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Question

One problem with this project is how is Jewish history "not" going to be related to Judaism? Perhaps it would help if this project was RENAMED Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Secular Jewish culture (i.e put the word "Secular" into it to differentiate from the religion of Judaism), which would then perhaps make the project clearer. IZAK 07:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

That would be fine, as long as we understand "secular Jewish culture" in the sense of "Jews working in cultural areas not generally considered to be connected to religion" rather than "the culture of nonreligious Jews". (I started the WikiProject to get the ball rolling, and deliberately erred on the side of inclusiveness, so any refinements on the scope are very welcome.) RMoloney (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I think your proposed name, IZAK, is ambiguous. I don't consider myself or my cultural practices secular, but I do have much in my life related to Jewish Culture that is not entirely religious. I think this project aims to oppose the monistically religious aims of WikiProject Judaism. I think the latter's title is more ambiguous than this one. jnothman 02:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Israeli

Hi,

Does this project include Israeli culture? Or more diaspora-oriented? These are quite different things.

Interestingly, in Israel when we say "Israeli Culture" (Tarbut Yisraelit) we mean usually the secular culture and when we say "Jewish Culture" ("Tarbut Yehudit") then there must be at least some pinch of religiousness in it. The "Israeli" is usually Jewish in language only - which is amusing by itself, as most of the diaspora Jewish culture had little Hebrew. There is lately a wave of secular artists that incorporate religious themes in their creations and then we usually call it Jewish.

That's how our modern Hebrew language differentiates the nationality from the religion. Personally i don't like it - and i am secular myself.

So anyway: if this project deals with Israeli culture - religious or not - then i'll gladly help. But i know little about the diaspora culture except some Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholom Aleichem and even there i'm not an expert.

Oh, and is Seinfeld and Sex and the City included? If you ask a common antisemite, then 95% of Hollywood's creations is Jewish culture :) --Amir E. Aharoni 08:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Israeli culture definitely included. Seinfeld, I'd say yes. Sex and the City I don't know much about, what's specifically Jewish about it? - Jmabel | Talk 23:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I would think Israeli culture would fall on the border of this project, and belongs more in an Israel project; nonetheless, Israeli culture as it relates to global Jewish culture and Jewish history very much belongs here. It is cross-departmental.

As for Seinfeld, yes, definitely: literary depiction of Jewish culture, as well as the influence of Jewish culture and society on New York, America, Western culture in general should all be topics of relevance here. jnothman 00:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

In sex and the city, I think the most Jewish part is the bagels. Oh and one of the protagonists converts herself at some point in great detail, in order to marry a Jew.

Copyright status of Jewish Encyclopedia images

The following was posted on the Help Desk#Copyright status of Jewish Encyclopedia images. I thought it might be of interest to the project. jnothman 12:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a group of images in Category:Jewish Encyclopedia images that are from the Jewish Encyclopedia, but they came from JewishEncyclopedia.com. I know the Jewish Encyclopedia is in the public domain but is the material at that web site PD as well?

Their TOS is pretty clear: 3.2 You may search, retrieve, display, download, and print content from the Service solely for your personal, internal use, and shall make no other use of the content without the express written permission of JE.com and the copyright owner (or its authorized agent) of such content. You will not modify, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the Service. Further, you will not engage in any systematic downloading or other activity directed towards any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the Service that would create any electronic data base or archive containing such content . Seems to me if that statement has any legal weight then Misplaced Pages shouldn't be using those images.

This also brings up a general question. Can scans or photographs of PD works be copyrighted?--◀Puck▶ 04:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be no, according to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. - Akamad 05:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I would assume than applies to scans as well. In which case it would seem JE.com can't legitimately put a copyright emblem on their scans of pictures from the Jewish Encyclopedia. I bring all this up because one of the images on the category page is mislabeled--it's actually a duplicate of another--and I wanted to replace it with the correct one. I just wanted to make sure all my jots and tittles are in place.--◀Puck▶ 06:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Minor help needed

At New_anti-Semitism#Incidents_in_France, I need some help cleaning up some Hebrew-language citations. Also, if someone wants to do some research, there are some just plain uncited assertions in that section. - Jmabel | Talk 03:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Jews and Bolshevism

