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Zionism, race and genetics

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Zionism, race and genetics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Oh my, this article is ostensibly on a triply compound topic Zionism, race (human categorization) and genetics. Wow. To be clear, doubly compound topics in Misplaced Pages have had a history of being interrogated carefully. Only when there are significant and serious treatments which identify a compound topic as significantly addressed as a topic in reliable sources (Science and technology studies, for example) do we ever have a way for Misplaced Pages's intentionally conservative and non-innovative reference machinery to document the subject. In this case, the article reads a lot like a original research program that is not indicative of active tripartite treatments combining these three subjects. As such, the article is a textbook example of WP:SYNTH. It is not for Misplaced Pages. jps (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Judaism, Biology, and Israel. jps (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Spiderone 19:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment For WP:SIGCOV see, for example:

Onceinawhile (talk) 18:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

None of those sources discusses a tripartite project called "Zionism, race, and genetics". None of them. What possesses you to think otherwise? jps (talk) 18:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Why does there have to be a tripartite project? Whatever that is. Anyway

Abu El-Haj, Nadia (2012). The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-20142-9. Retrieved 2023-07-08.

Discusses all three elements per quote below:-

Selfstudier (talk) 19:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

There has to be a tripartite project because that is the subject of the article! Wow! What are you doing here? Misplaced Pages is WP:NOT for novel research projects like this. The quote you include indicates nothing about there being a coherent subject called "Zionism, race, and genetics". In fact, I see instead an analysis that may be relevant to any number of articles we have at Misplaced Pages that are about genetics, Judaism, Israel, Zionism, etc. But this particular combination of three subjects is absolutely an attempt to shoehorn a thesis that these three subjects are somehow able to combine to form a legitimate research program. The very sources y'all are trying to cite say nothing about that, and this one doesn't either. jps (talk) 19:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Your comment above dismissing the SIGCOV was made within 1 minute of being shown the sources. You are expected to try to read them before commenting on them. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You think I didn't go through the sources at your article already? You think this is the first I'm seeing your list? Please, don't flatter yourself in thinking that because you've looked at timestamps you are somehow clever. I've done my due diligence. You have not. jps (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I know you didn't go through the sources, and you are fudging. One fundamental text on this in the bibliography, on its own, runs to 416 pages. It took me 3 days to read that closely, some years ago. So no, you have not read the sources.Nishidani (talk) 20:16, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

That's not how this works. You can look at the books and the chapters and even do a quick search through those texts that are scanned for relevant sections. If we want to write an entire article on a subject, it should be absolutely apparent at a glance that there is something there. There isn't. You have to strain to come up with a quote that combines all three subjects at once. They just aren't in those books in a serious fashion. If they were, they'd be obvious and easy to point to. jps (talk) 20:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Nishidani and ජපස: Can you try to talk about the notability of the article rather than whether the other person is "thinking you are somehow clever" or "fudging" or whatever? jp×g 07:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I don't want to personalize this, yes. One thing, it's not really a question of notability to me because the topic is so pregnant that I think one can argue in good faith that lots of scholars are talking about all three in a variety of sources. The real question is whether a distillation in this fashion is something that doesn't run afoul of WP:NOR. If others had done this distillation before, it wouldn't be a question. I guess I just don't think every AfD has to boil down to a question of notability even though I know that this tends to be the way the winds blow these days. jps (talk) 11:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Form a research programme? Huh? What do you mean? The only aim here is to produce a page on a pre-existing subject covered in numerous sources. That the page title contains three words that you perceive as three separate subjects is incidental. There was already a discussion raised about whether the title was apt; one that you could have participated in. There are several ways on which the article could probably be phrased as just two things, if that is your peccadillo. It could just as equally have been named 'Zionism and race science' or 'Zionism and racial politics'. These would both have been dualistic titles for much the same material already presented. That the title as it stands uses three terms is by-the-by, and if that is your only complaint then it is a naming issue, not a notability one. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

