized as part of Israel (and some of whom live in New York, or London, or Paris). For a non-political article on Jews, we do not need to be drawn into a wider debate. I will change to "majority of the citizens" to avoid this confusion. Does this take care of the problem? --Goodoldpolonius2 19:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think now I should put purposed changes first to talk page then to main page. So here are the arguments I will like to give
First politicizing an article is when I am expressing opinion instead of 'fact'. Or may be disagreeing to any ‘fact’ due to my political views. So for that let me give you a review of what i have changed first the ‘fact’ which was given in the article was
Israel is the only country in which Jews form a majority of the population
Now as you can see in the context of the arguments backed by statistics which I have presented earlier in the talk that the statement was totally wrong. but instead of changing the text aggressively into something stupid like that ‘Jews don’t even make a majority in the country they illegally occupied and claim to be Jewish’ I didn’t even tried to put ‘my’ ‘fact’ that was that simply to say that ‘they don’t make a majority in Israel'. I simply wrote ‘they arguably make a majority’ this statement in essence means that they ‘Do’ make a majority (despite what ‘I’ ‘saw’ as ‘ground reality’). I just mentioned that it might be disagreed by some people. (which is very solid fact that it can be easily disagreed and even totally denied). And then I added in parenthesis the reason for which some might disagree and even that with adding ‘worldwide’ Palestinians so its upto reader to decide how he takes it.
Similarly my other Edits were backed by statistics which I put on Talk page, and interestingly (and somewhat expected by me) no body disagreed with the ‘facts’ I put rather it was ‘definition’ of ‘majority of Jews’ which was changed every time. ( which I believe had motivated by the facts that most on the page wanted to show Jewish majority in Israel no matter what ‘definition’ it takes).
I believe its logically impossible to justify excluding Palestinians living in PA areas from population of Israel but adding the jews living in the area to population at the same time.
The point which I wanted to make from all this is that, differences were based on ‘facts’ rather then ‘political opinions’. Reason for which I wrote all the ‘facts’ in quotes is that when ‘facts’ tend to oppose ‘political opinions’ of any group they regard those ‘facts’ as mere ‘political opinions’.
Now about the citizenship definition which you have currently purposed as I quote you
” Israel is a majority Jewish state, some of whose citizens live in territories not recognized as part of Israel (and some of whom live in New York, or London, or Paris)”
So the fact is that citizens need not to be resident in the state. So it means that Palestinian refugees not living in Israel or Palestinian Authority, their residence or location has nothing to do with their citizenship! What matter is do you see them as ‘Legal’ citizens of the land or not. Of course this is a political opinion which will vary significant from reader to reader without any consensus. And I will also like to quote one of my friend here who first reverted my changes I quote him
“ Zain Engineer, Palestinians worldwide are not living in Israel, and Jews are a majority in Israel. Jayjg 19:19, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)”
So the new objection being raised and 180 degrees opposite to the primary objection which was raised earlier. So I believe if it is such disputed thing let us just mention the word ‘arguable’ and Point to this talk Page, so every user can make his conclusion according to his/her ‘political views’
We should tell the reader about the ‘fact’ not the ‘political opinion’ of the Author of the article. And point out to the disagreements if any.
Thanks
Zain 12:59, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Zain, thanks for keeping this on the talk page. I do not think it is fair, however, to say "[the discussion is] motivated by the facts that most on the page wanted to show Jewish majority in Israel no matter what ‘definition’ it takes)." This is unfair. The fact is that, in an article on Jewish people, it is important to write that there is a Jewish state, and the majority of its citizens are Jews -- you started the various semantic wars about how to say this, presumably because you want to make a point about Palestinian, not Jewish populations. This has resulted in the article going from "population" to "residents" and now to "citizens;" not because anyone wants to fake a Jewish majority, but because Israel is accepted as a majority Jewish state, and you objected to other formulations, and the wiki tries to be accomodating to satisfying your viewpoint. I think you are pushing this too far, however:
I think there is misunderstanding I don't argue that the 'state' of Israel which according to the information on Wikipedia as far as Total area in square km' is concerned 'does not include' Gaza strip, or west bank . So according to CIA world fact book roughly 400,000 jewish population lives in west bank and gaza strip and other occupied areas. So when spread of jewish population in world is mentioned area wise, jewish population in PA is not mentioned?
If some body thinks that they shouldn't be mentioned bcoz that is part of israel, so if and only if, that is part of israel , There is no jewish population majority in israel and at best that majority is argueable.
I only object to resident population bcoz, when population spread is mentioned Jewish population in PA (if that is not part of Israel is ignored).
As far as citizenship argument goes please see below where citizen argument is given by another friend.
Zain 19:24, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
1. You are strecthing the definitions pretty hard for a political point. You actually quote the CIA Factbook in your argument, and the CIA World Factbook says of Israel's religious makeup: "Jewish 80.1%, Muslim 14.6% (mostly Sunni Muslim), Christian 2.1%, other 3.2% (1996 est.)" This is the way that all other encyclopedias describe Israel's population and it seems reasonable to use it here, since this article is in no way about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so the nuances of the situation do not seem deeply relevant.
2. Even if you somehow count the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel (which it isn't nor do most people think it should be), the population would still be majority Jewish (though not for long). From a critical article on Israel's demography in the New York Review of Books in October 2003: "Israel can continue to occupy "Samaria," "Judea," and Gaza, whose Arab population—added to that of present-day Israel—will become the demographic majority within five to eight years." Thus, the words "population," "resident," or "citizen" are all correct.
3. If you do not count the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel (correct under both Israeli and international law). Then Israel is clearly majority Jewish, whether you use the word "population," "resident," or "citizen."
I would like to keep this article out of the fights about the Middle East conflicts, which is where your discussions really should go.--Goodoldpolonius2 16:26, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Your Point (1) I totally agree with you on population by religion in israel as given by CIA world fact book. but if CIA world fact book is right on Population of israel it is also correct on jewish population of Palestenian Areas which are not mentioned in this article.
Plz I 'don't disagree' with jewish population majority in israel if israel excludes occupied areas. And I 'don't disagree' with Total jewish population mentioned in the article if those areas are included. But when these two opposite and contradicting things are applied simultaneously this is simply wrong. we can't cut it out of israel for one set of statistics and put it again in for another set of statistics. The only factual method of making majority without mentioning jewish population in occupied areas is the use of citizenship which make jewish citizen majority in Israel and can ignore the jewish population in occupied lands by declaring it as a part of Israel (which it self is very very argueable). But still I am not starting arguing on that yet. But when citizenship definition is used it opens the Pandora's box of who is entitled to live in Israel which is ofcourse a 'political opinion'. So it is argueable at best.
Zain 19:24, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) (Argument continue to answer another friend please read below)
Side note: on Palestine I Quote
It is recognized that all refugees have a right to return home. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (December 1948) Paragraph 1, states:
"Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss or damage to property..."
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "every person has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
In the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, both parties signed an agreement saying that financial compensation was a necessary and legitimate way of dealing with many of the refugees from both sides.
Zain 13:16, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Palestinians worldwide are not citizens of Israel, and the vast majority of them have never lived in Israel. The current formulation is accurate, and does not need a digression into an argument about the politics of Arab-Israel conflict, and your opinions about documents which are irrelevant in International Law like the UNGA resolutions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and which in any event do not apply to 98% of Palestinians. Jayjg 14:54, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It is absolutely possible that UNGA resolutions and Universal Declaration of human Rights are totally irrelevant for you, same as it is possible for many muslims, about 1000 times more then jewish population, consider Israel independence declaration irrelevant. but still these both are point of views and at best they can be called debatable or arguable. To exercise NPOV about these differences we should use the same approach as used in israel-muslim conflict. That is to tell the facts and let user draw the conclusions. and if there are any differences they point to talk pages. Point which I tried to made was not to say that, there is no jewish majority is israel or jewish population exists in Palestinian areas or refuges have right and beomes citizen or not even occupied areas are not part of israel what I mentioned is that it is argueable (which is even a lighter word then debatable). We should tell the readers that it is arguable if not disputed or False. and point to the talk pages.
Israel-Muslim Conflict and Majority you are right about not to drag this issue into this article as much as possible. But I'll like to Quote (I think Einstein) that
Make things as simple as possible but not simpler.
The core of the conflict between these nations is how much land Israel has its right on (If any). And after refugee problem how much right these refugees have to return. So there is no disagreement on how many jews live where But for declaring a Majority you have to define an area count Jewish Population and non-jewish population and compare them. Dilemma of Jewish majority is that, when you use ‘population’ definition counting is simple but defining area becomes problematic choosing occupied areas as part of israel won't make a population majority and choosing otherwise will make a majority but will lead a very big jewish population in PA which needs to be mentioned. Then one may seek to use citizenship as it ignores the area and concentrates on People related to the land. In this case too a Pandora's Box from the conflict comes into play which is, who is more related to the land and who is more entitled to be called 'citizen' of the land.
So the simplest method, is to mention arguable and for those who suggest to even simpler method is to ignore it I'll quote him again
Make things as simple as possible but not simpler.
with regards
Zain 19:24, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Side note: the use of "Jew" as an adjective (e.g. "Jew population") is generally considered offensive. It should be "Jewish population". I'm guessing that this was an oversight in Zain's comment above, so no offense taken; just thought I'd note it in case anyone might look at this and think it was appropriate usage. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:25, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I was not aware of it. But I feel quite strange why it is (I have never met any jew in person in my life). Can U tell me why? point to any website which explains (if you know any whch explains this)
Zain 13:16, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
From the American Heritage Dictionary - "Usage Note: It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun." Jayjg

14:54, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Conclusions (For those who want to skip to the end)

