Misplaced Pages

I can't find it either and I agree we don't need it. Zero 14:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably it was George Fisk, see this book, which however doesn't seem to have population figures. Zero 13:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Chapeau. The original year for the data, however, was 1835, too late for Pliny Fisk while this Fisk visited Palestine in 1842 (?). Between 1824 and 1842 there must be then a third Fisk, unless, sorry for the untranslatable pun, we are taking fischi per fiaschi! Memorable that wording for the moving vignette on p.239 on miserably poor Jews trudging passing their tents towards Jerusalem, 'aliens from their own birthright'. Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Conflict coda

I asked Hertz1888 if he could help on this, but haven't had a reply yet. If you look at many pages like Jerusalem or Safed, you don't get a huge barrage of note-taking on the violence in the recent histories of those cities. It was written in the usual POV tit for tat fashion, with someone giving a grievance incident, followed by another POVer 'balancing' that with some grievous incident on the other side and is not appropriate to an article with 4,000 years of history. There is a separate page for this, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron, and in my view most of these incidents should be removed there, with just a generic section on post-1967,(a) the move back to Hebron (b) violent conflict has occurred, illustrated only by events significant enough to have a wiki page already on them (b) post-Oslo accords. I imagine though that a huge POV donnybrook could break out, and therefore think this should be thoroughly discussed beforehand. Certainly, Hebron stands singled out, among cities in the area, for the highlighting it gives to incidents, versus narrative synthesis. Any suggestions?Nishidani (talk) 14:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

General points

I've done most of a general reorganization, save for the last bit- here are some reflections.

• (1)500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter.

--I remember a long source battle to get the numbers up or down. Most sources over the last decade see a fixed if fluctuating population inside Hebron of some 500 people (roughly 85 families). We have far too many sources on this. If we can agree on 500 as the general consensus (so far), I would suggest that (a) we retain the one and best source for that statement and (b) move the others to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Hebron page. --This would (a) conserve the work and details (b) get a lot of useless templating of one-off sources off this page. ?Nishidani (talk) 09:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

1929 massacre. Any questions?

In the archives here and on the specific wiki page devoted to the 1929 slaughter at Hebron, there was a long discussion on the wording and sources. Most sources give 67 murdered, yet most sources on everything merely copy and paste. I never noticed anything askew until one day, while reading a book by Martin Gilbert, I saw the figure of 59, which seemed odd for such a careful historian. He was apparently reporting directly the figures from the Palestinian Post's reports on the massacre for August and September 1929. I'd also elsewhere, but rarely, seen the figures of 64, 65, aside from the standard 67. So I did a long investigation on the issue, even going to the trouble of listing all the names of the victims, and checking (no WP:OR here, since I drew no personal conclusions, but simply wanted to figure out which of the sources got the facts straight so we could use them). I found out that the differences were due to (a) the number buried immediately after the event 59, then (b) as several of the survivors died of their wounds, increased to 67 over the ensuing weeks (c) of those included in the 67 figure two apparently died, one of a heart attack and another of the sheer shock and age, after witnessing the onslaught. My problem then was how to phrase this. Use 'kill', 'slaughter', 'murder' for 67 is just so slightly imprecise. Certainly 64 (as Kimmerling and Migdal report) died as a direct result of wounds suffered by the Hebronite onslaught. 67 remains the correct figure (I can't account for just one of the three that make up the difference) but it seems 2 or 3 weren't 'murdered', despite the best efforts of their assassins, but died of shock. I know this niggling looks clumsy, and I am not overly attached to being a precisian about such delicate matters of correct reportage of a massacre. It's just that I know some sources, eminently respectable, do report the different figure, and the reliability of the encyclopedia is improved if we give due notice of such dissonances in the literature. ? Nishidani (talk) 10:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

(sigh) I guess if the toll is widely cited as 67 then 67 it is (I guess it can be written as "Official toll is recorded at 67..." or somesuch). It can be elaborated upon as you spell out from sources like you have above. Detail is helpful here.Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It can't be 'official' because the Mandatory statistics are not being used here. Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I am thinking of something that conveys what sources say the usual number is "Death toll agreed upon as 67" or somesuch, which conveys this without the text conveying the number as gospel, IFYKWIM. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It's late here. I won't give you the full Monty, but significant academic sources give a minority view of 64 murdered and 54 wounded (we have 60 wounded). Do we just ignore this?