pre-existing subject covered in numerous sources No one has demonstrated that the subject as stated in the title of the article exists! It is bizarre that you think it does. As I stated above, compound topics themselves are fraught. The ones you are describing are somewhat less problematic than the identified synthetic subject of this article, but I have a hard time imagining any of them being legitimate research topics either. BLANK and BLANK typically are not the kind of things Misplaced Pages hosts because they are necessarily syntheses of two topics. Only when that synthesis is recognized as a synthesis do we host articles on the subject. I see no sources which identify these two topics (e.g. Zionism and "race science" (shudder)) as topics that are studied as a pair. jps (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I see no sources which identify these two topics (e.g. Zionism and "race science" (shudder)) as topics that are studied as a pair. The third source posted by Onceinawhile above, a 30-year-old book published by Yale University Press, says at page 11: In Chapter 6, I investigate the link between science and the politics of Zionism. Zionist physicians used the language of race science to define the Jewish people.... Levivich (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that is there! However, I see no discussion of genetics in the chapter. As I intimated, an article on Zionism and race science is a bit more defensible. This is not this article. jps (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Falk's 2017 book, published by Springer, is the 4th source on Once's list. It says, at page 3, the introduction: Correspondingly, as the conflict of the Zionist State with the Arab world intensified, so did the wish to prove "scientifically," by biological-genetic means, the immanent physical, historic connection of the Jewish people to Zion. Genetics, it was hoped, would uphold not only the historical evidence, but would also provide biological evidence that the dispersed Jewish ethnic groups (eidoth) of today are indeed one people whose roots trace back to Eretz-Israel.) This book from 5 years ago cites and discusses at length the other book I quoted above from 30 years ago.

If you think Zionism and race/genetics is not a topic covered by these books, I don't know what to tell you, other than to ask if you've actually looked at them or not. It's taken me minutes to find these quotes just by searching in Google books for "Zionism", "race science," "genetics", etc. Levivich (talk) 20:35, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, where is the "race" in that quote? Race/genetics is itself a fraught compound topic. It's not dealt with in a serious fashion in that text that I can see. jps (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It's at the bottom of the same page, page 3: Jews were considered to be a different "race" -- a socio-cultural invention of a presumed "biological entity" ... If you are arguing that this book does not discuss Zionism, race, and genetics, then you clearly have not read or even searched it for those keywords. FFS, the title of the book is Zionism and the Biology of Jews, and you contend that this book does not discuss Zionism, race, and genetics. Rather unbelievable. Levivich (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm arguing that these three large topics are not being connected as a coherent whole. I am arguing that the three topics are arbitrarily chosen as connected to create a WP:SYNTH article even as absolutely none of the scholars cited mention a topic like this. We're not just talking "synonyms" here. We're talking taking specific threads in rather large and considered academic works and then jamming them into what is supposed to be a tertiary source. I'm sure this piece could be a great college paper topic. But as an encyclopedia entry? There is no there there for a subject called "Zionism, race and genetics". C'mon. Content worth rescuing can and should be shunted off to articles that need improving. If one of them gets unwieldy, I'm sure some less triply compound articles can be spun out. jps (talk) 02:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

These topics are connected as a coherent whole on page 3 of the book called Zionism and the Biology of Jews, which I quoted above, where the author says some Zionists hoped genetics would prove that Jews were a race, and in other sources cited on this page. It's pretty ridiculous to accuse Onceinawhile of combining these topics, as if the sources don't discuss them together, especially in the face of quotes from sources directly on the subject, using the exact same verbiage, entire monographs about this. Levivich (talk) 05:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you are not understanding my point. But no matter. I'll just say that Zionism and the Biology of Jews looks to be a source that can be used to support many articles, but to me its existence does not demonstrate that there is a broader research project out there looking at Zionism, race and genetics in a distilled fashion. jps (talk) 11:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

If you want to deal with the racial politics surrounding Zionism, a good place to start would be to work on Anti-Zionism#Allegations_of_racism. You could use the sources here. You could help improve that space. Maybe it would expand greatly. Then you could then spin-out an article from that section. That's not what is going on here. jps (talk) 20:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

How have you got this so turned around that you think the subject has anything to do with anti-Zionism? This is about Zionism and the politics of race. If you think 'race science' is too racey, try: Zionism, race, and eugenics and Zionist eugenics, mixed marriage, and the creation of a ‘new Jewish type’ - also related articles that are sitting out there in plain view, hosted by scholarly publishers. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

If I am turned around here, it's because the only place I see discussion of racism in relation to top-level discussions of Zionism is on the Anti-Zionism page. That's Misplaced Pages's fault, not mine. If it is more properly commentary on Zionism -- there ought to be a section in that article. jps (talk) 02:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The science or politics of race aren't equivalent to racism; they are topic areas where the theories and the polemics often just treads a very fine line nearby. And a relevant subsection on Zionism linking to this child article had already been created before this AfD. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Why isn't the main article of that section Zionist ethnic unity or something of that nature? jps (talk) 11:32, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

science or politics of race aren't equivalent to racism this is true in a literal sense, but it is also the case that the science and politics of race essentially only exist because of the observed effects of racism. If racism did not exist, there would be no "science or politics of race". jps (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This morning I created a list of egregious issues with this article Talk:Zionism, race and genetics#List of Egregious article issues