Could I ask people to look in on my remarks at Talk:History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union#Jews and Bolshevism? I disagree with three recent edits to that article, but I'm hoping to hear from a few other people rather than singlehandedly revert. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletionism facing (Judaism) articles

I have just placed the following on the Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Judaism. Shalom, IZAK 09:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Shalom to everyone: There is presently a very serious phenomenon on Misplaced Pages that effects all articles. Let's call it "The New Deletionism". There are editors on Misplaced Pages who want to cut back the number of "low quality" articles EVEN IF THEY ARE ABOUT NOTABLE TOPICS AND SUBJECTS by skipping the normal procedures of placing {{cleanup}} or {{cite}} tags on the articles' pages and instead wish to skip that process altogether and nominate the articles for a vote for deletion (VfD). This can be done by any editor, even one not familiar with the subject. The implication/s for all articles related to Jews, Judaism, and Israel are very serious because many of these articles are of a specilaized nature that may or may not be poorly written yet have important connections to the general subjects of Jews, Judaism, and Israel, as any expert in that subject would know.

Two recent examples will illustrate this problem:

1) See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Zichron Kedoshim, Congregation where a notable Orthodox synagogue was deleted from Misplaced Pages. The nominator gave as his reason: "Scarce material available on Google, nor any evidence in those results of notability nor any notable size." Very few people voted and only one person objected correctly that: "I've visited this synagogue, know members, and know that it is a well established institution" which was ignored and the article was deleted. (I was unaware of the vote).

2) See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Berel Wein where the nominator sought to delete the article about Rabbi Berel Wein because: "It looks like a vanity project to me. While he does come up with many Google hits, they are all commercial in nature. The article is poorly written and reads like a commercial to me." In the course of a strong debate the nominator defended his METHOD: "... what better way to do that than put it on an AfD where people who might know more about the subject might actually see it and comment rather than slapping a {{NPOV}} and {{cleanup}} template on and waiting for someone to perhaps come across it." But what if no-one noticed it in time and it would have gone the same way as "Congregation Zichron Kedoshim"? Fortunately, people noticed it, no-one agreed with the nominator and the article was kept.

As we all know Googling for/about a subject can determine its fate as an article, but this too is not always a clear-cut solution. Thus for example, in the first case, the nominator saw almost nothing about "Congregation Zichron Kedoshim" on Google (and assumed it was unimportant) whereas in the second case the nominator admitted that Berel Wein "does come up with many Google hits" but dismissed them as "all commercial in nature". So in one case too few Google hits was the rationale for wanting to delete it and in the other it was too many hits (which were dismissed as "too commercial" and interpreted as insignificant), all depending on the nominators' POV of course.

This problem is compounded because when nominators don't know Hebrew or know nothing about Judaism and its rituals then they are at a loss, they don't know variant transliterated spellings, and compounding the problem even more Google may not have any good material or sources on many subjects important to Jewish, Judaic, and Israeli subjects. Often Judaica stores may be cluttering up the search with their tactics to sell products or non-Jewish sites decide to link up to Biblical topics that appear "Jewish" but are actually missionary sites luring people into misinformation about the Torah and the Tanakh, so while Googling may yield lots of hits they may mostly be Christian-oriented and even be hostile to the Judaic perspective.

Therefore, all editors and contributors are requested to be aware of any such attempts to delete articles that have a genuine connection to any aspect of Jews, Judaism and Israel, and to notify other editors.

Please, most importantly, place alerts here in particular so that other editors can be notified.