• Ted Swedenburg, Memories of revolt: the 1936-1939 rebellion and the Palestinian national past, 2003, p.220 (54 wounded)
• J. Bowyer Bell, ''Terror out of Zion: the fight for Israeli independence, 1977 p.5 (64/54). Incidentally, Bowyer Bell was sympathetic to the Irgun. Swedenburg is, I think, sympathetic to the Palestinian narrative. None of which has much to do with the issue at hand, but does illustrate that the dissonance is not in itself a question of POV-mongering. Well, to bed. There's no hurry.Nishidani (talk) 22:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Agh, you wanna just list all the sources here once and for all, then we can discuss, get a consensus for what the article should say...and stake this debate through the heart and consign it to the archives once and for all? I am a neophyte in this area, but did have a hankering to get Hebron to GA or FA as I spent one of the weirdest days of my life there (on a day trip from Jerusalem). Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:30, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, we need several experienced senior editors on board on articles like this, just to keep us honest, ensure that the rhythm of editing is relatively efficient, so that some of these tortured pieces in the I/P area become not only readable, but adequate to at least GA specifications. Much appreciated. I haven't the slightest idea of what GA/FA requirements entail technically, and invariably wait for experts to prompt me and others, point by point, or to fix the technical side, so if you can push me and others along with pointers, all to the good. We may not get there (GA, I think FA impossible), but the benefits of trying will improve the text. It should take several months, barring hitches!, since so far what we've got, and I assume some responsibility for this, leaves much to be desired. Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe that would be more appropriate at 1929 Hebron massacre? Incidentally, if there is an "official" death toll, it would be the one given by the Shaw commission. I think it was 67 but I can look it up if necessary (my library has the original). Zero 04:11, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, probably it's best to work it out there 1929 Hebron massacre. But when I tried to work that page, I just ended up wasting months in futile controversy. At the 1929 Safed pogrom (wrong title, since 'pogrom' in the technical literature means, stricto sensu, a massacre with tacit government consent), whoever edited it had no problem noting that there is some dispute over the figure.(By the way, that page is disgracefully brief, and would benefit from editors taking some time to, if not memorialize, then certainly do justice to the historical facts and the victims).

I checked Shaw (1930) years ago, and if you could recheck it thoroughly we'd be in your debt. My notes just have the following: 'More than 60 Jews — including many women and children —were murdered and more than 50 were wounded.' p.64. I haven't got access to the vol. now, however, and perhaps there is more detail than I excerpted). The Peel Commission document of 1937 varies this, uselessly, with 'over sixty'. That's why I said we haven't got official figures here. I'm not quite happy with official reports since they are written with political consequences in mind, and indulge in vagueness or euphemism far too much. If we can't find an official source at the time establishing the precise range or figure, we are back to 'Go'.

I might add that Neil Caplan (he deserves a wiki bio) is very reliable for period reports, since he studied under Bernard Lewis and Elie Kedourie, and actually, unlike most, does detailed archival research, and he repeats the Shaw Commission's results in his Futile Diplomacy: The United Nations, The Great Powers, and Middle East Peacemaking 1948-1954, Frank Cass 1983, vol.1 (Early Arab-Zionist Negotiation Attempts, 1913-1931) p.82 just says 'sixty orthodox men, women and children'. That is totally unacceptable, though official, because 64-5 were definitely murdered. Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

(nods knowingly without a clue what everyone is talking about) okay. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:50, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Cas. Shaw Report (1930) and Peel Commission Report (1937) were two British enquiries into Palestine, the former specifically on the massacres of 1929. Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Nish, your finding on page 64 of the Shaw Report is the only mention of casualties specifically in Hebron. There can be more in the accompanying records of testimony (which I have) but that wouldn't be official. One day I am going to get energetic and scan this report. It isn't trivial because it's on microfiche. Zero 09:14, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks indeed for taking the trouble. I wouldn'ìt worry about getting energetic. The nice thing about this place is we don't have deadlines, and hurry's the ruin of many an article. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 10:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit-warring afoot?

Brewcrewer. Your edit summary reads:

(rv. this massacre was far more atrocious and hence had long lasting infamy, that is drelevant and discussed in contrmporary times. clearly a "notable controversy" per LEDE policy)

The prior editor, a newbie who, after a handful of edits on one page, just manages to notice of 7000 articles, Hebron and popped in to plunk that bit about the 1929 massacre in the lede. Well, it's not exactly suspicious, but. . .this happens a lot round here, and I think all editors should be very careful in evaluating that kind of out-of-nowhere editing to a page that has a long history of POV battles.

• (a)There is no 'controversy' about the massacre, so your justification per LEDE does not stand
• (b) Set this kind of precedent in wiki articles on cities, and you will have virtually every lead in articles on towns and cities in eastern Europe opened up to the same edit. Vilna, Lviv, Budapest, Warsaw, all had atrocious massacres and pogroms after 1929. I don't think we should 'exceptionalize' this sector. Otherwise the lead at Lod will have POV junkies battling to get that figure of 250 Palestinian deaths in 1948.
• (c)One should think thrice before supporting virtually anonymous edits that look distinctly like they are cueing for a pointless revert battle.
• (d) In best practice, you don't fiddle round with leads that took several years to get consensus on, by barging in with a major change. You argue that, as an experienced wikipedian like yourself should know, by proposing it first on the talk page.Nishidani (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Seminal moment

Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs from the Hittites constitutes a seminal moment in the development of a Jewish attachment to the land.

This is one of the lines that nag at me every time I read the page. I think it is now widely accepted that the narrative of Abraham, like the northern Joseph stories at Shechem etc., is embroidered out of tribal legends and mythistory as part of the Judean writing of the Biblical charter 8th-6th centuries BCE. It was, retroactively a seminal moment in much later writing on identity, which however reflected the intentions of the priestly drafters. Something like:-

The story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs from the Hittites legitimised the immigrants’ purchase of land in the host country (Francesca Stavrakopoulou,Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims, Continuum Publishing 2010 p.37) and came to be regarded as a seminal moment in Jewish attachment to the land.(source needed).