The article is a collection of cherry picked sources WP:SYNTHd together to push a POV narrative. It disparages the work of prominent researchers by claiming they have a “Zionist agenda”, which appears to be the insinuated thesis of the article. It completely ignores findings of mainstream research and only highlights research that pushes a non-mainstream POV of disputing Jewish genetic studies. Drsmoo (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Like the proposer, Drsmoo is evidently unfamiliar with the topic and the sources, which would take a sedulous reader at least a week of concentrated study to master, and they merely are the iceberg's tip. Any familiarity with the inception of Zionism, its primary and the multitude of secondary sources, will tell anyone that, predictably, since it was embedded in universal Western cultural discourse that classified people by races, Zionism's fundamental proponents from the outset were deeply concerned with race. They were no different in this than liberal thinkers of that period.

At the outset of his Zionist activity, in July of 1895, Herzl met with the celebrated writer Max Nordau, who was to become Herzl’s most stalwart ally. Herzl noted in his diary that the two men agreed that Jewishness had “nothing to do with religion” but that “we are of the same race.” What they meant by race was vague, and could, as was common at the time, have been a way of describing what would later be called ethnicity. The conflation of ethnic and racialist discourse characterizes another diary en try, from 21 November 1895, in which Herzl describes Israel Zangwill as of a “longnosed, Negroid type, with very woolly deep black hair.” Despite this racialized description, Herzl posits that it was Zangwill, not himself, who defined peoples by racial criteria, a view that, Herzl writes, “I cannot accept if I so much look at him and at myself. … We are an historical unit, a nation with anthropological diversities. This also suffices for the Jewish State. No nation has uniformity of race.Derek Penslar,'Theodor Herzl, Race, and Empire,' 2020 p.196.

So, Zionism and race, since it has been a serious topic esp. in the last 2 decades, is a natural topic for wikipedia. Since genetics, in some hands, now constitutes a relatively new 'scientific' redemption of the theory's assumptions, it is clearly part of the topic. The tripartite rubbish is just that. One could simply elide 'and genetics' and nothing would change, except the title on a legitimate topic covering modern research, would not flag the fact that a major section of the article would paraphrase a large body of genetic papers since the 1990s which aspire to establish a genetic proof for Zionism's central thesis. So the objection is ill-informed about the topic, and disingenuously quibbling over the length of the title.Nishidani (talk) 20:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

As kind of a point number one, the people who write an article have a duty to get the subject right. If you think removing genetics will make the article work, then move the article to the new title, reframe it, and show your work. jps (talk) 20:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't think that at all. It was the obvious proposal someone uneasy at the three words could have suggested to overcome your dislike of tripartite titles. This is pointless niggling.Nishidani (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

In this case, I think we're looking at WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST. Which is pretty close to a first for me. jps (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Delete - per nom.'s thorough analysis, and looking at the page content, it is full of SYNTH. This is textbook SYNTH, and a neutral encyclopaedic article is not going to fly based on this proposed synthesis of subjects. The appropriate place to encyclopaedically discuss this subject would be Zionism, which page does have a short section on ethnic unity. That seems appropriate, but there seems to be no good reason to spin that short section out into a full article, and then to add in race and make genetics part of the head subject. As things stand, SYNTH is baked in, and the only solution is deletion. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:53, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Sirfurboy: please confirm which of the sources listed under SIGCOV above you have read? Onceinawhile (talk) 21:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  An odd question, especially one that required a ping. Did you have a question about my rationale above? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Sirfurboy: The subsection on Zionism was created after this page as a summary of the emerging child. The parent page already has 65kB of readable prose, so to expand that page with derivative topics would simply be to take it into WP:TOOLONG territory. Simply bloating existing articles is not a good way of covering new sub-topics. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  The article is already pushing the limits of WP:TOOBIG although not over it even with the additional section, which benefits from being placed within the page context. So the question, per WP:SPINOUT, is what should be spun out. This one clearly does nothing to address the article size, and per WP:HASTE a broader and more considered discussion is needed if the size issue is to be addressed. The reason this spinout is problematic is because it falls foul of WP:AND:

  Titles containing "and" are often red flags that the article has neutrality problems or is engaging in original research: avoid the use of "and" in ways that appear biased.