"I think we have to be consistent we have to decide either population of occupied lands are part of Israel or Not" is a fair objection to the original wording; the recently suggested solution of substituting "citizens of Israel", irrespective of where they live, seems to solve that. - Mustafaa 16:52, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with making it citizens of Israel - that is why I made that change originally. Citizen is unambigious and binary - you either are or are not a citizen of Israel. Zain, you may argue over who ought to be a citizen of which country, or what a final settlement should look like, but there is no ambiguity or POV bias in pointing out that there are 5.3 million Jewish Israeli citizens, an 80% majority among the citizens of Israel. Also, as I pointed out in the above section, it would have also been correct to use the terms "residents" or even "population," regardless of whether you accept the international definition of Israel (1967 borders) or any other definition, since Jews are still in majority in the combined population of Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza, but I don't think there is any need to get into semantics, since it is irrelevant to the entry for "Jews" and the existing compromise seems fine. In short, I am happy, and Mustafaa seems happy with it - can we close this out? --Goodoldpolonius2 20:35, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well I think now we have reduce (although not eliminated) the differences (I think that initial debate of having majority population and not mentioning Jewish population in PA at the same time has gone for good) thing which is left is who is 'legal citizen' which roots into the question of who will decide which 'legal body' will decide 'citizenship' so we can declare a clear citizen majority of jewish population in Israel. Problem is that Israel it self as a 'legal body' is not recognizes by many countries and those coutnries which recognize it, right of Palestinian refugees to return is big number (if not the majority). Although I personally don't think many of these countries will go into small details like citizenship for statistics but if we only consider countries which don't recognize as a 'legal body' which can issue 'citizenship' the majority of jewish citizen in Israel will still be at least arguable. So we at best can say that citizenship of Israelis is disputed equivalently citizenship of Palestinian refugees is disputed. Although for other countries it is not the problem, you can easily say without any major debate that who is citizen (at least upto the level where it seriously impacts statistics). Let's say Nazis Capture France and expel many French and declares that all French population are 'non-citizens'. Then assigning 'citizenship' to Hitler alone will make Germans 'majority citizens' of France!. I am not saying that Jewish population is same in israel as Nazis in France I mean that mere occupation of land is not a full justification to declare 'citizenship' you have to consider other factors too of course this page is not to decide who is 'legal authority' to decide citizenship. And neither I mean that we should apply same principle every where that whoever claims citizenship of a land/country makes citizenship disputed. What I mean that in case of israel citizenship is highly disputed bcoz things related to ownership and citizenship in this land are major dispute through out the world. We here can not resolve these disputes but at minimum we can say it is disputed. If some people say that citizenship problem is not worth mentioning a single word (that is 'arguable') I'll like them to give the example of the article King of Jerusalem in which it is stated that even currently there are people who proclaim to be King of Jerusalem. If some body with such vague arguments can claim to be King of the Land and it is worth mentioning so much. Why not 9.5 million People with a lot batter arguments and a lot more global acceptance can worth a single word! (arguable that is) for some of readers all those arguments might not be acceptable as true but at least for many they will prove to be enough to call it argueable to at least the level worth a single word (that is 'argueable') with regards

Zain 23:46, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Side Note: ‘arguable’ ,’disputable’, ‘debatable’ does not mean false it merely means that number of people who disagree with this are not negligible, for instance even 1% of Muslim population thinks that Israeli government has no right to decide citizenship. It makes same (if not more) then population of all jews in the world. So such population is not negligible and if they disagree it should be at least called arguable or disputed. And of course in reality there are a loot more Muslims who will disagree with that, even with in the Muslim countries which recognize Israel officially Majority Muslim population disagree with Israeli right to give citizenship, then there are Non-Muslims who will disagree with Israeli right to give citizenship as I said above in this page we can’t resolve it (if a very big portion of humanity has serious differences over it) neither this page has any objective to decide whether Palestinians refugees are any better citizens then jewish population. At best we can say it is arguable.
Zain 00:38, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Israel, like all other countries, decides who is or isn't a citizen of that country. There is no-one claiming that all 9 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel; if you can find someone making such a claim, please provide the evidence. The fact that a small number of Arab countries don't recognize Israel is particularly irrelevant to who is a citizen of Israel; if a country says Israel doesn't exist, then it certainly can't think that Palestinians are citizens of that non-existent entity. Jayjg 04:26, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Zain, I really do think you are belaboring this point, and we really should move on. There exists a nation called Israel, a nation that is part of the United Nations, GATT, WTO, the Olympics (all with Arab states as well). It issues money that is traded on international currency markets. You may think Israel does not have a right to exist, but as a fact it does actually exist, which is enough to let Israel define its citizens for the purpose of an article on Jews and where they live. Please note that this article does not say that all 13-16 million Jews in the world are citizens of Israel, even though they may be entitled to such citizenship under Israeli law -- such a statement would be factually incorrect. In the same way, it really seems incorrect (especially as this article is about Jews, not debates over the Partition of Palestine, etc.) to state that some non-citizens of Israel might want citizenship in a country that would replace Israel; whether or not you or anyone else think that cause is just. Put it this way - articles about Palestinians would say that 1 million are citizens of Israel, X number are citizens of Jordan, X number are resident in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon with refugee status pending resolution of the conflict while X number are citizens of the US, France, Germany, etc -- they would never say that they are all Israeli citizens. There are good places to engage in debate, over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we do not need to bring an article about Jews into the fray as well, please! At one point, you accused people of torturing definitions to make a Jewish majority in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel (a point I countered with the evidence above) -- you are now really doing the same to deny that Israel does not have the right to declare who its citizens are. The majority of wikki folks so far seem okay with this, can we move to other points? --Goodoldpolonius2 06:04, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Final Arguments

Well I was wondering should I give my approach “Talk first and Edit Later” another try. Or should I leave accepting that on wikipedia you cannot “outargue”, if you are outnumbered, even if our arguments make sense ( I am not saying that Israel has no right to decide its citizens merely that it is disputed). Then I though may be as factual arguments helped end the concept of having “Jewish Population majority” and “No Jewish Population in PA” ”Simultaneously”, may be the concept that Israel’s right to assign “citizenship” to 13-18 million Jews (if it desires) and stripping Palestinians of the same right whether they live in Israeli controlled areas or refugees, simultaneously, is an undoubted fact, can also be negated. So I in ‘good faith’ trying ‘yet’ again. First I should reply to the questions raised by my friends above to my proposal. Then I should give comprehensive points in a systematic manner to support my case. First here are answers to the questions raised, in Question to answer fashion:

"small number of Arab countries don't recognize Israel"

It is not limited to small number of Arab countries for example Pakistan (a non-Arab country) also doesn’t recognize Israel ‘legal rights’, including its right to declare citizens. And Pakistan’s Muslim population, alone makes ’10 times more Muslims then All jews in entire world’, who disagree with this Israeli ‘legal right’. Here I don’t want to make a list of the countries who recognize or who don’t recognize Israel’s ‘Legal authorities’ like deciding citizenship. Or saying that as Muslims outnumber Jews by 1-100 ratio their, So opinion should be written 100 times more then opinion of Jews in all articles regardless of whether they are facts or not. What I want to say is that Israel ‘Legal authority’ to assign ‘citizenship’, although might not be valid ,but at very least arguable. And worth mentioning a single word that is ‘arguable’.

“if a country says Israel doesn't exist”

Concept that muslims say israel ‘doesn’t exist’ is wrong. What they disagree with is the, Israeli ‘legal authority’ to occupy ‘Palestinian land’, detaining people and among others ‘legal aurhority’ to declare ‘citizenship’. And to have a legitimate ‘authority’ to declare ‘citizenship’ is not a ‘fact’ it is just an opinion which in this case is disputed or arguable so it is worth mentioning a single word ‘arguable’.

“this article is about Jews, not debates over the Partition of Palestine, etc”

I didn’t dispute any thing about Jews but only disputed when there is no mention of ‘jewish population in PA’ and declaring all Muslims living in those areas as non-citizens simultaneously . I don’t say we should write that Israel has no right on declaring Jews around the world as citizens (if it does) . I mean that, “Israel having right to declare Jews around the world as citizens (if it does)”, ‘there is no need of mentioning Jewish Population in PA in this article but it should be shown as Jewish population in Israel’ and ‘Israel right to declare such a big group of people non-citizens living in the same area, whose jewish population doesn’t require to be mentioned separately in this article but should be shown as population of israel’ doing all of this simultaneously if not incorrect it at very least ‘arguable’ or ‘disputeable’.

What I am asking for is to add a single word ‘arguably’ to that statement.

Although this article shouldn’t be place for holding debate over Israeli-Muslim conflict. But if for statistical reasons we have to count the Jewish population in ‘Israel’ for ‘jewish population majority in Israel’ Or ‘Jewish citizen majority in Israel’ and ‘To decide whether some of the population resides in Israel or PA’, deciding ‘Israel area’ and ‘Israel right to grant citizenship’ is inevitable So to avoid getting ourselves into these kind of disputes we should simply add a foot note or comment or any thing which is disputed. For details plz see my argument above of "Muslim Israel Conflict" Now Let me quote some other statements which were given against me.

”Israel, like all other countries, decides who is or isn't a citizen of that country”

”but as a fact it does actually exist, which is enough to let Israel define its citizens”

But there is yet very important statement see below

“All 13-16 million Jews in the world are citizens of Israel, even though they may be entitled to such citizenship under Israeli law -- such a statement would be factually incorrect”

This statement is Key to my case about citizenship is “arguable” as my friend pointed out that, if israel goverment or israel Law declares some body ‘citizen’ of Israel it can still be ‘factually incorrect’ what I have argued is much lesser then this. I want to say that if Israel government or Israel Law declares some body ‘citizen’ of Israel that is ‘factually arguable’ (even lighter word then ‘disputable’ let alone the ‘factually incorrect’ wording).

Now Let me put my points in a systematic way.

What I am not asking for here

Declare that: Israel doesn’t exist. Jews don’t live in Israel, Jewish Population in Israel shouldn’t be counted, Jewish population in PA should be mentioned under all conditions, Israel ‘authority’ to declare ‘citizenship’ is not acceptable to a majority.

What I disagree with

I disagree with, “not mentioning jewish population in PA” and “declaring jewish ‘citizen majority’ in Israel simultaneously” is an ‘unarguable’ ‘fact’.

Why I disagree with

To accept both things simultateously undisputed. Logically all of the followings need to true simultaneously.