Stavrakopoulou's book is very good on all of this. There were three sites written up as marking by their (re)foundational stories the establishment of a purchase on the land, and Hebron was one. Nishidani (talk) 12:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Subjective article?

I have a feeling that the article is nonobjective by being slightly pro-Palestinian. Correct me if I'm wrong, but throughout history there have been more Jewish settlers killed rather than Palestinians, and the article sends a feeling that it is the opposite. I am not making any political statement, that's just what I resent when reading this. 94.159.239.207 (talk) 14:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

'throughout history there have been more Jewish settlers killed rather than Palestinians'. Could you clarify this? Hebron has a 3,000 year history, pagan, Jewish, Islamic Christian, etc. We cover this, not 4 decades of tension.Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

notice you did not respond to the point raised.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, please note that you failed to see that the remark made was meaningless, and that by asking the anon for clarity I was being courteous. The remark, Brewcrewer, is meaningless because 'throughout history' refers to 4,000 years, whereas the reference to 'Jewish settlers' implies that he/she had in mind either the biblical myth of Abraham the sojourner's settlement in an imaginary year dot, or to events post 1967, when the binome Palestinians/Jewish settlers takes on a precise verifiable meaning. (b) The anon suggests, without any source, the number of settlers killed in Hebron since 1967 is higher than the number of Palestinian Hebronites killed. Highly questionable. Intelligent comments elicit responses. Remarks that are garbled are usually ignored. Neither the IP nor yourself in this case seem to care much about the natural construal of the English language. But, as courtesy demands, I have replied to both of you. Nishidani (talk) 12:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Pogrom in 1834?

Chesdovi. You've just created a highly suspect page 1834 Hebron pogrom, and now linked it to the mention of the 1834 assault on the town mentioned here. All of this smacks of POV point-scoring. A pogrom is a very specific form of violence, certainly what occurred in 1929 was a pogrom. But the events of 1834 were directed overwhelmingly at the Turkish and Arab population, as the histories narrate, and not with the specific intent of killing Jews, which is what the word pogrom suggests. If your slipshod usage were accepted, all death tolls of Jews over 4 killed in war, amidst many other slaughtered citizens, would count as 'pogroms', and historians of history, and Jewish history, are not in the habit of obliterating distinctions. I suggest you do a bit more work on that woeful article, or else it will go for deletion. It seems just tailor-made to provide a link to this page, has poor spelling as well by the way.Nishidani (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why Chesdovi would respond considering almost every sentence in your comment included a personal insult.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

If I put into the Hebron article everything I document, on day to day reports, on what the settler enclave does, in order to whip the reader up into a lachrymose state, the article would be unworkable. Anyone who reads this stuff attentively knows that unspeakable thuggishness is a very one-sided activity there: as anthropologists and sociologists themselves have recently argued a culture of contemptuous harassment is a programmatic part of the settler culture there. But we keep it out because this is an encyclopedia, and not a page where people play games to crank up a POV. The substance of my remark was that he is abusing the word 'pogrom'. He can reply to that.Nishidani (talk) 09:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

8,700 Jews in 1816?

John Edwards Caldwell, The Christian herald, page 395. Or maybe 700? Chesdovi (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems quite excessive. Parfitt lists 32 population estimates from 1806 to 1882 and none of them are anywhere near that high. The estimates near 1816 are 1000 in 1812-16 and 500 in 1817-18, which Parfitt describes as "patently wrong" and "rather high" (for reasons that he gives). Actually 8,700 is in the region of the total population, maybe your source thought they were all Jews. Zero 08:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Figures from tourists who hadn't even visited Hebron are best ignored, in favour of whatever data the modern specialists on demographics give. Most inhabitants there depended on halukkah handouts from the diaspora, and this set a severe constraint on the size of these communities throughout the Ottoman period. Many accounts, further, confuse figures for an sanjuk with those for the district's capital. Turner's figure is hearsay, he never went to Hebron. He even believed that apart from Jews, only Turks lived in Hebron. A second point, the large swings over a decade in reported numbers, besides being intrinsically odd, may have a vague connection with the attested function of most Jewish 'emigration' in this period, which was, at the end of one's life, to die in the Holy Land. Turner reports that the vast majority were old women. I.e. we are making no distinction between settled Jewish communities, and influxes of the aged, or sick there for religious purposes.Lastly, could editors please pay attention to the whole text. Dotting it with snippets regardless of the narrative flow just creates work. We jump from the economy and demographics into the events of 1834 without any transition making for an ugly leap, from Jewish population to 750 soldiers conscripted a decade later during the rebellion. Nishidani (talk) 16:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Nishi, as usual you are confusing between reliable sources (documents) and reliable people. That is unfortunate. Please do not engage into WP:OR.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Photo removal and expansion of Beit Hadassah as per Perera

Brewcrewer, you really should stop turning up at articles I edit content into, only to exercise your revert right automatically on specious grounds (a) atrocious style (b) bad writing replete with typos. If you find a typo, fix it, as everyone else does. If you think the style is awkward, improve it. It is an abuse of the revert option to elide edits on the grounds of trivial objections. Address, as you haven't so far, the substance.