  Better to keep this subject within the page and context that allows it to be understood, rather than mashing up new WP:SYNTH. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Again, it can't really be synth if reliable sources discuss it in this way. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  That you can say that does suggest you may not be listening. You have sources about eugenics, yet this article uses them to talk about genetics. Maybe Zionist eugenics would be a better title. But then, what would you object that we lose? That is where the synth lies. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Those were just a couple of related sources that make clear the overall interrelationship between Zionism and the politics of race. I have said below the title is likely not ideal, but that could have been addressed with an RM, not an AfD belying a clearly extant corpus of subject-matter. The full body of sources is available for anyone to peruse above, on the page, and simply through searching relevant terms. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. And per WP:IAR, as even if it could be shown that this questionable conflation of three different topics is actually 'notable' per Misplaced Pages notability guidelines, the chances of an actual encyclopaedic article coming out of it seem statistically indistinguishable from zero. The inevitable fate, should this whatever-it-is be kept, is it to become a permanent battleground for POV-pushers of all persuasions. If people want to fight amongst themselves over controversial conflations (I'm sure some do), they should find somewhere else to do it. Save the article-space-as-battleground perpetual bunfights for the topics an actual encyclopaedia might consider worth covering. This isn't. It isn't a single topic. It is an argument over at least three different things - two of which only exist in people's heads - over which there is no possibility of agreement over scope, over legitimate sources, or over what the hell it all means anyway. We are under no obligation to provide an arena for article-warfare, and shouldn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep - Are you editors actually reading these sources? They all talk about Zionism and race/genetics. I'm not commenting on the title or the content of the article, but the topic is an obviously notable topic that has received significant coverage in academic works, such as those posted by Once and Self above. It's a perfectly valid spinoff of Zionism. Levivich (talk) 20:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Normally spin-offs are done by improving the parent article first. Not always, but I also do not see the relevant work done to summarize the ostensible subject of this article elsewhere in a coherent fashion. I do see some edit wars over links, but that is it. jps (talk) 20:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Is it a spin-off? I've collected very substantial files, articles and books touching on this for a decade, since Bloom's monograph appeared, because is a recurrent theme in my reading in this area. It's not a topic one can jump into after a few arbitrary scraps attracting one's attention when googling with a POV mission to 'hit', say, Israel. That, a natural concern to handle a touchy topic by first of all thoroughly reading up on it sometimes over a decade without intemperate haste, and laziness/so many other interests, are the only reasons why I hadn't yet written an article on this topic wikipedia ignores. But now a sketch of one is up, I commend the main editor and, though it needs considerable thickening and development, am amazed that merely the title itself can stir up deletionist fervour. As Levivich states with great integrity, sources on the intertwining of these three elements are abundant and there is no evidence so far objections reflect a careful reading of the small sample of sources so far noted in the bibliography.Nishidani (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