Thank you for all your help and awareness. IZAK 08:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nationality and ethnicity

I'd greatly appreciate if people would look in at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Nationality_and_ethnicity.2C_redux. Basically, at least one editor is systematically removing mention of people's Jewishness from article leads, citing the manual of style. I think this is inappropriate, and is downright absurd in the case of (for example) prominent figures in Yiddish theatre. Would people please comment there instead of here? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 20:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Kugel (disambiguation)

I'm having a bit of a problem with a user who insists on adding irrelevant material to the Kugel (disambiguation) page. Most of the material is German language compound words, and German surnames containing "kugel", and I don't see the relevance to the English language page. I've tried to reason with the user, first on his talk page, then on the articles, but I don't seem to be getting anything coherent from him. He just says that he's "listed the article for translation" (see the article's talk page. Some sane voices are needed. Any suggestions what to do? Regards, Batamtig 10:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

A Spanish-language resource

For anyone who reads Spanish, the April-June 2006 issue of the excellent Vanguardia Dossier (published by La Vanguardia of Barcelona) is on Israel. At a quick skim, it looks excellent. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Articles for review January 2006

• Dudu Fisher - need more info on cantorial history, and general review.
  • Did some on the article, would like to do more on the musicians particularly. --Dakota ~ ε 18:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oy vey is currently on AfD - can it be expanded beyond a dicdef?
  • IMO, no, it's not really an encyclopedia topic. But it could redirect to Yinglish or Yiddish words and phrases used by English speakers or List of English words of Yiddish origin. Indeed, some articles linked from the latter are dicdefs and should be similarly placed on AfD, IMO. jnothman 05:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It survived AFD, but what survived is little more than a stub. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Secular Jewish culture: User:Yid613 and I have done a lot of work on this lately. I think we have covered some areas well (some so well that they may deserve to be spun out into separate articles), but I'm equally sure that we've barely scratched the surface. And it needs a lot of citation: I was largely writing what I happened to know, at most just confirming from other (often uncited) Misplaced Pages articles, and I suspect he was doing the same. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I actually think that if we clean up the citation on the article and balance some of the information it would be a good featured article candidate. Yid613 18:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Help is needed with expanding Secular Jewish culture#Film and Secular Jewish culture#Radio and Television. Both of these sections were started by Jmabel, who did an excellent job with them and with the whole article in general. However, I am trying to expand the smaller sections of the article to have the same depth as the larger sections, and since I am hardly in expert in the following topics, help would be appreciated. I think that Secular Jewish culture#Dance can also use some additional information regarding both Ashkenazi traditional dance and Israeli folk dancing (I have also made such a request on the Notice board for Israel-related topics.

Excellent essay on Jabotinsky

I just read what struck me as an excellent essay on Jabotinsky:

• Jacqueline Rose, "The Zionist Imagination", The Nation, June 26, 2006, p. 27-34.

Nominally, it is a book review of a translation of Jabotinsky's novel The Five, and to some extent it is that, but that's more a point of departure than anything else. Despite The Nation's left-leaning politics, it is by no means a hostile essay.

For various reasons, I don't feel I'm a particularly good person to work on the Jabotinsky article, but I strongly urge someone for whom such a topic would be their "turf" to read the piece; I suspect it is worth mining. - Jmabel | Talk 15:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Orthodox Judaism

Welcome Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Orthodox Judaism. Please join if you are interested. Thank you. IZAK 08:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Jewish culture and de:Jüdische Kultur

The German article Jüdische Kultur, which is a direct translation of Jewish culture over here, is currently nominated for deletion on the German Misplaced Pages, with a majority of people so far voting for deletion. The bottom line of the delete votes is that the article mostly consists of dangerous (anti-Semitic) clichés, lumps together all aspects of Jewish culture without proper differentiation, and reduces them to their "Jewishness" in the negative sense of Richard Wagner. One editor went as far as saying that the topic was "notable" but that it was going to remain "unworkable" in the German wikipedia "for a long time". I do not think that the article as it stands is beyond criticism, but I do not think it is beyond (or even badly in need of) repair, either. If anyone here thinks the same and is able to communicate in German (I'd be glad to help), please contribute to the AfD discussion. --Thorsten1 10:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The article here is Secular Jewish culture. - Jmabel | Talk 17:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Kibbutz

Kibbutz is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 14:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Night (book)

In case anyone is interested, Night (book), Elie Wiesel's story, is up for featured article status. SlimVirgin 08:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Jewish WIKIVERSITY

NEW: On Wikiversity there is now a "Jewish Studies School." Will it become a "duplication" of many things on Misplaced Pages? What should it's goals and functions be? Please add your learned views. Thank you. IZAK 09:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Jew Year's Eve

