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Jewish blood

Ginsburgh has been quoted by anti-semitic writers in order to prove that much of talmudic doctrine and zionist ideology is inherently racist. He appears to say that Jewish blood is worth more than Gentile blood. ADM (talk) 07:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

1. The quote found on is a deliberate misquote. Supposedly the quote is from p. 14-15 in the Hebrew. Nothing there says anything of the sort, and the entire topic is about the Torah's commandment of saving all human life, and how this commandment is superseded in times of conflict.

2. The quote in the second citation is simply a partial restatement of the false quote in 1, so I don't see the need to address it. --Mgenuth (talk) 13:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

birth place

The book of Inbari I just cited says he was born in Cleveland, Ohio, not St Louis. Zero 10:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have once of Rabbi Ginzburghs books and on the backflap it says "Rabbi Ginzburgh was born in S. Louis, Missouri (sic!) in 1944, received his MA in mathematics from Belfer Graduate School of Science (NY) in 1965, emigrated to Israel in the same year, and studied at the Torat Emet yeshiva and other yeshivot in Jerusalem." Debresser (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Inbari's text is consistent except for the birth place. You can read most of the relevant section of Inbari's book at Scholar: . Zero 11:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

lots more

Clearly there is a whole lot of history missing from the article. Some random snippets (both the starting sentences of longer articles):

• 6 June 1989, The Jerusalem Post: (Editorial by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi) THE fact can no longer be denied, or concealed. Racism masquerading as true Judaism is on the rise in the land. The most basic tenets of the Jewish faith are twisted to fit preconceptions that, in different hands, would have been condemned as rank anti-Semitism. A band of racist agitators is spreading the argument of the Jews' inherent superiority, calling for removal of the pledges of equality for all citizens of the Jewish state written 41 years ago into the Declaration of Independence. One of these turns out to be the head of the Joseph's Tomb Yeshiva, in Nablus, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg. Attending the remand hearings, in the Kfar Sava magistrates court last Friday, of seven of his students who are suspected of having murdered an Arab girl during their recent rampage through Kifl Harith, Rabbi Ginzburg ruled out any attempt to treat Jews and Arabs as equal before the law. It would be a travesty of justice to do so, the rabbi said, for a Jew and a goy are not equal. In other words, an Arab killing a Jew is a murderer, and merits the highest penalty, but a Jew killing an Arab deserves to go free.
• 10 March 1996; Agence France-Press: "Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres ordered the arrest and two-month detention of an extreme rightwing rabbi on Sunday, a settlers spokesman said. Yitzhak Ginzburg, head of the religious Talmudic school of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus on the West Bank which gathers extreme rightwing activists, was summoned to the police station in Rishon Tzion close to Tel Aviv and placed under administrative detention. No reason was given for the detention. Rabbi Ginzburg had been banned by the army from entering the West Bank for six months following the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4 after a Tel Aviv peace rally."

-- Zero 13:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

What is the relevance of the latter quote? Debresser (talk) 13:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean the second quote above? Ginzburg is the rabbi the story is about. Later he was released by the high court on appeal. I'm hoping to find a source where the whole story is laid out in full rather than to try piecing it together myself from different articles. Zero 13:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the one I mean. That one has more place in Human rights in Israel. Debresser (talk) 13:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I will try to add more historical details as time permits. --Mgenuth (talk) 14:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

the five justifications

The five justifications as listed by Inbari are "sanctification of God's name", "saving life", "revenge", "eradication of the seed of Amalek" and "war". Those exact phrases are the subsection headings used by Inbari as he discusses them one by one. So far I have tried quite hard to stick carefully to the wording used by the sources I found, which I think are quite authoritative. (Inbari's sources include Ginsburg in person.) We are supposed to base the article on "reliable third-party published sources" rather than to do our own analysis of the primary source. It is not neutral to select just one of the five justifications, and both Inbari and Seeman judge that "saving life" was not the main reason. If you can't get access to Seeman's paper, send me email and I'll give it to you. Zero 13:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Article name

On another front, very few English sources put "h" on the end of "Ginsburgh". The spellings Ginsburg and Ginzburg are about equally used. Do you object if I rename the article "Yitzchak Ginzburg" with a redirect from "Yitzchak Ginsburg"? Zero 13:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

His website and books all use "Ginsburgh". And since he is American born, I think he knows how to read his passport. So that seems like a bad idea to me. Debresser (talk) 13:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

article name

"The title of the article literally means "Blessed is the man," (from Jeremiah 17:7). The title was later used by an independent editor for the title of a book about Baruch Goldstein." -- but isn't that the book which published a version of Ginsburgh's article? That isn't clear. And what does "independent editor" mean? Independent of what or whom? Zero 15:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There is the article "Baruch Hagever" by Ginsburgh. And then there is a book "Baruch Hagever" by somebody unnamed, who is not connected to Ginsburgh. I do not find this hard to understand from this text. But feel free to edit it in a more clear way. Debresser (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The book certainly is connected to Ginsburgh. There were two publications of Ginsburgh's essay, with small changes between.

• an article produced as a pamphlet in 1994
• an article appearing in pages 18-47 of the 1995 book "Barukh Hagever: Sefer Zikharon la-Kadosh Barukh Goldstein". No editor is given in the book, but Ehud Sprinzak (Brother against Brother, p259) says that it was edited by Michael ben Horin. Sprinzak wrote "the major theme of the book was conceived by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh ... who wrote the lead essay of the volume".

The book is a collection of essays by different people, including Ginsburgh, Rabbi David Cohen, Rabbi Ido Elba, Benjamin Kahane, and others. Zero 01:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

If Ginsburgh is credited in the book, or if Sprinzak is a reliable source, you could add this information to the footnote. I know that the article of the pamphlet was officialy Ginsburgh's. The book may be based on what he says, but I am not aware of any official involvement. Debresser (talk) 10:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Inbari and Seeman also both say that the book includes an article under Ginsburgh's name containing his five explanations, so I don't think there is any doubt about it. Zero 11:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Debresser (talk) 11:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Motti Inbari

I noticed M656 removed the comment by Motti Inbari with the editsummary "removing defamatory comment". It was restored by the original editor Zero0000. Frankly, I also felt from the beginning there is some wp:blp problem here. Perhaps we should reconsider whether to keep that comment. Debresser (talk) 10:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the requirements of WP:BLP are met comfortably. The author is an academic with a PhD from Hebrew University who specialises in this type of subject . His book was published by a university press (SUNY Press, Hebrew edition by Magnes Press). The quotation is presented as his opinion (we have no business deciding whether it is correct or not). It is not a fringe source, nor a fringe opinion (more or less the same analysis can be quoted from several impeccable sources, such as from Ehud Sprinzak (d. 2002) who was regarded as the doyen of Israeli academics in the study of the radical right). What else is required? Of course, a more positive opinion would be admissible too, assuming the source is sufficiently reliable. Zero 11:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with the credentials of the author, or the verifiability of his words. And it is phrased in a neutral way. That is all fine. My problem is the defamatory aspect of the comment, which we should avoid in articles about living people. Debresser (talk) 11:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

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