How is it a spin-off? A spin-off of what article exactly? :3 F4U (they/it) 02:06, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it is a spin-off. Levivich says it is, however. jps (talk) 02:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep - per Levivich. Not liking a notable topic doesnt make it less notable. A number of sources clearly discuss this as a topic, and give this topic significant sustained coveraged, making this a notable topic suitable for a Misplaced Pages article. nableezy - 20:51, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: For what it's worth, genetics is a factor when Israeli officials evaluate ethnic groups claiming to be Jewish. There are many of these groups globally, some legitimate and others either misguided or cynically trying to get to a more affluent country. See Category:Groups claiming Israelite descent. As for "race" that's a whole different topic. These different groups hail from multiple so-called "races" and Israel's determination has not been based on "race". --A. B. 22:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Keep. My gut reaction to the claim that this is not a notable topic was something like "what planet do they live on?" Of course it is a notable topic and there is a very large literature. Does jps think that race and genetics are unrelated concepts? Does jps not know that race was an important theme in Zionist thinking from the beginning, both through origin traditions and fear of miscegenation? Does jps not know that genetics plays some of the same roles in modern Zionist thinking as what race played in the past and that this was a natural progression that is well studied? If the title doesn't fit the article well enough, argue for a change of title. If there is OR in the article, engage with it. A cogent argument for deletion simply has not been presented. Zero 02:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I didn't say it wasn't a notable topic. I said it was a synthetic one. Can you think of a better title? Maybe that would solve it (who am I to say?) But when I read the article it looks like it is doing the kind of rhetorical hoops you are jumping through as the subject. I think this is a misapprehension of how Misplaced Pages is supposed to operate. We look for big subjects and then narrow down. We don't present unique analyses worthy of term papers. It's a question of genre. jps (talk) 02:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, this is gobbledygook. The topic can be either notable or synthetic, not both. Notable means already covered in reliable sources; synthetic is the opposite. What are you saying? That the page or its title is synthetic? The page is a work in progress. It was only just begun. The title is a naming issue. And title's are actually allowed to be created out of nowhere by editors if the shoe fits. That's what a descriptive title often is. A subject can be clear, but there can equally be no common name for it out there in the literature. Here, the titular naming is distinctly varied, even where the contents come around to the same subjects. What I personally think might be the most on the mark topic is 'Zionism and the politics of race', since this embraces both the aspect of politicization of race and encompasses the later genetic science that was dragged into the same political arena in the effort to ground the same substance. But again, you're not necessarily going to find existing sources by that title. It's just descriptive. So is that synthetic too? You can find chapters like "Race, Zionism, and the Quest for Jewish Authenticity" in books like Jews, Race, and the Politics of Difference, there is Israel, Palestine, and the Politics of Race, and an assessment of Zionism is also present in Michael Banton's The International Politics of Race , but again, there are no dead ringers to be found for such a prospective descriptive title. It just needs to be agreed upon. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Friend, we see things differently. "Notability" has become something of a catch-all at Misplaced Pages in ways that I do not appreciate. I see WP:SYNTH as part of WP:OR. There are original research topics that are notable, but cannot be included in Misplaced Pages because the sources don't (yet) exist that treat the topic as a coherent subject. What you say is "gobbledygook" I say is a fundamental way to judge article potential. Original research isn't bad. It just isn't for Misplaced Pages. jps (talk) 11:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, but the sources do. Read just the abstract of Falk's Zionism and the Biology of the Jews. You will find references to all the pertinent terms, "Zionism", "racial" (race) and "gene" (genetics), all there. In just the abstract. The term "biology" in the title is clearly used intentionally as a catch-all for all of the above. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the problem is that I see a difference between separate terms that are referenced and a coherent combination of terms. I get it. There are books that use three words or their derivatives. But do they argue these three words are connected as a subject? I don't see that. jps (talk) 11:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Undecided The compound topic itself completely meets WP:GNG and I strongly disagree with AndyTheGrump's suggestion that there is no possibility of a good article coming out of this topic. However, as it stands, the lede section is full of WP:SYNTH, parts of the article fly against WP:NOR, and the majority of the article's text is made up of quotations--to the point where I think its a significant copyright concern. Might be a candidate for WP:TNT. :3 F4U (they/it) 02:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Delete. This is an shoddily written attack page. More importantly, the topic is SYNTH, as evidenced by the use of and in the title. If this article were to stand, one could bundle together any loosely written topics. We would have Ice cream and sex, and hey I've got a source! And another one! And another! and even this! Would would also have topics like Ski lodges as hookup locations or Olympic athletes and QAnon conspiracies, both of which are trivial to find sources seemingly tying them together. Researcher (Hebrew: חוקרת) (talk) 05:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I mean, you definitely could write a Misplaced Pages article on ice cream and sex. There is everything to be written about there from people for whom ice cream is a kink to companies selling ice cream specifically for sex to academic commentaries on the sexualization of ice cream advertising. You chose silly examples, but it's a valid topic. That the use of 'and' in a title is a daft assertion, and I think you probably know it. Are you claiming you have never seen an 'and' article before. 'and' in a title is not only allowed; it is policy. WP:AND starts: "Sometimes two or more closely related or complementary concepts are most sensibly covered by a single article." The OP here may wish to note the use of the phrase "or more". Iskandar323 (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  And you may wish to note the use of the phrase "closely related" (examples "yin and yan", "promotion and relegation" etc.) or indeed the rest of WP:AND which states: Titles containing "and" are often red flags that the article has neutrality problems or is engaging in original research: avoid the use of "and" in ways that appear biased. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. "Avoid the use of "and" to combine concepts that are not commonly combined in reliable sources." The concepts used in the title here are all commonly combined in legion reliable sources. And it's "closely related or complementary concepts", and here the complementary nature of the topics is reliably sourced. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep. My impression is that negationist editors (asserting the topic does not exist in reliable sources) are utterly unfamiliar with the sources, indeed with the topic area's scholarship and are reflecting a knee-jerk reaction to the words in the title itself, as if this were some devious attempt to smuggle into wiki the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism, 30 years after it had been revoked by the General Assembly. That is the only explanation I can give myself for this extraordinary response. Objectors must be 'reading between the lines' and suspecting some ulterior motives in writing up such a thematic weave. Well, no. It is something Israeli and diaspora scholarship in particular, with its characteristic steady nerves, has explored in some depth over the last decades. Here is one of the sources, which the objectors obviously have not cared to glance at, which alludes to the numerous scholars exploring this nexus in recent scholarship.