  1. Occupation of a land gives right to declares citizenship.
  2. PA is a part of Israel so there is no need of mentioning jewish population in those areas separately then Israel.
  3. Israel Law and government have ‘undisputed’ authority to declare citizenship. (which as I quote my friend can be ‘factually incorrect’ ” all 13-16 million Jews in the world are citizens of Israel, even though they may be entitled to such citizenship under Israeli law -- such a statement would be factually incorrect “
  4. Even if a sizeable numbers of humans on this planet disagree with something It is still not worth mentioning ‘arguable’, let alone the ‘disputable’ word with it.
  5. All of the above points are totally ‘undisputed’ and none of above is worth mentioning ‘arguable’ or ‘disputable’.


so may be you disagree with point 1,2,3 or even 4 but taking all as ‘undisputed’ and not worth mentioning ‘argueable’ or ‘disputeable’ is not ‘factual’. What I suggest to resolve it

  1. Declare Israel jewish “population majority” and mention jewish population in PA seperate then Israel. ( May be even “resident Population majority” to avoid all possible future objections on the statement.)
  2. Dont’ Mention Jewish Population in PA separately but declare Israel a ‘Near jewish population majority” (or “resident Jewish Population Majority” to avoid future objections”)
  3. Declare Israel a jewish ‘citizen Majority’ and mention the word “arguable” with it Pointing to the talk Page.
  4. Don’t mention jewish population in PA seperately but use the statement like ‘Israel is the only country in the world where jewish population make ‘majority’ of the ‘government recognize citizens’” (some may like it to be occupant recognize citizens) .


Although I believe the last statement will cause the most heat from pro-Israel readers. And other statements might be less offending. So all of the four statements are acceptable for me. You might choose any of them.

Side Note: Places where ‘occupation authority’ is not recognize as the ‘legal authority’ is not limited to Israel alone. For me the most ridicules example of this is “Taiwan”. Taiwan for a long time was recognized by USA and many other countries as ‘True’ ‘Legal authority’ of china, which meant that Chinese communist government is merely an ‘occupantion authority’. What’s more funny for me is that Taiwan held china seat in U.N, only bcoz it was ‘TRUE’ ‘Legal Chinese government’ and Even had the VETO POWER bcoz it was ‘true Legal Chinese government’ China and the United Nations. And the phenomenon of distinction between ‘occupation authority’ and ‘legal authority’ is not just past. A recent example of this is Taliban ‘occupation’ of Afghanistan although they occupied 90% of the Afghanistan and arguably had a lot wider support then earlier occupations i.e. soviet but still they were not recognized as ‘legal authority’ even though lesser popular soviet were recognized as ‘legal authority’ and during Taliban era most of the world recognized “Burhan ud din Rubbani” (I bet most of you have never even heard of him) as ‘legal authority head’ his ‘government’ had legal rights including membership of U.N. and other international organizations. Although It is almost never possible to declare a clear ‘legal authority’ in case of major disputes, we should simply write ‘disputeable’ or at very least ‘arguable’ if such situation arise.

with regards
Zain 22:08, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A Response Zain, again, thanks for continuing to discuss. I understand your passion on these points, but this is pretty simple, however. States can determine their own citizenship requirements. Not arguably - actually. Taiwan issues passports and determines who its citizens are, even if China disputes its existance. The fact that Taiwan has decided who its citizens are is indisputable - even if China's 1 billion people say otherwise. What, exactly, is arguable about Israeli citizens being majority Jewish? They are, factually.

You are making a catagory mistake here, Zain, confusing citizenship with the right to hold certain territory. Deciding citizenship is an absolute right afforded to states while the right to hold certain territory is not. Further, the fact that anyone feels that Israeli citizens should not be citizens is not relevent, any more than 1 billion people might wish that Bill Clinton was not an American citizen - he is. Citizenship, when accepted by the people made citizens, is the absolute perogetive of the country issuing citizenship, and thus is a fact, even if the decision seems unfair. The same works to states not granting citizenship to people who you might feel deserve it. Egyptian citizen law, for example, says that women may not pass on citizenship to children born to non-Egyptian husbands. That might seem unfair to many women's right activists, but it does not change the fact that they are not citizens of Egypt. The fact that Arab states, in accordance with their 1959 agreement, withhold citizenship from Palestinians may also seem unfair, but it does not make Palestinians living for 55 years in Egypt, Lebanon, or Syria citizens of those countries.

Your objections do not hold up as a result, specifically:

  1. Occupation of a land gives right to declares citizenship. The land is not at stake here. We are talking about the existance of a state, which gives the state the right to decide criteria for citizenship.
  2. PA is a part of Israel so there is no need of mentioning jewish population in those areas separately then Israel. You are confusing population and citizenship again. The Israeli settlers are Israeli citizens. We may dispute their right to be there (again, another article), but they are recognized as Israeli citizens by everyone, including the PA.
  3. Israel Law and government have ‘undisputed’ authority to declare citizenship. (which as I quote my friend can be ‘factually incorrect’ ” all 13-16 million Jews in the world are citizens of Israel, even though they may be entitled to such citizenship under Israeli law -- such a statement would be factually incorrect “ Huh? All Jews are not Israeli citizens. They can become so if they want to move to Israel and apply to do so. And many countries (including Germany) offer variations of "Laws of Return" for people descended from national citizens.
  4. Even if a sizeable numbers of humans on this planet disagree with something It is still not worth mentioning ‘arguable’, let alone the ‘disputable’ word with it. A sizable number of people disagree with the right of Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. That is not the same thing as saying that they disagree with the fact that these people are Israeli citizens. The only way to deny this is to deny Israel's existance as a state - which is a whole other can of beans.


Perhaps another way to put this, Zain. Take the factual sentence: "Jews are a majority of Israel's citizens." What formulation of that sentence would you accept without adding the word "disputedly"? I am curious as to your response. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:51, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

While agreeing almost entirely with Goodoldpolonius2, more precisely it is states not nations that have the right to grant citizenship. I mention this partly because both concepts arise in this article. When we write "Most Jews regard themselves as a people, members of a nation, and the ancestry of Jewish national identity..." we are not talking about the modern state of Israel. we are talking about a more abstract notion of nationality. Over the last 250 or so years -- and especially the last hundred years -- as more and more of the world has been dominated by nation states, there has been a tendency to confound the two concepts. Normally, I wouldn't even point out the distinction but for the purpose at hand it is important. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:35, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Corrections made in my discussion above to show the nation/state distinction- thanks. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In fact I was not planning to argue further (when I was posting my earlier response), thats Why I named it last arguments or final argument, reason for this is, I thought this discussion is getting extra long which some might see as my 'stretching of arguments' but when u mentioned u are curious waiting, I decided to Post Yet again :-). First plz I have quoted a person who is arguing against me, the quote is
"all 13-16 million Jews in the world are citizens of Israel, even though they may be entitled to such citizenship under Israeli law -- such a statement would be factually incorrect"
I quoted this statement not bcoz it says "may be entitled" but about the principle it points to that, if ‘today’ a law is passed in the Israeli assembly that, from today onwards, all Jews of the world are now citizens of Israel, it won't be factually correct at very least 'arguable' or 'disputed'.
Second important thing, which many who are opposing me, do not understand is that, the arguments which I have given don't object on single 'citizenship' dispute alone, but object on accepting all '5' Points simultaneously, which I mentioned earlier. To reject my disagreement, which I mentioned separately, from my arguments earlier, you need to accept all those 5 points simultaneously. In that if you give a close watch, to accepting them, you have to filter point 1 ,2 and 3 using point 4 and point 5.
Now let’s have a close look at the filters of point 4 or 5 (I am calling them filter bcoz they both have relation to all points 1-3 (point 4 and 5 interact with each other too, in addition to interacting with other three). Now first have a closer look at point 5 (which is a filter) I am asking for ‘arguable’ or ‘disputable’ not asking for wordings like ‘incorrect’. So lets have a close look at what is ‘disputable’ so to have some definitions of disputable let me give u a link for definition search on google for ‘disputable’ definitions of disputable on google now u see that , the disputable doesn’t mean that some statement is ‘incorrect’ or ‘false’, it simply means that two people (or group of people) don’t agree on some thing. It is, ‘questioning the accuracy’, not the ‘accuracy it self’, that is called a dispute. Now let me quote part of the reason which you used to reject my point 4 which is
” The only way to deny this is to deny Israel's existance as a state”
I am not immediately rejecting this statement by arguments (although I believe it can be) but taking this statement in a more genetic sense. What you want to say is that
‘Statement 1’ is an ‘undisputed truth’ ‘Statement 2’ can be ‘proven’ if ‘Statement 1’ is true so ‘statement 2’ is also ‘undisputed truth’
Well if you use this logic you can ‘describe’ every thing to be ‘undisputed truth’ bcoz when ‘Statement 2’ is ‘proven’ to be ‘undisputed truth’ it can be used as a seed again to ‘prove’ further ‘undisputed truths’ so on and so forth, similar to Mathematical induction which is used to prove theorems.
But this is wrong method in ‘describing’ ‘political disputes’ by NPOV, one reason for this is, It is difficult to find consensus among humans on ‘standard way of proving’ of ‘political issues’ , other reasons is, here we are trying to distinguish between ‘disputable’ and ‘not disputable’ not to distinguish between ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ (which is related with ‘proving’). In all ‘disputes’ both parties use ‘fundamental undisputed facts’ and from them using their ‘own logic’ they ‘prove’ further ‘undisputed facts’ and regard, the end result which they have derived ,as ‘undisputed facts’, but the fact remains that matter still remain ‘disputed’ regardless of their ‘proving’, because ‘dispute’ is not matter of ‘prove’ its matter of ‘disagreement’. You stated to reject my point 4 that,
” citizenship should not be disputed unless Israel existence as a state is reject”
even if that argument is accepted, the fact remains that if you take a global pole by asking people that ‘do they accept ‘israel ‘legal right’ to declare ‘citizenship’ ’. you will find answers both in ‘Yes’ and in ‘No’ where numbers of ‘No’ won’t be by any standards negligible (if not majority), so by very definition of ‘disputed’ it is at least ‘disputed’ if not ‘incorrect’. Reasons which voters may give might be ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, from your, or any other point of view, but the ‘fact’ remains that it will remain ‘disputed’.
Now looking at these definitions of disputed now let’s try to filter point 1,2,3 through filter 4,5
Now point 1 and 3 are quite similar, meaning that any body who will accept point 1 will also accept point 3 bcoz the ‘fact’ Israel occupies these territories. But just keep in mind the fact of occupation. And a very very important point to keep in mind here is (because of scope of this article) I am not arguing, whether, some statement is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, (not because they are not but) because, I was told not get into the ‘Israel-Muslim’ conflict, but merely if it is ‘disputable’ or not, based on definitions of ‘dispute’, which in return depends on ‘opinion of people’ as per definition of the word.
Now Actual Points Again for debate
  1. Now first see point 1, the argument which u gave actually was non-concerned with ‘accepting’ or ‘rejecting’ the point it self! You actually tried to reject the ‘conclusion’ which might be drawn from statement 1, or the ‘existence of any connection which it might or might not have with the conclusion’, rather then statement itself. If you want to debate point by point plz accept or reject the points on ‘point to point bases’ not on the ‘conclusions’ which it might ‘prove’ or ‘connection which it might or might not have with the conclusion’. Else point of debating ‘point to point’ will be become pointless and ‘No consensus would be possible’, with a never ending debate. I believe that point 1 is very ‘disputable’ and a ‘stronger’ candidate for being called ‘incorrect’
  2. Now Point 2, now the argument, which u have offered to reject point 2 is, ‘bcoz they are ‘legal citizens’ ‘,(which itself is being in debate, being strong candidate for my side for the word ‘disputable’ or ‘arguable’ by the definition of ‘disputed’), but ‘citizenship’ is not in question in this point, in the first place. Reason which I think it is so can be seen evidently on the article itself. It says “Total population” and then subdivision of that “population”, not ‘citizenship’ which can also be evident by the following text from the article, “Significant geographic populations”, which I think is more then enough for any viewer to assume that this a ‘population breakup’ of ‘total population’, not a ‘citizen breakup’ which u ‘tried’ to ‘label it’ to reject my point 2. if it is not ‘incorrect’ (which itself is very difficult to deny) at very least it is ‘disputable’ or ‘arguable’ worth a footnote or comment (if not a change).
  3. Now point 3.Let’s take it in a more generic way. Let’s say India occupies Srilanka (a neighboring smaller island state) and some of its hindu population migrates there and mixes with existing hindu population there, and then declare most of its ‘ex-citizens’ as ‘non-citizens’ makes an election by those ‘citizens’ and resulting parliament declares all the of the ‘resident hindus’ as ‘citizens’ along with some of ‘native’ ‘non-hindus’ and then declares some of ‘non-resident’ hindus as ‘citizens’. All this won’t make ‘hindu citizen majority’ in Srilanka ‘correct’, at very least it will be called ‘disputed’. In case of israel you might not see it as the same situation and might even say that even in this case hindus make ‘undisputed citizen majority’, but there are many who will see convincible similarity between two cases. Or any other reason which they might see as ‘incorrect’ and you might see as ‘correct’ for declaration of ‘citizenship by israel’. Mere disagreement by “whatever reason” they think of, make statement disputed by very definition of the word ‘disputed’.
So all the points 1,2,3 are disputed, (if not ‘incorrect’),. using point 4,5 as filters, and if you don’t think all of them as disputed, declaring all of them as ‘undisputed truths’ will be clear deviation from NPOV..
Point 4, I put before I searched for definition of ‘disputed’ on google. After I did my searching Point 4 seems totally incorrect, because of the ‘very definition’ of the word. Of course if hundreds of millions (if not billion) of humans on this planet disagree with some thing (although you might disagree with the reason they give), by the very definition of ‘disputed’ It becomes disputed.
And rejecting all of the 5 points simultaneously without any dispute won’t be called NPOV.
So I’ll recommend choosing one of the four earlier statements which I suggested in my “What I suggest to resolve” Section, in attempt to remove the dispute.
With regards
Zain 04:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay. For the record, I consider this point closed, as your arguments, impassioned as they are, do not seem to be drawing a consensus - Mustafaa is happy, and everyone else seems happy about the current text save you. However, because I am a glutton for punishment, let me try one more time to convince you.