• The photo I removed I regarded, since it comes from an anon editor with a dynamic IP in Argentina, as probably the work of a sock (AndresHerutJaim?)
• In a city of 170,000 people, there are several hundred settlers, and two photos (the settler's Shavei Hebron yeshiva, and a carved headstone of the Star of David) of 9 reflect their presence. The third meant that the settler POV was now represented as a third of the reality of Hebron in photographic terms. There are no photos of the overwhelmingly majority Arab population's institutions, or cultural sites.
• Secondly the Hadassah building was the former Jewish run hospital for Hebron till the massacre of 1929. The caption has it that it is now the Beit Hadassah hospital. It is actually a building with several functions, one of which is a clinic. The rubric suggested otherwise.
• Perera was an eyewitness to the takeover. I left the text in a footnote to facilitate consultation for a few days. It need not remain. But thus doing, I save editors like yourself the trouble of looking the book up.
• I can't understand what Sean Hoyland says about fixing typos and IR. Since that was the complaint, I rearranged commas, phrasing, and added 'former'. Surely this is what Brewcrewer objected to. Since Sean has restored it, I adjusted as requested. Nishidani (talk) 18:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Old Yishuv

I almost deleted this, because I'd not noticed it before. What's it doing there? IT's got nothing to do specifically with Hebron.

There must be photos of rabbinical figures or families in the wonderful old yishuv settlement in Hebron with which this could be replaced. Nishidani (talk) 14:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

' instantly ancient'

Hello,

I still think that in the following text the 'as if' etc. bit is not a factual description but a POV evaluation by Gorenberg and by Goldberg. As such, it has no place there. One may well add a special section on the conflicted perceptions of Hebron's history, but as far as the facts go, the G & G quote is, as far as I can tell, quite unnecessary.

the government agreed to legitimize Levinger's wildcat settlement by establishing a town on the outskirts of the city in an abandoned military base, which was named Kiryat Arba,'as if,' Gershom Gorenberg writes, 'to make the place instantly ancient.'

A compromise solution might be to drop the G & G quotes and to indicate that Kiryat Arba was an ancient Jewish location. But then, that's what wikilinks are for, anyway. :)

Bazuz (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Kiryat Arba as the settler name for an area that was not Kiryat Arba is itself POV-loaded, and, by the way, Kiryat Arba is not an ancient Jewish location it was the former name of the place which in later Judahite foundational lore about Abraham's arrival there came to be called by them Hebron, and is associated with Hittites, Canaanites, or any other people who occupied the site before the mythical purchase by Abraham. It does read as if it were 'city of (the) four' in Hebrew, but could be a calque from Akkadian even. Arba was even the name of its giant king Anak. It was a highly ideologically loaded term for a site, the military base, that had no antiquity, and the authors are making that point, that's why attribution was indeed required. Still you do have a point, and I for one do not consider the question closed.Nishidani (talk) 20:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your scholarship. Nevertheless, this was a settlement, not a military base, so it had to have a name, hadn't it? KA is a name connected to the locale, so it makes ample sense to have chosen it. My problem with the quotes is that they somehow impute a vaguely sinister intent to the choice of name, that probably just wasn't there. What do you propose to do about it? Maybe add a learned footnote about the etymology of KA? Bazuz (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

No, the other way around. It was a Jordanian military base outside the town limits which the settlers negotiated with the IDF as a provisional area to settle in. I haven't written into the article, but the real topological identities of Machpelah, Mamre and Kiryat Arab are, in biblical criticism, in doubt, since the drafters of the Pentateuch conflated a large amount of conflicting traditions from several distinct groups into one narrative of one place. Most of the lore is pre-hebraic and pagan, as was Kiryat Arba. They adopted the name from the Bible, because they were denied Hebron. So that's the name of the settled sight down the road from the Cave of the Patriarchs. They chose the name for tactical and ideological reasons, and our sources note this as a factor. An etymological section on KA would require at least (by my rough notes) 20 sources, and be more appropriate to the KA page. If those guys want it, there's nothing stopping them.I'll probably be banned by the looks of it, which means I mightn't be editing wikipedia for long. If you wait around a bit, discuss this with other editors. Hertz1800 and Zero are excellent on all these questions, and certainly even more neutral than even I try to be. On the rationale behind naming in this area see the essay on my talk page, but only after taking some amphetamines to stay awake!Nishidani (talk) 13:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

All right, all right, have it your way then. It still feels rather wrong to me, but I'll hand it to you for sheer amount of learned arguments (no irony). Bazuz (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

No, no. I won't have it my way. I don't own this article. Many have it bookmarked and if either Hertz or Zero or any other solid contributor to it gives you the go ahead, do the edit. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Misleading paragraph removed

I have removed the misleading section/paragraph on the restrictions on Jewish movement in H1 area. The formulation implies a false symmetry with Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement in H2 area. The sole source of this item is apparently not credible. It claims that "Jewish entrance into it is against the law." I doubt very much that such a law really exists. If it does exist, the nature of this presumably Israeli law needs to be clarified.