Francis Nicosia has argued recently that secular and racial antisemitism generated a national-separatist Jewish response. And while civic emancipation and assimilation sapped Jewish religious identity, a more organic perception of nationhood began to crystallize. It incorporated ethnic and volkisch elements that were widespread in German nationalist circles These romantic elements, as demonstrated by George Mosse, strongly influenced nascent Zionist organizations throughout Germany. Since the early nineteenth century, the German concept of Volk had denoted a metaphys ical and eternal entity which was constituted of all the German people - a people with absolute values. It reflected the natural, wild, and emotional character of the people, while the family was regarded as its biological founda tion. The late nineteenth-century volkisch concepts were of neo-romantic mysticism and foregrounded the irrational forces of nature and genuine essence of the people, in contrast to the present, 'artificial' one. Among rising Jewish national groups this concept included the idea of a 'community of one's blood' as defined by Martin Buber, which helped to forge a Jewish national consciousness. Beyond the examination of the volkisch-cultural nature of early Zionism, several studies have considered the Jewish, and especially Zionist, discussion of race since the late nineteenth century. I might mention here the early research of Joachim Doron, Annegret Kiefer, and John Efron, while among recent studies the most relevant are those of Mitchell Hart, Todd Endelman, Raphael Falk, and Veronika Lipphardt. This work has exposed the 'scientific' racial aspects embedded in the emerging Jewish national ideology. Moreover, it contended that in particular Zionist scientists in Germany, and to some extent also in England, Russia, and the United States, employed the language of science and academic research in the fields of anthropology, biology, medicine and sociology in order to reaffirm the distinctiveness of the Jewish people.' Avraham 2017 p.473.

So the scandalized expostulations are totally misplaced. We don't censor here, we don't get our knickers in a twist over treatments of sensitive issues, screaming 'I don't wanna know!' Since scholars write of the historic nexus between 19-20th concepts of race and Zionist formulations (themselves often arising as a (misplaced) defense against antisemitists who denied Jews were a people), and this again inflects the rise of genetic endorsements of a Jewish identity, it is not only natural, but obligatory to carefully represent this debate on wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 08:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

So the scandalized expostulations are totally misplaced. We don't censor here, we don't get our knickers in a twist over treatments of sensitive issues, screaming 'I don't wanna know! It would be better if you focussed on the actual arguments rather than the editors. This is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND. Suggest you read that through and strike the straw man and ad hominem lines. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

How many policy flags are being waved here furiously? There is no argument just editors flaunting unfamiliarity with the topic as opposed to reliance on vague winks at a putative policy abuse outlined in guidelines. So we have WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, WP:RS, WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST, WP:HASTE, WP:AND, WP:TNT and WP:BATTLEGROUND etc. Such links are not arguments and if,Sirfurboy to advise others : 'It would be better if you focussed on the actual arguments' then try for once to do so yourself, rather than walking past things like the quote from Avraham above which contradicts all of the uninformed assertions from the deletionist camp.Nishidani (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep: The precise formulation of the title aside, this page reflects a topic that clearly exists in reliable sources, with the page being created expressly to reflect those hitherto ignored and unreflected reliable sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment re title: looks like it is worth having a WP:RM discussion in due course. I was originally going to write an article about “Zionism and genetics”, but it would have needed a large background section about “Zionism and race”, because all the recent sources cover both together. I figured the tripartite title would fit well, following the parent article Race and genetics. The topics can’t be coherently separated, which is presumably why Falk’s book went for "Zionism and biology", which is an option for us here. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. This reads a little bit to me like you leapfrogged over what I would consider to be necessary intermediary steps in this. Zionism as settler colonialism exists as an article and the sources seem straightforward. Zionism as racism does not. And yet, accusations that Zionism is racist abound in certain commentary (and, I'm sure, claims it is not racist/racialized are easily discovered as well). jps (talk) 11:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