  • On disputes and reductio ad absurdum. You say "disputable doesn’t mean that some statement is ‘incorrect’ or ‘false’, it simply means that two people (or group of people) don’t agree on some thing. It is, ‘questioning the accuracy’, not the ‘accuracy it self’, that is called a dispute." With this as the standard of dispute, then very few facts would not be subject to dispute, clearly in contrast with the encyclopedia philosophy that there exists such things as facts, or at least consensus facts that can be called facts. You have hinted that the number of people opposing an idea should be enough to call something disputed. The fact that large amounts of people believe that evolution does not exist does not make it disputed. The fact that millions of people believe that Jews, or Muslims, or Russians are evil would not mean that we start an article "The arguably evil Russians..." The dispute standard you have is a slippery slope, and inappropriate - there is plenty of space on Wikipedia to discuss your views of Israel and its legitimacy.
  • On the underlying nature of your argument. When we unpack your argument, you are saying that the citizenship number is disputed because Israel's actions regarding citizenship are disputed. By disputed you do not mean "people do not believe that Israel has not declared these people citizens" but rather "people disagree with Israel's right to decide who its citizens are." This is a very different argument, you are arguing that the act of disagreeing with a state's legal system makes the decisions of that legal system "arguable." Again, this is a catagory mistake. I can say "The 1950 Iraqi Citizenship Law removed citizenship from most of the Jews of Iraq" but I cannot say "The 1950 Iraqi Citizenship law arguably removed citizenship from most of the Jews of Iraq." It did do that. The law is disputed, its effects are not. You are saying here that Israel's ability to decide who its citizens are is disputed. As my examples above showed (Taiwan, Egypt, the 1959 Palestinian anti-citizenship pact of the Arab states) it is the right of a state to decide on who its citizens are. You can only get around this by denying the existance of the state, since those rights are inherent in the nature of statehood. Once again, that is another article.
  • On the nature of your logical arguments. I appreciate your logical if->then structure, and you seem frustrated that I am not replying in the same way, but that is because it is inappropriate in this case. First, you are using textual clues that don't make sense in Wikipedia - articles tend to be messy, and not always coherent in vocabulary - the same person(s) did not write the sections on locations of Jews and the section on Israel, so your attempts at establishing logical consistancy between them will almost never work in a collabertive articles. Second, you have set up a incorrect argument. You say that if there is any dispute about statements 1-5 all being completely true, then the word "disputed" needs to be used. This is incorrect because your very argument is set up on false premises. It presupposes that citizenship is not a clearly defined fact, which it is. The logical train thus goes: "Is Israel a nation?"->"Do people who are offered citizenship of Israel have the right to reject Israeli citizenship?"->"Israel and its citizens are bound by a mutual relationship called citizenship, determined solely by thoe parties"->"Over 80% of Israel's citizens are Jews". Citizenship is a two-way contract, not a disputable concept open to those outside the contract.
  • On the virtues of compromise. As I showed above, Jews still make up the majority of Israel+Gaza+West Bank (though not for too many years longer). Thus, "resident" or "population" could also be used fairly and without "arguably" added. You felt this was controversal, so the wording was changed to "citizen." You did, therefore, make your point, and it would be good to look at the virtues of the arguments against you as well, in the same spirit of compromise. Are we there yet?

--Goodoldpolonius2 06:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

First if there is any other method to talk on this issue further without making this page long, I’ll like to be informed so to avoid this page from becoming more messy.

Confusion around the definition of ‘disputed’

First definitions of ‘disputed’ which I referred earlier (see definitions on google of word disputed), are not ‘mine’ and was not from a single source and here too instead of rejecting the definition itself, you have rejected it due to the, ‘consequences’ what this ‘definition’ might have. If we take this approach I’ll suggest you an easier path for rejecting my disagreements, that is, you can say as

Your arguments imply that there is not an ‘undisputed citizen majority’ of jewish population in Israel. So as these arguments are drawing an ‘incorrect conclusion’ So all your arguments are ‘invalid’.

You can see in light of this, that we have to accept or reject argument itself, not the ‘conclusions’ which it might draw, then on the basis of these arguments we accept or reject ‘conclusions’, not the other way around. Although I agree that, drawing consequences might give you an orientation that what this ‘argument’ might imply, to help you get a better understanding of the argument, So you might ‘dispute’ with it, but rejection of ‘conclusion’, as a sole ground to reject ‘argument’ is not correct. Now about your statement

“You have hinted that the number of people opposing an idea should be enough to call something disputed”

Well problem is that ‘political science’ hasn’t evolve to the level of ‘physical sciences’, which can help us distinguish between political issues as ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, scientifically. So you can see on wikipedia itself that, scientific topics are generally not subject of that much dispute, and when if disputed topics are described in articles, their ‘description’ is of lesser controversy then the subject itself. So the definitions of the word ‘dispute’, which are very acceptable definitions through out ‘English speaking’ and ‘English understanding’ world, can be used here with even a lesser hesitation, lesser then in the case of a non-political issue.

Well you again skipped (2nd in a row now) my point 1, without answering it, may be because you know that it is not easy question to answer. If you say that point 1 is invalid and ‘occupation doesn’t mean right to grant citizenship’ the whole theory of Israel’s ‘legal authority’ (please see the word ‘legal authority’ not ‘ability’), becomes a lot weaker. As I gave example of Taliban ‘legal authority’ in Afghanistan was disputed, although the ‘occupation’ of Taliban and their ‘ability’ was not in question, what was in question, was that ‘how to describe it’ not that ‘how it effects its inhabitants’, both are not same, like UN didn’t accepted the ‘legal authority’ of Taliban ,but in a hijacking, in which a plane was hijacked from India, UN seeked Taliban help because of their ‘ability’, although declining their ‘legal authority’ and of course, ‘occupation’ is all you need to have ‘ability’ to do things. To whether or not ‘occupation’ gives ‘legal authority’ to ‘declare citizenship’ is very important for this discussion. And then the question comes that, is this ‘legal authority’ is a ‘disputed’ or ‘undisputed fact’.

Citizenship is only a two way contract

I quote you here

”Citizenship is a two-way contract, not a disputable concept open to those outside the contract.”