The article further claims that "These rules were sanctioned in the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron" which is clearly false. On the contrary this protocol clearly states that Jewish worshipers should have "unimpeded and secure access" to Jewish sites in H1 Area. http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/22680.htm

Since the start of the Second Intifada there is a general Israeli military order banning Israeli residents from entering the Palestinian Area A without a permit from military authorities. Probably this applies to Area H1 as well. This military order makes no specific reference to Jews. It is also a unilateral Israeli regulation. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-said-changing-its-checkpoint-policy-1.154424

The apparently Israeli signs from Hebron shown in the article maybe related to this order.

Please feel free to reintroduce a similar paragraph if you can clarify who is forbidding Jews to enter H1 area and on what grounds.

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 17:56, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Why is was my phot removed?

I will put it here instead.

The article says Jewish kids dressed as B Goldstein so why ca'nt we have Arab baby dressed as bombers? Very one-sided here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baybars-hamimi (talk • contribs) 16:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

On March 11, 2001, a full year before that photo was taken, Hebron's Jewish settlers had several of their children parade through Arab Hebron dressed up as mass murderers,i.e., in the guise of Baruch Goldstein. Click here and see what a wonderfully joyous celebration occurs annually in commemorating his slaughter of Hebronites who have the wrong ethnic identity. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I will remove this provocation tomorrow, if no one does in the meantime, since we are here to add material to articles, not fill talk pages with material that is not acceptable to articles.Nishidani (talk) 16:41, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

"wrong ethnic identity".... That's why Arabs were against Jews coming to palestina - they were the "wrong ethnicity". Oh well. If thousands of Arabs came to palestine - that would have been okay - but not the Jews!!! Jews lived under Arab rule in the Middle East, but Arabs cannot live under Jewish rule? Shame. By the way, I dont think the arab killed that israeli baby because of the B Goldstein costums. Baybar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baybars-hamimi (talk • contribs) 18:18, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I would almost always argue against reinstating on MoS alone. Unfortunately, the article already disgregards MoS with the images bleeding too far to the bottom. Furthermore, this is actually an iconic image. It might be cute to show off the picture of the trash nets but this one actually has importance off of Misplaced Pages (as opposed to Misplaced Pages trying to make a point).Cptnono (talk) 05:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

As I was making the edit I realized that the net image is completely out of place. So I am thinking about inserting this image in the relevant section while removing the net image. That would surely hurt some butts. Would editors prefer other options such as relegating both to commons? Alternatively, I can just stick it in wherever as was done by other editors. Cptnono (talk) 05:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The picture of the net belongs, that is an image of daily life in the city. I am restoring it. nableezy - 13:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree, it does have daily life significane, even if it is in 0.03% of the whole town! Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There are three pics of Jewish institutions or settlements, or emblems of an historic presence. There are no pics, other than (1) one useless one telling people they have cars and streets in the Arab quarter, and (2) another with kids and Israeli patrollers. The fault lies with the P side, which should come up with better pic material of Palestinians institutions and mosques etc, and has failed. The pic I restored refers to the situations under which 30,000 people deserted that quarter because life is intolerable with shit and rotten food being thrown at you if you live there. That is reported in innumerable books and articles as the key symbol of what life is like for Palestinians living near the infra-Hebron Jewish settlement. By all means relocate it, but it should not be removed unless there is a consensus. What the Tel Rumeida pic is doing there in a great historical city like Hebron, other than anonymously to celebrate the address of the dominus there in a minute outpost where every other Palestinian lives under conditions of daily torment, someone witha notable record of severe problems with Israeli law, a (former) Kach operative, who stalks the streets of Hebron with a gang, armed with an Uzi machine gun and terrorizes the unarmed local inhabitants? Nishidani (talk) 14:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

<- CPT Hebron have some photos here and/or in some of these albums that are free for use via Creative Commons 3.0. Sean.hoyland - talk 15:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"Palestinian lives under conditions of daily torment". It is such a shame this is still happening today. One would have thought things would have changed since 1875: "The fanatical intolerance of the Algerine Moslems, who formed a foreign colony in the town and held the unfortunate Jewish population in daily terror" - Claude Reignier Conder. User:Sean has got the wrong idea I think. We need some really nice photos of the town, not ones of political and NGO scenes. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

What I wrote is a statement of fact. The only thing you can conclude from it is that CPT Hebron have some photos that are free for use via Creative Commons 3.0. What editors do with that information is up to them. I have the advantage of not caring in the slightest. Perhaps you can find another really nice photo of an Arab baby dressed as bomber in their collection that is better than the one you proposed we use. You won't know until you look. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I looked at all of them and none of them show nice views or landmarks of the city. sorry. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 18:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

As usual, MoS has been ignored. Please respond to that concern since you have broken it yet again. Also, what did you interpret as me discussing CC? Tag=images sandwiching text, being stacked, being irrelevant to sections, size/upright, and so on and so on. Neutrality tag is per B-H's discussion. Please do not remove unil the dispute has been resolved. If no resolution seems possible, you will imply need to try harder to resolve them before the tags should be removed. Cptnono (talk) 04:13, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