There is an article up for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jew Year's Eve which describes a social event claimed to take place in many cities the day before Erev Rosh Hashanah. Someone has posted some sources to back up the claims of the article but they are all in Hebrew:

• http://www.ynet.co.il/yaan/0,7340,L-20716-MjA3MTZfNDY1MjI2ODZfMTQ4Njg3MjAw-FreeYaan,00.html
• http://www.ha-lool.co.il/magazine/article.asp?id=357
• http://www.tam.co.il/26_12_97/tar1.html

Could a Hebrew-speaking person look these up and comment at the AfD as to whether they support the accuracy of the Jew Year's Eve article? Thanks! --Metropolitan90 03:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Metropolitan90, The third one is directly related, some of the links from the second one are directly related, and some are not really related (i.e. some are related to rosh hashonah). As for the the top one, it is mentioned, but it is not the sole focus of the article. Again, much of the article is about rish hashonah. So, only the third source is purely about the event in question. Hope this helps. Faito. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Faito (talk • contribs) 6 September 2006.

RFC: Shiny Shoe Music

The article Shiny Shoe Music has accurate information but a neologistic title. Discussion on Articles for deletion and on the article's talk page have determined that the article must be moved; that discussion also shows that no one knows where to move it to. Per the instructions at WP:RFC I am requesting comment here and at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Music genres; but please direct all discussion to the article's talk page. Thanks so much.—msh210℠ 15:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Lead sections

Could I ask the participants in this project what they think of this recent edit by Jack O'Lantern (talk · contribs) to Sholem Asch? I disagree entirely with the direction he was going. Asch is reduced from being "Jewish" to "of Jewish heritage", and mention of his being Jewish is removed from the first paragraph, while mention of him being a "Polish-born American" is retained.

I disagree strongly with this, and with the direction it suggests. When I think of a "Polish-born American", I do not think of a Jew, and I can't imagine too many authors more profoundly Jewish than Asch, who authored works in both Hebrew and Yiddish, and most of whose works are set in a Jewish milieu.

Comments would probably be better at Talk:Sholem Asch than here. I will remark there on the cross-post. - Jmabel | Talk 17:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be a campaign of his. For example, he's done the same thing to Al Jolson, a little less clearcut a case than Asch, but still, someone whose Jewishness seems to me more important to have in the lead than his Lithuanian birthplace. - Jmabel | Talk 18:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Harold Clurman, too. All mention of him being Jewish has been removed, even though his initial interest in theater was through Yiddish theater, and he was married to Stella Adler. - Jmabel | Talk 06:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Maddening HTML trouble

I'm having a heck of a time getting the Yiddish spelling of Jacob Sternberg's name into his article. The problem is discussed at Talk:Jacob Sternberg#Getting that Yiddish spelling into the article. Help (including suggestions of who to ask!) would be appreciated greatly. - Jmabel | Talk 06:16, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yankev Shternberg

Minor help needed at Yankev Shternberg: there is a footnote that needs some "captioning" of a link; I'm not literate in Yiddish, which is the relevant language. - Jmabel | Talk 07:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

How would you like the link to be captioned? The link is to an article entitled "The great writer and thinker Moshe Altman" by Yechiel Shraibman in Moldova, preceded by a short obituary of the article's author. Batamtig 10:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If you can just do it analogously to what I've done with the Russian-language links, that would be great. (In this case, also, there is a named author, so the original language and parenthetical transliteration should also be there for the author's name.) - Jmabel | Talk 19:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

CfD Anti-Semitic people

Hi: See Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 November 23#Category:Anti-Semitic people. Thank you. IZAK 10:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Goa Inquisition

An editor has raised neutrality issues with the article. The subject is part of Jewish history, particularly the section Goa_Inquisition#Persecution_of_Jews, regarding the persecution of Indian Jews during the Christian inquisition in India. I would greatly appreciate perusal and input regarding any neutrality issues. Hkelkar 04:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Response to NOTICE and OBJECTIONS to WikiProject Religion vs. Judaism

Hi: It is very important that you see the points and the response from User:Badbilltucker about his aims at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Judaism#NOTICE and OBJECTIONS to WikiProject Religion vs. Judaism ASAP. Have a Happy Chanukah! IZAK 15:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Misplaced Pages Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Stereotypical movies

Why is there not just one page about stereotypes of jews in popular culture like their is for other religons and ethnic groups? This would be much easier then having to look at specific stereotypes! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.168.88.100 (talk) 20:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

Please review these articles and their talk

I am in conflict with an editor from the evolution/Intelligent Design argumentation world who seems to be there for lehakholis (Aramaic, for the cursedness!).