Let’s assume which you stated, is an ‘undisputed fact’. Now try to imagine following situation, cuba quite a non-concerned country. Declares that, ‘All muslims are now citizens of Israel’. (Or some other population group like, Christians or seculars or entire world population )Now let’s say all Muslims in the world accept this agreement. So as your statement is an ‘undisputed fact’, it doesn’t matter what opinion jews or any other in the world might have on this contract, let alone the ‘validity’ or ‘invalidity’ of citizenship, because citizenship is only a two-way agreement, if both parties agree, no doubts should be raised by people ‘outside the contract’. As your statement needs to be true in israel context too. Now the situation becomes that 5-6 million jews are citizen of israel(you can extend it to entire 13 million jews if you want) But now 1.3 billion Muslims are also ‘citizens’ of Israel as per your ‘undisputed fact’ about the nature of ‘citizenship’. So as in this page then, we have to use this ‘undisputed fact’ of the nature of citizenship. Now the situation becomes that, muslim will make a 99% ‘citizen majority’ of the Israel! (if this happen) You might agree with such ‘undisputed facts’, but I see ‘citizenship’ as only a two way agreement, very disputed (if not ‘incorrect’).

Difference on compromise

You stated

“Jews still make up the majority of Israel+Gaza+West Bank (though not for too many years longer)”

Well it doesn’t even now, they lag behind non-jews by about 0.1 million, as I showed in the table earlier (which had population of each segment separately, and then their sum), Still as the difference is small One, for the compromises/Corrections which I suggested was to use the word ‘near majority’ or ‘almost majority’ of resident population. Which will be very factual, without being ‘controversial’ , ‘disputed’ , ‘arguable’ or ‘incorrect’.

Majority readers interpretation is ‘population breakup’ not ‘citizen breakup’

Well you skipped that point too. It is quite clear from the wording of the article about this ‘breakup’, is that it is ‘population breakup’ by using the words like ‘Total population’ and ’ Significant geographic populations’ . But when ‘validity’ of these stats are questioned, the answer to the ‘opposers’ is given that, it is ‘citizen breakup’ not a ‘population breakup’ and yet more, these stats are an ‘undisputed fact’. I think we should end this ‘two opposite faces’ of same facts.

with regards
Zain 22:12, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreements and Disagreements

I am using wording of ‘disagreements’, rather then ‘disputes’ because the definition of disputes itself is (which I believe unfairly) questioned here. Now here are agreements and disagreements, listing them might or might not be able to eliminate disagreement, but at least point to the differences which might help to understand different point of views (if they can’t be accommodated).

I am asking you to add more points to them if you see that we both agree on them or add more point to disagreement section if you see that we both disagree on it. And you might move the points which I declared as ‘agreed’, to ‘disagreed’ section with mentioning that you disagreeing with it.. And you can also move points to disagreement to agreement section ‘If I agree with that too’. Similarly I can move your referred points using same rule. But please no changes in the statements themselves.

Agreements

  • Jews make a ‘resident population majority’ in Israel if to exclude PA areas. (Please note: we might or might not agree, on use of ‘if and only if’ here, so ‘if’ used. Similarly in all further arguments ‘if’ means ‘if’, ‘if’ does not mean ‘if and only if’).
  • Israel has full ‘ability’ to do things, both in ‘Israel state’ and PA areas equitant to other states in the world.
  • There are considerable number (if not majority) of viewers which see PA area as part of Israel.
  • In almost all cases in the world, ‘occupation’, ‘state’, ‘authority’ are the same, whose ‘legal authority’ to declare ‘citizenship’ is largely(if not exclusively) ‘undisputed’
  • There are at least, considerable number (if not majority, or overwhelming number) of viewers which see Israel ‘Legal right’ to declare ‘citizenship’ as ‘undisputed fact’.
  • If ‘breakup’ which is given, is actually ‘citizenship breakup’, not mentioning Jewish population in PA separately, is (at least) technically correct.. (At least technically correct is used here doesn’t imply that, ‘statement is only’ technically correct but means, it might be correct in ‘non-technical’ ways too. Same goes for other statements which I called ‘technically correct’)
  • If PA is part of Israel, not mentioning Jewish population in PA separately, is (at least) technically correct.
  • There is a sizeable ‘Jewish population’ living in PA.
  • There are considerable number (if not majority) of viewers which see PA area NOT as part of Israel.
  • If PA areas are included, jews don’t make a clear undisputed ‘resident population majority’ in Israel.
  • If PA areas are included without much factual disputes, we can say that, Jews make a ‘near resident population majority’ or ‘almost resident population majority’ in Israel. Meaning that, statement will be (at least) technically correct.
  • There are considerable number of viewers (if not majority), who will interpret the ‘breakup’ given in the article as ‘population breakup’ not ‘citizen breakup’.
  • If ‘PA is not part of Israel’ and ‘population breakup is not by citizenship’. And both statements are true simultaneously, Jewish population in PA needs to be separately mentioned.
  • statement, ’Occupation has ‘Legal authority’, equal to any other form of government, in all matters’, is not an ‘undisputed fact’.
  • Sun rises from the east :-D

Disagreements

  • PA is not part of Israel. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2) From Goodoldpolonius2: Not true, I never said this anywhere in the above.
  • Statement: Citizenship is a two-way contract, not a disputable concept open to those outside the contract. is not an ‘undisputed fact’. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • Even if a large number of humans on this planet disagree with some political issue. This alone makes it worth calling a disputed issue. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • The impression which some (if any) viewers might get from the wording given in ‘breakup’, that ,it is a ‘population breakup’, (if it is in actual meant to be citizenship breakup), is worth mentioning a ‘comment’, ‘foot note’, or ‘change’. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • If PA is considered part of Israel by editors. Number of viewers which assume otherwise(May be due to lack of knowledge of presence of any jewish population in PA among other reasons), jewish population in PA is at least that significant , to be worth a ‘comment’, ‘foot note’ or ‘change’. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • Some of the readers of this article, even if they assume PA is part of Israel, will be interested in finding the total number of ‘Jewish resident population in PA’ at least some where in the article. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • Even if ‘breakup’ is interpreted as ‘citizen breakup’ by all viewers, there will be a considerable number of readers, who will be interested in ‘resident population breakup’, which should be given in ‘foot note’, ‘comment’ or ‘other such methods, if not a change. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • Even if Israel has ‘undisputed legal authority’ over declaration of citizenship, even then interest of readers of this article, is up to enough level to tell them about, ‘population majority by resident population’, some where in the article. (disagreed by Goodoldpolonius2)
  • Breaking egg from smaller end is ‘undisputedly’ better then, from bigger End. (:-D) (disagreed by ?????)
With regards
Zain 22:12, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Side Note: Reason for mentioning disagreements in such a way that, it is disagreed by you only is not that, I think you are the one who are making all the disagreements. It is merely because if my interpretation that, any of these statements are disagreed by you, you can simply move that statement to agreed section without changing it. Same I’ll request from you.

I consider this discussion to be pointless; Israel is the only country in which Jews are a majority of the citizens. That is a simply fact, which no-one but (apparently) you dispute. If you have some source saying they don't, please bring it forward. Jayjg 22:43, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think I am done arguing here - I see my words being twisted while my arguments were never responded to directly, just taken out of context. I never stated that the PA is part of Israel (nor is that relevant to my argument), for example, and I fear that futher discussion will only result in further distortion of my views. Your point seems to boil down to: "Israel's 'citizens' are majority Jewish but Israel's ability to decide who is a citizen is disputed," which is both factually incorrect and politicizes this issue far more than makes sense for an article on the Jewish people and would not make sense in equivalent articles (see my "Russians are arguably evil" example above).
I will have to go with Jayjg here, and ask you to provide a link that says that a majority of Israel's citizens are not Jews, or I consider this closed. Also, some talk links were deleted (reorg proposal and napoleon) -- please restore. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:51, 30 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)

This source lists the Jewish population Uruguay as 32,500 [4]. I suspect 30,000 is close enough. Jayjg 22:40, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Oops, the same source lists Chile at 15,000. I got the countries confused. I'll fix the number. Jayjg 23:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I can't find it there any more. Jayjg 23:39, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mizrahi Jewry

Mustafaa, I was wondering where you get your stastistics concerning Mizrahi Jews who fled their Arab homes.--Josiah 01:54, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mustafa is right -- The International Federation of Jewish Refugees From Muslim-Arab Countries says "Some 900,000 Jews left Arab countries after 1948 and more than 600,000 went to Israel. They and their descendants now make up around half of Israel’s Jewish population. Today, fewer than 8,000 Jews remain in Arab countries; some states, such as Libya, were totally emptied of their Jewish populations."

Stats that I found from the Mellon Institute's Arab World Project that connects a number of US university's middle east studies departments here: "In fact, the Arab countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen alone are estimated to have had a Jewish population of about 400,000 in the mid-1940s. Now there are only about 300 Jews remaining in Syria, and fewer still in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen.... 1947 Egyptian census listed 65,639 Jews, most of whom lived in Cairo, with a small group in Alexandria. Cairo, like Baghdad, also had a large indigenous Jewish population [no significant amount remain]... "

Goodoldpolonius2 08:20, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

TY - Josiah

Potential Reorg. of Article

This article feels really choppy, and I wanted to see if I could gather some support for some reshaping (keeping existing content). I am happy to do a lot of the work, but I don't want to start without discussion. My proposal is below.

I think we are pretty okay, although a little inelegant, through ethnic divisions and maybe even Jewish languages, and then things get strange. The migration piece is a good idea, but it is only part of a history. I would propose a short history of the Jews instead, explaining the nature of ancient Israel, the Diaspora, and the current world, we also should have a longer history section, discussed below. The famous Jews section should probably be moved towards the end, unless we really feel that it is a critical thing to list a Jew or two early on. Conversion to Judiasm doesn't seem to fit here at all, especially as we are dealing with the ethnic, not religious, aspects of Jewishness; I say cut it.

The section on ancient israelites and schisms feels like a part of the history of Jews, but there is no middle ages or modern history to compliment it - we just move into persecution. Perhaps we should put in a better summary of what the Jews were up to besides being persecuted during this time - like how Judiasm was shaped by its own internal efforts combined with the persecution of the outside world. A good rewrite of history is needed, as much is missing, and relatively small groups, like Karaite Judaism, get more airtime than the entire history of the Jews in Arab lands; or the movement of Jews from Spain to Eastern Europe; or the waves of expulsions in the middle ages. This brings us to persecution, which is an important topic, but one that is not clearly described within the context of Jewish history, instead there is a set of random oppressors of the Jews. Better to explain the nature of the persecution within a timeframe, and how persecution shaped Jewish identity, than to lump together modern Arab states with ancient Caliphates, and explain 1900 years of Christian persecution with a sentence or two.