What? A photo that isnt relevant to the article being removed is cause for a NPOV tag? From where are you pulling that reasoning from? Because it aint in any policy. And which picture is irrelevant to the section it is in? nableezy - 19:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Jewish cemetery in 1322 hebron

Someone deleted what i added yesterday about a jewish cemetry saying "OR". What is OR? anyway, why is it "silly"? I think quite interesting? BB — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baybars-hamimi (talk • contribs) 11:30, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It is OR to take a source talking about a cemetery and use it to "note" that another source does not include it. And dead people generally are not counted among a population. nableezy - 14:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. Anyway. I think it is better to remove the whole bit about "haparchi does not record any Jews", beacuse how do we know he did this generally for all towns? Was he a census man? Nope. A Geographer actually. --Baybars-hamimi (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

And I do understand. Read the cited source for the sentence, it is clear. nableezy - 16:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

But it is not needed for us the say "he did not record any" - because I have read his book and he does not seem to ever provide numbers in any town? I will replace what he does say about the existence of a cemetery. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 18:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you mention "numbers" since the issue is nothing about numbers. The source says "At the time of the Nachmonides in 5027 (1267), some Jews were found here, as he wrote to his son that he was on the point of going to Hebron to select for himself a spot to be buried in. It appears, however, that they afterwards quitted it again, as Astori, in the year 5082 (1322) says nothing of any Jewish families in Hebron." The source not only says "does not record any Jews in Hebron" but makes a (perfectly reasonable) inference from that. So our use of this source is already very weak and I don't see a case for making it even weaker. Zero 22:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree using Joseph Schwarz in this instance is very weak. That's why I think we should just use what Haparchi says himself in his book (on pg. 448 in the new ed.), i.e. about the Jewish cemetery, okay? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

You didn't agree with anything I wrote. The fact that Haparchi visited Hebron and failed to report Jews living there is significant. We wouldn't be allowed to make that point if we only had Haparchi's book, but once a reliable source makes it we can use it. Actually we are allowed to report Schwarz's inference that no Jews lived there at the time. The present text, which reports the fact and not the inference, is a reasonable compromise. Zero 13:36, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry I did not agree with you, I thought I did. What I think is: by the fact Haparchi did not mention anything about Jews is actually not significant - beacuse, as I already mentioned, i have skimmed through his book and never does he mention anything about the current communites of the land. He mentions mainly the location of tombs. I have also check the 1850 english translantion agaist Schwartz original, and nowhere does it say in the Hebrew original "It appears, however, that they afterwards quitted it again." It is in fact a very poor translation. I have further found another guy who visited in 1330s, then years later who says the Jews were very many in Hebron? Again, the "present text" does not report the fact, becusae all Schwartz says is "Ishtori also doesn't mention the settlemtn of Jews in Hebron" - that does not mean there were none settled there. (In fact I beleive that Istrois never mentions any Jews settled anywhere, not even Jerusalem.) Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't have Haparchi's book myself but I have several good sources which cite him for the existence of Jewish communities in his time. For example Beth Shean, Salha, Edrei, Gis and Safad in Alex Carmel, Peter Schafer and Yossi Ben-Artzi (eds.), The Jewish Settlement in Palestine 634-1881", pp. 45–47; and Haparchi did mention Jews in Jersualem, for example he met Rabbi Baruk there. Zero 01:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Haparchi’s work is not the same sort as other pilgrim accounts, who wrote about what they found on their trips. Haparchi’s work is chiefly a legal work. That is why I did not come across the towns you mentioned, becasue they were buried inside the book, not on the list of towns, distances and graves. I think he therefore only mentions the customs of Jews in various towns if he felt it was necesary to do so. E.g. He wrote that he had heard about the Jews of Gush Halav and Jerusalem regarding their custom of reading of the Esther scroll on a various day, (this relates to the law regarding the ancient structure of these towns); (-one may ask why he did not mention Lydda, Gaza, Safad in reference to thse laws?) One whole chapter is devoted to this subject, and sometimes when he discusses the law for various towns, like Edrei and Salach which lay across the Jordan, Haparchi mentions in passing the existence of communities there in his day. In my mind, he does not by any means intend to provide us with a detailed account of the local Jewish population everywhre. He mentioned in passing that Jews keep "two holy days" in Ramle in a section discussing the laws which depend on the geographcal location of a town. He did not provide a list for what the law is for each and every town where Jews reside. He mentins the large community in safed only in passing to inform us that he could ask them about a query he had about the tribal boundary of Naftali. He was interested in the Jewish laws which related to the land and the borders of the biblical land of israel, not in the jewish comunities in the land. That he provided such information about comunites is a side point. We cannot infer things for places he didn't happen to mention. That he said he met a rabbi in Jerusalem proves this point. Are we to infer because he mentions just one rabbi who lived there, that it is somehow "significant" and that the inference is that no other Jews there? Should we add "Haparchi (1322) recoreded one Jew in Jerusalem”? Haparchi never gave numbers of households, like other reports of the period, because Haparchi did not write an itinary, he wrote a legal work. I think there seemingly was nothing related to Jewish law which made him feel the need to mention Jews and their religious practices in Hebron. By saying in the text “Haparchi did not record any Jews in Hebron” infers there were none living there at the time. But most probably there were, because 12 years later many were found there) Haparchi didn’t “fail” to report Jews in Hebron. That wasn’t his intention; he did not record population statistics. He was intrested in identifying bible towns with the ones he came across and whether they were in the holyland or not, etc.. In all, he tells of Jewish communities in 7 towns west of the Jordan: Beth Shean and Jerusalem, (both places where he lived) Ramle, Lydda, Gaza, Safad and Gush Halav. Are we to infer there were no Jews living elsewhere just because he found no reson to include any mention of them in his book? Anyway, we cannot rely on Schwartz: Compare the 1850 Schwartz English version to my translation:

"At the time of the Nachmanides in 5027 (1267), some Jews were found here, as he wrote to his son that he was on the point of going to Hebron to select for himself a spot to be buried in. It appears, however, that they afterwards quitted it again, as Astori, in the year 5082 (1322), says nothing of any Jewish families in Hebron."

"Perhaps in between the time of BoT and Nachmanides there were some Jews living there. Also, Ashtori doesn’t mention any Jews living in Hebron. It is probable that the town was destroyed for a second time after Nachmanides."

(The bit about a burial plot is mentioned earlier in the Hebrew ed.) He does not mention they "quitted" or left. Also see what Schwartz says about Safed: “In the year 1170, when R. Benjamin of Tudela travelled through Palestine, he mentions no Jews as residing in Safed. Only in 1490, it commenced to be inhabited by Jews uninterruptedly to the present time”. He does not mention that Ashtori found a "big community" there in 1322?! Baybars-hamimi (talk) 13:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

You know, most of this is original research and isn't really admissible. On the other hand, your argument has improved since it was at the beginning and I'm inclined to agree. Since the particular point is not very important to the article, I'm going to remove the sentence. Zero 08:19, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

You asked a question and were blown off. OR means WP:OR (<--Click on that link). You are going to be treated like dirt here so I will apologize in advance for it. If you have a point to be made (as in something historically significant) you will have to deal with other editors who want a contrary point given more credence. You should also realize that there you are under undue scrutiny attempting to edit in the topic area that includes anything related to Jews and Israel. You should probably just give up now. However, you can see multiple essays on how to edit Misplaced Pages. Poke around for a bit and you will figure it out. Don't let militarists or propagandists (you will meet them if you haven't already) dissuade you from editing. You are also automatically assumed to be someone who knows this and will have a sockpuppet investigation opened against you. We can't fight it out since we are behind our monitors with a firewall at home and the Israelis and Palestinians can't fight it out since they are both . Thank you for your contribution, Baybars-hamimi. Please just ensure that you are taking everything you write from reliable sources (almost to the point of plagiarism) while ensuring that you don't insert your own opinion in any way. Cptnono (talk) 05:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

An article talk page is for discussing the content of the article. Please do not continue to misuse article talk pages. Thank you for your future cooperation. nableezy - 14:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't patronize me. The new user needed a better understanding so that he could contribute properly on this page. It would have been preferable if someone else would have actually explained it to him when the inquiry was first made.Cptnono (talk) 04:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Please stop disrupting this talk page. If you would like to comment on content then by all means, the floor is yours. Repeatedly casting aspersions against other editors, thinly veiled or otherwise, is not an acceptable use of the page. Again, thank you for your future cooperation. nableezy - 19:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Not a matter of patronage. You wrote a screed smearing all editors who oppose your views by suggesting the new editor will be victimized like every other I editor in the I/P area. Please note that you wrote 'everything related to Jews and Israel', proof enough that you still, after several years, don'tr understand that the topic area also deals with Palestinians and their country. Nableezy reminded you of relevant policy restrictions (NPOV,AGF).Nishidani (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Hebron in the Bible

I want to add that Hebron is mentioned 63 times in the Hebrew Bible. Where can I add it? --Baybars-hamimi (talk) 11:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It might fit into the "Israelite period" section but you need to give a source. Unfortunately the text doesn't clearly distinguish what is Biblical from what is archaeological. Zero 14:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

ok, but I see the Israeli Foreign ministry says it is mentions 87 times. I dont know where they get that from, but I saw in a Concordance 63. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Strong's Concordance says 72 times in the Hebrew. Maybe fm has a wider definition of "mentions"; it could count indirect references as well as actual appearances of the name. Zero 14:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The figure 63 is fairly frequently encountered. but we should not use gov. sources for anything covered, as this surely is, in the academic literature. Reference is particularly dense in sections dealing with the Davidic narrative, and then dies out, except for a handful of mentions, probably because Hebron, during the period of the major composition of the Tanakh was in Idumean hands. That's why the latest mention is in the first book of Maccabees, I think, telling of how Judas Maccabee sacked it. Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Are there any Idumean scriptures which mention it? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 15:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Rhetorical questions answer themselves, and, in that discipline, do not, of course, require a correspondent reply.Nishidani (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

POV tag

If anyone disagrees, that POV Cptono plunked down can be reintroduced, but the next time round, I for one would appreciate the courtesy of someone doing so listing in successive bulleted points the POV issues. I think it pointless to drop these tags in, and then disappear without any constructive record on a page.Nishidani (talk) 15:32, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

people keep removing stuff i put on, why?