• Jewish reactions to intelligent design
• Jewish opposition to evolution --Metzenberg 04:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Heeeeellp !!!!!

I have no idea how to to file the right kind of request for comment or mediation or arbitration, or whatever. I have a determined troll following me around "proceduring" me to death. He has been following me around through a series of articles that I have been working on, constantly editing things while I am in the process of editing them too, demending changes, moving things around.

• Jewish reactions to intelligent design
• Jewish opposition to evolution
• Natan Slifkin

One of the big problems, frankly, is that the topics I am working on require some knowledge of Hebrew and a lot of knowledge of Jewish philosophy and theology. This editor, who knows nothing about these matters, is simply creating one stumbling block after another, always citing some wikipedia procedure. He appears to be going to my contributions file to see what I am working on, and then going there to mess something up.

I frankly don't want to know all the Misplaced Pages policies and procedures. I want to write. I've been doing so for about a year, and so far, I've been very happy with it. I've asked him to back away. I asked him to come back and edit the article later in the day, or in the evening. I've offered for both of us to leave and come back in a week, to allow some other writer a chance to work.

Misplaced Pages needs contributors who are writers, who know a subject well, who do careful research work in the subject and write well balanced and thoroughly sourced articles. I am such a person. I don't claim authority in any field, like an advanced degree. (I do have an advanced degree, I just don't claim that it matters here on Misplaced Pages.)

What I can do is easy to see from what I have done. I have started dozens of articles, and never had one deleted, working some of them through to completion. Many of them are on serious scholarly topics. I enjoy writing. I don't claim to "own" these articles. If I wanted that, I would write somewhere under my own name.

What happened to me over the last few days was an incident of procedural harassment. I have never experienced anything like it. User:ZayZayEM has been following me around through a group of articles that I have been working on, creating a long series of procedural problems. Each time, he cites some Misplaced Pages policy for why he is right.

I'm not interested in arguing about Misplaced Pages policy X or Y. I am interested in writing. I am not interested in going thourgh some kind of elaborate Misplaced Pages arbitration determination procedure, in which we somehow determine who was right.

It's very simple. There are 1,697,000 articles on Misplaced Pages that this person could be working on, and most of them do need work. User:ZayZayEM could be working on any one of them, but instead, he chooses to harass me.

Looking at his recent logs, his last RfC was a few days ago. I've never had one. I didn't even know what an RfC was until a few days ago. This user is simply looking for fights.

If I'm supposed to go to some kind of arbitration panel and write some kind of elaborate defense or request, I'm outta here. I'm not interested in spending time doing that. I've never bothered to figure out how to cite logs, and I don't want to. User:ZayZayEM has presented an endless series of procedural hurdles, and such a process would be more of the same, and a complete waste of time. I'm sure that once the process was finished, he would be back to more of the same.

He knows nothing about the topics that I am trying to write about. I would welcome a collaborator or two who does, but this fellow isn't that collaborator. He simply creates endless headaches. Each time, he cites the wikipedia policy under which he is of course "right," but if I then try the same thing back, or try to suggest something else, there is some other Misplaced Pages policy under which he is also right.

I've read that Misplaced Pages is interested in the product, not the process. Well this user is obsessed with the process, and presents endless hurdles to improving the product.

If your answer is that I'm supposed to file wiki-dot-colon-xxxcite-procedure and wait for a wiki-xxxxarb-med-committee to volunteer to handle the case, my answer is no. That's his game, not mine. I'm sure he is good at it too. --Metzenberg 05:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)