I think the leadership section is fine at the end. World population, however, should be moved up to the begining, as it is a key question that anyone reading the article should know, and covers the major population centers of Jews today.

So, that's my proposal, a summary of which is below. Any thoughts? --Goodoldpolonius2 08:54, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Etymology -> keep
2 Who is a Jew? -> keep
3 Jewish cultural traits ->keep
4 Ethnic divisions -> keep
5 Jewish languages -> keep
6 Migrations -> change to "short history"
7 Famous Jews -> move to end
8 Conversion to Judaism -> subpoint of who is a jew
9 Ancient Israelites and Judeans -> combine with below into "longer history", move lower
10 Ancient schisms among the Jews -> see above
11 Persecution -> keep, but place in context of the short history section
12 Jewish leadership -> keep
13 World population -> move up above jewish languages
14 Decrease and growth -> include as part of world poplation
15 Related topics -> keep

Seriously, no thoughts on this? What is proper wikkiediquette here, how long before I give this a shot? (The community can always revert)--Goodoldpolonius2 07:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If the material on conversion is to be cut from this article it should be moved to an article of its own. (Also, I've taken the liberty of inserting breaks so your proposal will be more legible, hope that was OK, if not, revert it.) -- Jmabel | Talk 07:19, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the format help! There is already a full article on conversion, and more on conversion in the Judiasm article. Since converting makes less sense in a sense of Jews as a nation (naturalization? immigration?) this just seems unneeded here. --Goodoldpolonius2 07:35, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It does need at least some mention here, because under Jewish law the descendants of female converts are considered Jews, even if they become apostates. This particular relationship between religious conversion and ethnicity is highly unusual, possibly unique. Effectively, converting to Judaism also means becoming an adoptive member of the Jewish people or nation. That is why this material grew so lengthy here (including the somewhat different views held by some Reform Jews). I haven't looked at the article on conversion, but it would be important to have at least short section on conversion in this article. The top of the section should probably be a See main article... note, and any material not in that main article should be merged; also, we should have discussion here at least of the way conversion interplays with the notion of ethnicity. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:32, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Good points, and we can keep them in the article, heck, I don't want to mess with any language people worked hard on. I would then suggest that this becomes a subpoint under "Who is a Jew?" I have revised the proposal to reflect it. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:36, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't notice this suggestion before. The usual convention is to put new material at the bottom of a Talk: page, not the top. I think your suggestions in general are quite good. Regarding the conversion issue, you might have a window of opportunity to get things done here. For a while we had a POV warrior insisting on the Orthodox view (and in particular reflecting his own situtation and status), more recently we had a POV warrior insisting that Jews weren't a people at all, merely a religious group, and that anyone who converted to another faith was no longer a Jew. However, right now things seem quiet enough to actually improve the article. Jayjg 16:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I reorganized. I cut no text, just moved things around and edited headers a little. I added missing sections on Jewish history after the Romans, but it is really, really light - please feel free to add to it. --Goodoldpolonius2 21:39, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Napoleon

Unclear phrase in Renaissance and Englightenment section: "...incited to Jews to leave..." "...incited to Jews..." doesn't make sense. I'm guessing this is either "...incited Jews to leave..." or even "...invited Jews to leave...", but either of these would still be a bit unclear. A previous version had "...allowed Jews to leave..." which is clearer (but may not cover the facts). "Allowed" would suggest just repeal of restrictive laws, "invited" would imply that plus an appeal of some sort, "incited" would imply active agitation. Just what happened? Maybe this merits another sentence (or at least another phrase) in the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:23, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I suspect it should be "gave the Jews an incentive to leave". Jayjg 22:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Okay I fixed, and added a new article Napoleon and the Jews, given the length of the material. Amazing what I learn while researching for the wiki. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Latest archive

I've archived old discussions and interminable arguments in Talk:Jew/Archive 10, which now contains 85K of material, most of it the discussion about citizenship. If anyone wishes to continue that discussion, they can do so there. Jayjg 23:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Requirement of mentioning 'jewish population' in PA in 'Population Breakup?'

OK leave the question of citizenship for now, because it has a lot of technical issues involved with it prolonging debate, beside I have never seen any body declaring some segment of population as 'citizen majority', normally 'population majority' is used, and in almost all other cases there is no real statistical difference that result from differentiating between them.
What about need of mentioning of ‘Jewish population ' in PA, in ‘population breakup?’, as you said it is not part of Israel, or having the side note that the 'breakup' is actually a 'citizen breakup' not a 'population breakup' and providing a link to ‘population breakup’ if some body is interested in 'population breakup'. Please see disagreement section if you disagree.

Zain, in an effort to make you happy, and to end kilobytes of debate, I have added to the already existing footnote in the offending population box explaining that the Israel numbers also cover the West Bank and Gaza. There will be no more of the oft-threatened confusion! Interested parties somehow unaware of the situation can now easily look up "Israel" "Gaza" and "West Bank" and get the full information on the Middle East Conflict without having to drag yet another article into the mess. Yeah! Now, if someone would like to get to productive matters, like improving the Jewish history section, that would be much, much better. The issue is now closed {sound of gavel} --Goodoldpolonius2 03:31, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks :-)
Just Added two words to it, even that in parenthesis, using data from cia world fact book, using data from its pages [5] and [6]. These two words are '(about 370,000)', because purpose of that section, in the article is, to give reader an statistical overview of spread of jewish population around the world.
sum is 187,000+177,000+5,000=369,000 using round figure of 370,000.
Thanks God the argument is over now.
Now we can proceed to productive segments.
with regards
Zain 04:25, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Page size

This is a very very very very (repeated 1000 times) gigantic page that takes a long time to load. What can we do?? 66.245.73.39 01:13, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Get a high-speed internet connection? Jayjg 04:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Beyond facetious responses, we might consider technical solutions to this problem (and it is a problem; an 82 KB page may not be a problem for the DSL elite with their high-end desktop machines, but Wikipedia is not exclusively for us... er... them :-).
The atomic unit of Wikipedia is the article, but when even splitting up the article in subarticles is not enough (as here) we might consider alternate means of presentation and editing. Most large webpages (manuals etc.) have multiple views: as one big article or as separate sections with navigation. I'm getting the distinct feeling this is all rather obvious and people must have already discussed it somewhere; if so, please point me in the right direction. JRM 13:34, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)
People have broken up long articles various ways, often by turning them into article series with an overview article (see, for example, French Revolution). Nothing leaps out at me as to how to do that with this article, but I'd be open to ideas. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:34, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
I was thinking about more mundane solutions that required no editing. As you say, article series usually work, but here we already have a main article for practically every section and the page is still huge. And like you, I can see nothing obvious that shouts "move me to my own page" when reading it. We might consider a solution of presentation, whereby articles are no longer necessarily viewed as one page (much in the same way we can already edit them section-wise). I realize that that raises more questions than it solves (what determines the split? Are there any additional consequences for editing? Most importantly, who will eventually program this and how long will it take?) and I don't suggest we start working on it rightaway for the all-important problem of getting this particular article smaller, but it may be something to consider for the future. JRM 20:20, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

Time for a Template

I will try to work on a suitable template, maybe like Template:DreyfusAffair (rather small) or Template:Sep11 (good for a large topic). IZAK 19:39, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Against Division

I would suggest that dividing the article is not a good solution. Some subjects are complicated, and require a longer treatment, even if specific topics are referred to on other pages -- people should be able to look up "Jew" and get an understanding of the Jewish people, rather than a list of links. Otherwise, this article becomes an outline, rather than a starting point for research. It could be worse, as britannica.com says: "Ersch and Gruber's enormous Allgemeine Encyclopädie (“General Encyclopaedia”; 1818–89) has been cited as a true example of the medieval “summa”—it is famed for including the longest article in any encycopedia, that on Greece, which fills 3,668 pages in volumes 80–87." --Goodoldpolonius2 15:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Hi, good points, however, we are not dealing with a "hard-copy" book here, on Wikipedia with its "32K" limit on its HTML pages there are other considerations. (P.S. why didn't you sign your comments with your User name?) IZAK 08:07, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Oops, sorry - fixed above. I am not saying that the 34k limit isn't useful - I am just saying that where the effort has been made to comply with it, but cannot succeed due to indivisibility of information, that the article should not be divided. What would really be a good feature is to allow a "page 1" and "page 2" approach --Goodoldpolonius2 15:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The problem is that the material is too vast for a mere "page 1" and "page 2". Too many links to other articles are already part of this article and then those articles are detached from the main article when viewed or found on their own. There would still be plenty for one page, and the rest could be found using a template. Let's see how it works. IZAK 05:36, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jew template

OK, it took a few hours, but finally the new template {{Jew}} is activated. I have moved some sections from the main Jew article to some newly-created articles with the same names as the sub-headings in the main article. No material was lost or edited when it was transferred. The main article is now UNDER 32K for the first time in many years, and NOTHING is lost, because now by looking at the "Jew" table (created by the "Jew template") any reader/editor/User can easily go to the articles they need. The challenge now will be to editorially monitor more articles relating to "Jew" (but that is all "par for the course" at Wikipedia.) Please look at the articles and add appropriate materials as we now have more space within them. Thanks, and Happy Chanuka! IZAK 11:45, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good work, IZAK, and good choices about what to keep in the main page and what to move. I still would have liked to keep the article together, but this seems like a sensical apporach as well. It inspired me to create some new articles to fill out the template, see my discussion below. Again, nice work. --Goodoldpolonius2 17:10, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Looks good, IZAK. Nice work. I'd just like to suggest that we re-order the template to put Jewish Ethnic groups below Religious Denomimations (or raise denominations), since a key point in the articles is that Judaism is not really a race, even though adherents have their own racially influences religious cultures.Mikeage 02:26, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Mikeage, I think the key point of the article is that Jews can be thought of as an ethnic group/nation, as well as just a religion. That is the whole point of seperating it from the religion catagory. In deference to your point, I did put religion as the second link in the template, but this article and template is dealing with the Jewish national/ethnic identity, not the Jewish religion. Also, perhaps you should put suggested changes in the final section below, where I made some suggestions and changes to the template. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:59, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New: "Israel-stub" and "Judaism-stub"