"Zionism as racism" is about Zionist attitudes towards Palestinians. That has nothing to do with the topic of this article. If that needs making clear, we can add the word Jewish, so it becomes "Zionism and Jewish race and genetics". To my mind that is less elegant, but the title is much less important than the content. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

What I think you are talking about are arguments about ethnic markers (incidentally, there is an article that I think should exist) within the context of Zionism that have parallels and antecedents in race science. While this is something that scholars have studied as demonstrated in your sources, I do not think we have strong indications from those sources that this is separate from the racism accusations involving Zionist attitudes towards Palestinians. In fact, it seems many of your sources argue there is a direct connection between these ideas. Why are you separating them? jps (talk) 11:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Delete, the sooner the better. This piece is the latest among a series of articles trying to delegitimize Israel, Zionism and undermine the connection of Jews to the Land of Israel, from the same author that brought us Mixed cities (DYK: .. that Israel's mixed cities don't have much mixing?) that for some reason discusses the phenomena in Israel only; Shrine of Husayn's Head (DYK: ... that the demolition of the Shrine of Husayn's Head (pictured), probably the most important Shi'a Muslim shrine in Israel, may have been related to efforts to transfer Palestinians out of the country?); and Ancient text corpora: (DYK: ... that all known writing in Ancient Hebrew totals just 300,000 words, versus 10 million in Akkadian (pictured), 6 million in Ancient Egyptian and 3 million in Sumerian?). I'd never want to cast aspersions on the motivations of other editors, but it is quite difficult to dismiss this as a coincidence. Just check out the DYK recommended for the article we're currently discussing: "... that the genetic origin of modern Jews is considered important within Zionism, as it seeks to provide a historical basis for the belief that descendants of biblical Jews have "returned"?" And while the article states that "The application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and "Promised Land" in Zionism requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of the Israelites", it overlooks the fact that DNA research have shown that Jews from the majority of ethnic groups worldwide have a Middle Eastern ancestry derived from the Ancient Near East. It's also crucial to note that the idea of race in early Zionist thought was somewhat different. For instance, Ben Gurion acknowledged that Jews were not racially "pure" (i.e. modern Jews mainly descend from Israelites and ancient Jews, but have mixed with others to some extent throughout history) but continued to refer to the Jewish people and the fellahin of Palestine (later known as Palestinian villagers) as "races" (which, in his perspective, were related biologically and historically, with the fellahin maybe deriving from the ancient Jews as well). To sum up, this piece is a POV-Fork of Genetic studies on Jews that got its start after an edit by the author of this article on Zionism was reverted for utilizing a dubious source that referred to Zionism as colonialism without offering alternative viewpoints. It relies on WP:SYNTH and cherry-picked sources and quotes to construct an essay, not an article, that makes a connection between three topics that haven't been discussed extensively together in scholarship, seemingly in order to persuade readers that either Zionism is a racist ideology, or, that contemporary Jews have nothing to do with ancient Israel. Aside from the obvious synthesis and maybe also activist point-scoring (see WP:ACTIVISM#Basic ways to spot activists and then "Addition of well-sourced but biased material"), as well as the anti-Zionist view prevalent therein, it is starting to read lot like an antisemitic trope. The more articles like this are created, the more Misplaced Pages's credibility declines, and even worse: the sentiments portrayed in this article and similar ones, as well as the massive truth-bending, may actually inspire antisemitic hate speech, if not violence. It's our responsibility to put a stop to this phenomenon. We can start with deleting this piece. Tombah (talk) 10:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

So now we have violations of WP:NPA grounding an attack on Onceinawhile (who was overwhelmingly responsible for writing the Balfour Declaration and achieving its FA status). The above screed (with its exhausting refrain of something which, on numerous wiki pages, Tombah insists is the 'truth' .all jews descend from Isreaelites living 3000 years ago) is clearly targeting Onceinawhile and his bona fides. He is apparently an 'activist' (of course Tombah isn't. He has the truth in his pocket) who is using this article to 'delegitimize Israel'. In this discursive field, we all know, 'delegitimizing Israel' is coded language for antisemitism. Well done. This is just the handiwork of an antisemite working under cover. I don't know how editors can get away with these foul insinuations.