Hi, welcome the new Wikipedia {{Judaism-stub}} Template:Judaism-stub [7]. There is also a new {{Israel-stub}} Template:Israel-stub [8]. Please use them when coming across relevant "stub" articles. Thanks a lot. IZAK 14:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Slight tweaking of the layout

I've posted this to IZAK's talk page, but there's no reason not to share it with you. I find the Star of David table now a bit uncomfortably positioned in the article, mainly because the series box is so long. There's an alternative at User:JRM/Sandbox, let me know what you think. There's still the general issue of the table containing some information redundant with the series box, but that's another matter. JRM 19:00, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

JRM, I like this look better. Could you try it again with the changes I made to the template? --Goodoldpolonius2 03:00, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Will do. This is a bit involved and I need to catch some sleep, so it won't happen for a while. I am working on it, though. JRM 03:03, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

JRM: As I noted in my reply to you on my talk page: Your template is far too "cramped" and makes reading it harder on the eyes. It is important that each article have only its own line to keep things clear as in the original format. IZAK 04:55, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth to anyone: I've updated User:JRM/Sandbox to match the current content. Obviously I'm not going to make changes people disagree with. As for "harder on the eyes": you really don't want a screenshot of what the "Europe" section now looks like on my browser. There is such a thing as compromise. Separate lines are nice, but when you get a series box the size of the Eiffel tower, running all the way through the article, there might be value in reconsidering. Plus, in my version the placing of the Star of David table is not tied to some arbitrary section. Still, de gustibus non est disputandum.JRM 14:58, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

Hi JRM: I am only referring to the {{Jew}} template which does NOT have a Star of David in it (so I am confused why you refer to it that way), and your version still comes out much too cramped and looks like an even longer macaroni version of the "Eiffel Tower", with periods in it that make it look "pocked". The box with the Star of David in it is something else, done by User:Jmabel originally, and is ONLY on the original Jew article page. We should get his input as well, hopefully. I still like the version I created better, and I cannot understand why you want to create an even longer elongated copy of it that "cramps up" the information. The reason there is no easy way out here is precisely because the original Jew article was over-laden with information and had already spawned several spin-off articles before this current re-design which makes this "coming together again" through the new Jew template an important resource that unites all the most relevant articles relating to Jew. Thanks again.IZAK 20:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Macaroni version of the Eiffel tower", I like that. I would have turned the "periods" (middots, actually) into pipes | but the software wouldn't allow it.
I, in turn, am only referring to this article. The length of the template causes it to push Jmabel's table (I like that name much better than "Star of David table", for obvious reasons) way down. With the table on the right and images on the left, there's barely room for text in the "Europe" section (at least on my screen). That's why I tried shortening the article series box by grouping the links instead of keeping them as lines (and I had tried plenty of alternatives, but no other method gave any sort of usable layout). If you think my version of the template is too ugly to propagate across all the pages (and I understand now that you are in fact propagating it across all the pages) then please consider a complete redesign, because this (as others have pointed out) is visual overkill for many articles (take Haskalah for example, which is now followed by loooooots of empty space to host the series box, and Gruzim, which will remain a complete mess if the series box is kept in its current form).
Is a horizontally-oriented navigation box a better idea, perhaps? A la Template:Holmes? (I'm not talking about the organization or fonts or coloring of that, of course, just the idea).
Re "thanks again": you hadn't actually thanked me yet, but I'm sure that's just an oversight, and the intent is appreciated. :-) JRM 20:59, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)
  • Hi JRM: Due to the duplication of material in the two tables, the two tables on the page are not needed. The information about "Languages" and "Population" numbers I put into the main body of this Jew article. The "Star of David" can be put in somewhere else on the page. This Jew page is in now fact the lead-article and Flag ship of the Jew-template, so we don't need a "main table within the main article" if you get what I mean, as the article itself is THE "main table" now. Which brings us to the Jew template that is fine for now, it allows the eye to slide down ever-so-easily and find whatever the reader is either interested in or needs/wants to know. Relax, and thanks again. IZAK 06:29, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Hi again, in those cases where there is "loooots of space", it's always going to be a "cost-benefit-ratio" sort of calculation. The present format is still clearer than a jumbled-up template at the bottom of the page, and besides, empty spaces are just waiting to be filled as they are mostly {{stub}} space. Be well. IZAK 06:35, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    This is the point where I shrug my shoulders and say: well, you're the man with the plan. There's no arguing with visual taste, so I won't try. Oh, and for the record: I'm always relaxed. If it reads like I'm not, I'm just expressing myself poorly. :-) I really don't feel strongly about this, or something. As long as all the information is there, the rest is just nitpicking. I'm not trolling for a career in professional web design, after all. :-) JRM 09:35, 2004 Dec 13 (UTC)

Another county heard from

I strongly object to the removal of the standard InfoBox for ethnic groups from this page. We have boxes like this for several dozen ethnic groups and have steadily been adding more. It was the upshot of extensive discussion. At IZAK's behest, half a year or so ago I made some adaptations to the box because he found its then-standard colors objectionable. I am not willing to agree to its removal from this page just on his say-so, although I would bow to a strong consensus. As I remember, IZAK originally objected to this box because he (and pretty much he alone) didn't like the characterization of Jews as an ethnic group. I cannot help feeling that this recent change is a backdoor way of trying to reverse a decision that went against his wishes earlier.

As for the newly added template: I think it is basically good. In some ways, it might create fewer layout problems if it were mainly horizontal and went at the bottom of the many articles it is in, but if it is to be vertical, I see no problem with IZAK's original width for it, although I think mid-dots are fine where they allow multiple items on a line; n-dashes would be another alternative. I do think it could be less verbose in many places, which would make it much smaller. I suspect that the following is not all that can be done, but consider what might be done to the following sections (I have not reproduced the entire table, only the parts that I think could easily be more compressed; also, I've concerned myself entirely with tightening text, not with how wide we make the table.):

Jewish populations
Israel · North America · Russia (and USSR) · Britain · France  · Germany  · Latin America · By country
Jewish languages
Biblical Hebrew · Modern Hebrew · Aramaic · Judæo-Arabic · Yiddish · Ladino
Jewish denominations
Orthodox · Conservative · Reform · Reconstructionist · Karaite · Humanistic
Jewish history
Timeline · Schisms · Ancient Israel and Judah · Temples in Jerusalem · Babylonian captivity · Hasmoneans and Greece · Confronting Rome · Era of Pharisees · Talmudic era · Middle Ages · In Muslim Lands · Enlightenment & Haskalah · Hasidism · The Holocaust · Modern Israel


Jmabel, what did you compress in the text, aside from the titles? In other words, did you remove anything? --Goodoldpolonius2 23:20, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I didn't remove anything, just came up with less verbose ways to give the titles in these sections. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:17, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel: It was User:JRM who was complaining that your "ethnic box" was taking up too much room. There was indeed too much "dead space" especially on the left-hand side column that contained only "titles" and not statistics. Now that the "vertical" {{Jew}} template is here containing ALL your original "ethnic" information, there is no point in having duplicate tables. The new template is a link with its ethnic info is linked to far more articles, so your concerns and work on "ethnicity" is not being limited, on the contrary it's being spread to a far wider audience. Once again, in any case, the Jews are not just an ethnicity (as they are "non-exclusive" and have representation on/from every continent) and cannot be tied to "formulas" that may apply to other groups. IZAK 03:25, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quick but vital note: I made that complaint only after you introduced the series box. Furthermore, the complaint was targeted at the visual layout as a whole, not against anyone's individual attempt at putting in information. I'm already completely disinterested in resolving the layout issues, and kindly ask you not to mention my name in the debate again, least of all to exhort criticism out of context. User:JRM/Sandbox was my only contribution. There shall be no more. Happy editing to you all. JRM 11:32, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)
  • I guess you are right enough: especially now that a table has been restored for population info, everything important is as visible as it was, even if non-standard, but I guess that's no big deal. Now, what do you think of the shortened wordings I propose above? -- Jmabel | Talk 18:35, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Changes to the Template/New articles

Updated on 12/12: Given this division, some of the articles in the template were in desperate need of help. I got caught up in a wiki-binge and created a number of new articles, modifying the template slightly to accomodate.

  • Added Jewish religion link to top of the template, since the Jew-as-ethnicity issue is not as clear in the subpages. We might also want to call this link a "Main Page" link as well, as we do with Jew.
  • Jewish Population Centers - This formerly took you to a list of famous Jews by country. I moved that to a subcatagory and created a new article Jewish population with information about current population centers and population changes, though more work could be done on it. I also created subarticles specifically on History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in Germany for the population links. The Jewish American link needs to be improved, though.
  • Subcatagories of Secular Jewish culture - I am suggesting that the two subarticles be Zionism and Israeli culture. I would be open to other additions, Jewish food? Jewish music? Jewish ethics? But I think three Zionist/Labor links is overrepresentitive on this article, especially since at least a couple are arguably more of historic interest.
  • Jewish history - main article was weak and incomplete, I did some substantial work, including adding more links and creating new articles on Jews in Italy, France, and Germany, as well as a new Jews in the Middle Ages article, but more can be done. The catagories were also a problem. 2000 years of history was covered by one article, "Rabbinical Leadership," which did not link to an article on the subject, but instead to one on rabbis. I added links to Jews in Islamic Lands, Haskalah, the Middle Ages, and the Holocaust to fill out this, and I cut the Rabbinical Leadership link
  • Schisms among the Jews moved to a subpoint of history.

Still needing work:

  • Jewish symbolism - I think that this could be elminated from the template, as it is religious in nature and covered elsewhere
    • Concur. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:56, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Secular Jewish culture - I spent some effort trying to improve, but it could use some real work still.
    • I put in some more work here, but it remains slim. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:56, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Jewish American - This needs real help, including a good article on Jewish history in 20th century America

--Goodoldpolonius2 20:27, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC), updated --Goodoldpolonius2 06:30, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Kabballah

I know it's not a mainstream Jewish sect, but shouldn't there be a short bit on this, or at least a link to the article on it?

Check under Judaism, which is the article that primarily focuses on the Jewish religion, rather than Jew which focuses on ethnic/national identity. --Goodoldpolonius2 17:21, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ethnic subdivisions

Rabbinic Judaism is based from the Babylonian Talmud, not from the Palestinian Talmud, no matter whether it is Ashkenazic or Sephardic. I wonder who the scholars mentioned in the ethnicity section are? I never heard that theory.

Of course, there is a great deal of speculation on what the Judaism of the majority really looked like in the first millenium of our era - maybe the mysterious sentence is a shadow of that? Hasdrubal 05:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Maintaining consensus

Just for the record: I have reverted exactly one of Hasdrubal's many edits, the one that removed mention of matrilineality from the lead. Most of what he did looked reasonable to me, but I haven't read it all closely. Since we've had a lot of issues over maintaining consensus on this article as it's developed, and since these changes don't look trivial, is there at least one other of the major authors of this to date who endorses Hasdrubal's edits? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

  • As of now ALL of Hasdrubal's edits are NOT in keeping with any known stream of Judaism or Jewish scholarship, and I have reverted all of them after reading what he added/deleted. Why was he so interested in "knocking out" the Jews' Biblical connections to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then inserting some connection to the long-gone and pathetic Samaritans? The contents of the article have gone through solid review. There are many facts on this page that are also discussed on other pages, and that is because they are important. How about if Hasdrubal explains more about his view/s of Judaism and Jewish history on the talk pages...we can all listen to what he has to say and see if it fits within any sort of known and accepted Jewish scholarship or if it's just quackery?. IZAK 11:24, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The Samaritans are neither pathetic, nor long gong. 654 (last year) of this ethnic group are left in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Most Sameritans families, by the way, converted throughout years to the islam. Sameritans who kept on to their traditions were persicuted over thousands of years by moslims in Palestine/Eretz Israel. gidonb 01:17, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Come now Gidon..."654", maybe it was "653" or "655"....gimme a break, what do they have to do with Judaism? See the section on Schisms among the Jews#Break-offs: Samaritans and Christians about this. IZAK 07:56, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


United and Federation Synagogues

These are the two main branches of UK Orthodoxy. Can someone create an article for them?

Firstly: you're wrong. There are four main orthodox bodies: United Synagogue, the Federation of Synagogues, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and the Sefardi one (forgot the name). Please write the articles yourself if you come accross useful information! JFW | T@lk 20:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"In accordance with Jewish teaching"

This is an encyclopaedia article, not a political or religious pamphlet. We ought to try to state what are generally acknowledged to be facts by historians, biologists, archaeologists, etc. From time to time, statements may be made that do not accord with what one party or the other would call "Torah-true teaching" or "Jewish teaching" or "progressive Jewish teaching" or "traditional Jewish teaching". This is not very relevant. This is an article about the Jewish people and the history - not a record of what some member of the Jewish people have thought about its history in the 18th century, in the 6th century, or currently. Hasdrubal 19:51, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV demands that multiple POVs be noted and attributed, not just the ones that appeal to you. Jayjg 01:51, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hasdrubal, my guess is that a lot of what you added belongs in the article, but a lot of what you deleted also belongs in the article. If discussion gets both sides to cite their sources, this could really strengthen the article, but replacing one uncited viewpoint with another isn't much of an improvement. I'd actively welcome seeing an airing of the issues you raised, and if everyone approaches it cooperatively, we will probably end up with a much stronger article. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:57, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
Or, since I now see that Hasdrubal has reverted, we can do it the other way around. Either way, where there are two different reasonable views, we should probably cover both and have a citation for each. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:31, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Dear Jmabel and Jayjg: I was away for a long while. I see that (a) IZAK reverted all my edits, and (b) his accusation (?) that I was somehow a Mormon (quite false - though perhaps besides the point) was successful in keeping things his way.

I feel no need to apologize. I believe that the edits I made reflected current scholarly consensus. I have had an interesting and illuminating discussion with Jayjg elsewhere about modern scholars and their sources; in comparison, what I see below is an ad hominem attack.

I do not know whether it is of any use to try to contribute to this article, as IZAK seems to believe that he owns it and has the right to own it. Hasdrubal 23:44, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Hasdrubal: You are being very disrespectful and flippant when you make a comment like: "This is an article about the Jewish people and the history - not a record of what some member of the Jewish people have thought about its history in the 18th century, in the 6th century, or currently." What EXACTLY do you mean by that comment? It is VERY insulting and short-sighted and indicates a prejudice at work! You should apologize now. Furthermore, what you say is not logical at all. For example, should Wikipedia articles about History, Biology, or Archaeology now also include the "views" of Judaism too just because they may have importance to Judaism and Jewish scholars have lots to say about those subjects? Of course not! This is an article about "Jew/s" that requires an explanation of what Jews are as Jews first and foremost, and NOT what some weird "biologists" or "historians" or "grave-diggers" may think about the topic. What is in this article fits with mainstream Jewish interpretations and NOT with what you inserted! Yes, everyone thinks they are "qualified" to talk about the topic of "Jew". Hitler thought he was the world's leading "expert" on "Jews" and had lots to say about it in Mein Kampf, but it was all false! When you delete the classic universal facts based on the written records of the Hebrew Bible maintained for thousands of years by Jews AND Christians, that the Jews come from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and instead you insert a reference to the long dead (culturally and spiritually) Samaritans (oh, there are maybe 600+ of them wandering around the Middle East) see Schisms among the Jews#Break-offs: Samaritans and Christians, then it seems more like a Mormon view than a NPOV, and what you have to say would be better put into the Mormonism and Judaism article (if at all). IZAK 08:10, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Palestine"

I reverted edits by User:212.2.169.96 that stated that the name "Palestine" postdated "Judea" and "Israel" and was imposed by the Romans. I'm not absolutely certain, and I don't have a source handy, but since "Palestine" is a cognate of "Philistine" this seems very unlikely. A cited source for what we say now might be in order; in any case, I will not accept an uncited change. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:18, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

The Judea articles states "Following the suppression of Bar Kokhba's revolt, the emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina in order to humiliate the Jewish population by attempting to erase the nation's historical ties to the region." I've seen this claim made many times, and it appears to be true, but I have no first person source for it. Anyone else have a source? The other question whether or not this belongs in the Jew article, instead of in an Israel / Palestine / Judea / West Bank / Yesha / etc. article. Personally, I think it should be mentioned once (assuming it's true), and then subsequently the land should be refered to by the current popular name, be it Canaan, Palestine, Israel, etc. --Mikeage 07:41, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I know the Romans used "Syria Palaestina", but what I doubt is that it was a new term, rather than the revival of an old one. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:02, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Jmabel, they didn't simply "use" it. After devastating the land, they wiped the name Judea (hint: relation to the tribe of Judah) off the map. Why do you think they went into all the trouble of renaming the entire province after some tribe extinct for many centuries by then? Unfortunately, the Bar Kokhba period lacks its Josephus Flavius, so let's try to use common sense and Occam's razor arguments. Over to you. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 11:35, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm not arguing with that. I'm arguing with the claim that the names "Judea" and "Israel", applying to the land, predate "Palestine". Doesn't Philistine presence in the area predate Jewish presence? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:37, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
As the article points out, who settled it first is still a matter of controversy. There is no dispute that the Roman client kingdom - later province - was called Judea. After the defeat of Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135, Hadrian banned the Torah law, killed 580,000 (per Cassius Dio) , reestablished Jerusalem as pagan Aelia Capitolina (forbidding Jews to enter it), and renamed the land into Palaestina, joining it with adjacent Syria. Do you seriously think he did this merely because "Philistine presence in the area predate Jewish presence"? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 22:02, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Not at all. You keep setting up a straw man. Look at the change I reverted, and look at my initial comment. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:27, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Did I misquote you? In any case, your sequence is chronologically wrong. I propose let's avoid controversy where we can. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel is right. The renaming of the province should not be confused with origin of the much older name Palestine, which was used by Herodotus. The earliest attestation of the term "Israel" is on the Merneptah Stele, right next to the word "Palestine": ""Israel is desolated, his seed is not; Palestine is become a widow for Egypt." - Mustafaa 13:43, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa, the Steele refers to the biblical Philistines. Both Herodotus and the Roman renaming of the province are much later than Judea. Dovi 13:54, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

It is not clear in the context how either Israel or Palestine is being used on that stela - whether as a regional term or an ethnic one, and if the former, how wide the intended reference is. Herodotus' use of Palestine is certainly intended to encompass a rather wide area. Both terms may be much later than Judea/Judah, but given the rarity of early references, that would be a hard claim to prove. When is the earliest attestation of the word Judah? - Mustafaa 14:15, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As an interesting illustration of how some issues only became sensitive when the Zionist-Arab conflict began: I looked up "Judea" in the 1901-6 Jewish Encyclopedia and all it says is "See Palestine". [9] --Zero 13:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:-) Jayjg | (Talk) 14:45, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Waldemar Haffkine

Waldemar Haffkine is certainly notable enough to merit an article, but not nearly famous enough to belong in a short, illustrative list of famous Jews. However, as I earlier suggested, would people please comment out any even halfway-reasonable names they disagree with in that list instead of deleting, to make it easier to see what is being contested? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Even though I feel this short list is too US-centric and does not have enough Jewsih doctors, I don't insist on his name being included. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 00:06, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Retarded idioticly editing this page all the time (January 1st 2005)

  • Can any administrator make this page protected because there is some retarded vandalising this page. PMLF 06:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, as a person active in the page I'm not supposed to protect it. I'll take it to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:53, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
      • Thanks. We really need to protect this page (and the September 11, 2001 one) and ban that retarded. PMLF 06:55, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Do you have any idea how they are hiding their IP address without showing a visible name either? New one on me. I'm guessing that our account system inappropriately allows an account name of non-printing characters. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
          • No, I have no idea how he is doing this. Hopefully someone who knows will post here. PMLF 07:02, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • As I imagine is clear by now, some of us worked it out & dealt with it. I was right about non-printing characters. And if anyone needs to deal with this in the future, you can't access such an account directly from the history tab, but you can access the talk or contributions from a diff. Then it's a matter of blocking an ID which is not easy to type... -- Jmabel | Talk 08:38, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
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