Since there is so much confusion here, I'll undertake to review and rewrite the article, expanding it substantially, referring each and every sentence in the resultant article, to a relevant reliable source on the topic of Zionism, race and genetics. Since it means making an orderly précis of some 2,500 pages (so far) it may take me a week. Then by all means, take the usual hammers at it, but they'd better be well-argued and not merely unfocused policy redflag waving.Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I have never claimed that all Jews descend from the Israelites. However, the majority of Jews do have lineage that can be traced to the Ancient Near East, with varying amounts of admixture (for AJs genetic studies show mixed Near Eastern and European ancestry); this is the general consensus in current research (which you still deny). And I don't think the questions I just raised violate WP:PNA; in fact, I think Onceinawhile is a competent and talented editor, and I didn't mean to belittle him. On the other side, you my friend, are already well known for personally attacking other editors, especially those who disagree with you, labelling them as "incompetent" and sometimes influenced by "Zionist education", always claiming that "their knowledge of the subject is limited" and disparaging their work (your most recent insult, I believe, was that my work was "a pastiche"). Tombah (talk) 11:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you kindly stop beating that drum meme everywhere on wikipedia. Numerous editors have told you, with a mass of critical literature showing the fallacy of that traditional assumption and its use in Zionist ideology, and you talk right past them. This is not about ancient Israel. This is about the way 19th century race theories (which were hostile to Jews) were in turn reformulated among Zionists to fashion a counter-argument against antisemitic intolerance by claiming Jews were not, as Reform Judaism held, a religion but the expression of a nation/race, and this fed into core modern examinations of Jewish origins in the later 20th century turn to genetics. We are not dealing with 'truths', but with the modern genealogy of an idea about that ancient belief. Nishidani (talk) 11:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• The creator of the article has a track record of producing Misplaced Pages pages backed by scholarly sourcing, none of which have been deleted, and that is somehow an argument for deletion? I must be missing something. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep GNG is easily met. The impetus for this article is a discussion at Talk:Zionism#Question that arose following the deletion of material by an editor asserting that the "overwhelming majority of reputable sources" provide proof of what had been stated as just a belief in the removed source: "that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites." After a lengthy debate about whether such proof exists, we arrive at this article, logically in my view. Its creation was announced during the aforesaid discussion, efforts made to locate sourcing and it transpires that these elements are discussed together in multiple scholarly sources. Accusations of SYNTH have no basis, no conclusions have been drawn by aggregating, linking or otherwise inappropriately conjoining material from otherwise independent sources. The rush to delete this article began almost immediately after creation and appears most unseemly, imo more a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT rather than any reasoned analysis.Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh dear, I don't think that it is a good idea to write articles to try to win talkpage debates. I guess there aren't any rules against it, per se, but it strikes me as a kind of motivation that can lead to less-than-ideal editorial practices. jps (talk) 12:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

That's sort of a glass half full perspective. The alternative description is that a talk page discussion highlighted a topic whose coverage on Misplaced Pages represented a glaring omission. That's actually how the community is supposed to work. Editors discuss things and expand the encyclopedia to fill gaps. That's productive and constructive. If you had simply joined the page to brainstorm the name and scope, instead of launching this AfD, all of this community time spent on this discussion could have been spent actually making sense of the sources in a meaningful manner. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Fair. I don't think we should have a rule against this motivation because, hey, people can get good inspiration from anywhere. But I still think there are major dangers and easy-to-fall-into traps when taking this kind of approach. jps (talk) 12:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep per Levivich. Reflecktor (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Delete per Tombah, the article is a POV-Fork of Genetic Studies on Jews and functions as an attack page unacceptably targeting mainstream researchers by insinuating through synth, and claiming without attribution (in Misplaced Pages’s voice), that their work is ideological. The scope of this article is an attempt to synth together cherrypicked sources that attack Jewish researchers (the original version of the article SYNTH’d the neologism “Jewish Scientific Racism”, which was not in any source) with 150 year old anachronisms about race that have no relation to contemporary research. There is no subject covered by this article title that is not already covered by Genetic Studies on Jews and Jewish peoplehood. (Contrary to this attack page, Jewish genetic research is not “Zionist”). The article would need to be TNTd and retitled to approach NPOV, and then would simply become a duplication of existing articles. Any neutral article has to actually discuss its subject, ie., it would need to dispassionately discuss studies on Jewish genetics, and the changing conceptions of Jewish peoplehood. Both of which are already covered. Drsmoo (talk) 13:00, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

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