I put: Describing Hebron in 1898, the Baedeker Guidebook states that travellers should avoid coming into contact with the Muslims of Hebron who are "notorious for their fanaticism," and whose children harass Christian visitors by shouting "a well-known Arabic curse." on, but was removed by somwone saying no relevance for a one year? But many other things are reported as in 1876 this in 1645 that? I am sure Baedeker was not just talking about 1898 alone anyway? If it is true we dont include the haraasemtn of people in certain suburbs of Jerusalem, so why here in Hebron? - there is alot of stuff abt haraasment today in the H1? Maybe cause it is a big thing today with big consequences, but i am sure in 1878 it also had big cosequenceses? I dont think it is right that Jewish harassment should be mentioned, while harassment of christian by muslims is delted? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 17:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I removed it. I've read that stuff on occasion myself. I think I was the first to add, from Laurens, that Hebron's islamic culture had a reputation for a fanatic edge, which is now topped by the settlers. It's not rare for members of the ultra-orthodox community to be reported for the way they almost customarily spit on, at or nearby, Christian priests and monks every other day in Jerusalem, but I'd revert anyone who tried to put that into the Jerusalem article. In the appropriate section on recent history, the violence and humiliation is chronic, overwhelmingly by settlers and the IDF, but notable instances of Palestinian violence have also been registered. So we deal with that in generic terms. Nishidani (talk) 22:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I am just wondering why there is more detail in the recent history section, about violence by both sides? I have seen googled some old books which indicate that there was once "violence and humiliation" by Muslims whcih seemed to be "chronic", (but that was in long ago when they were in charge). Why ca'nt we add more detail about that too? Also, what does "we deal with that in generic terms" mean? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 13:38, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Want tensions? Numerous books speak of a cultural rift between the old Sephardic/part Mizrahi and new Ashkenazi communities, the former integrated, the latter not, and frequently causing problems with the Arab landlords for their failure to pay rent on time, etc. etc.etc. There are dozens of things like that, if one liked to write in everything one knows and spice up the story, true of many cities, with lush tales of violence. The Christian history is neglected, be it the Russian Orthodox or early missionaries like the Scot, Alexander Paterson, and his work at the hospital, so important at the turn of the last century; or the devastating impact of Ibrahim Pasha's violence against the Arabs of Hebron, or of their long struggle to assert their autonomy against overlords. I'm far more intrigued by the mention of Jewish glassmaking in 1334, which raises the technical question: 'Where did they get their materials from, since the glassmaking attested centuries later to Arab Hebronites was deeply reliant on Bedouin traders whos presence was attested later than that date. Amin Mas'ud Abu Bakr's Qada' al-Khalil (1994) would be fundamental to a comprehensive history of the town, but no one accesses it. We need a rounded history, which is not just gore. Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Well how do we pick what bits to put in, if there are "dozens of things like that"? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 11:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, my basic prejudice is academic. I think encyclopedic articles should reflect what academic specialists on a topic write, as published by mainstream or universtity presses. This cannot apply to a good many articles where the topic is based on recent news and events. But with articles that deal with topics that have a long, and studied history, and are the focus of intense investigation, we should stick to these, with some leeway for a few sources that contain useful information which don't quite fit the bill of the strict principle above. To be readable one must hew a close line between the Scylla of gradgrindism and the Charybdis of florid narrative expatiation, to produce a readable, comprehensive survey of all major aspects of a city's history. As to what to pick, it's best to see what RS focus on, and secondly, to make proposals if one thinks one's additions might provoke controversy on the talk page. One gets a feel for what may go one after a while. WP:Undue is the guiding principle, qualified by WP:NPOV, which means over a city with 4,000 years of cosmopolitan history, great wariness should be exercised in order to avoid tilting or spinning, by the selective use of partisan elements or materials, the overall narrative one way or another. When I first looked at this page, 5 years ago, it was basically about the various Jewish communities in Hebron, and editors generally ignored the obligation to cover Arab and Christian aspects of the history. Arab violence on this, and contiguous articles, showcased that ancient population as a rabid danger by highlighting episodes like that of 1929, and underplaying the other side of the narrative. That plays into contemporary geopolitical struggles to assert primacy or hegemonic control over the narrative, and our primary obligation is to balance the mix so that the key facts are given, and not disturbed by point-scoring battles to prove a thesis, or seed a prejudice. It's a tough job to get balance, and there's much work to be done. Nishidani (talk) 12:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I see. but pleas euse simple english, as i don't understand what "Scylla of gradgrindism and the Charybdis of florid" means?! Anyway, I see written in the 1860s: "Arab-Jewish relations were good,", that is sourced to Aryeh Klien in the haaretz newpaper. What I found seems the opposite:

"The present Hebron is a large village rather than a town; it counts among its inhabitants about a hundred Jewish families, living together in a separate quarter; as, in fact, Jews, though often ill-treated, oppressed, and insulted, seem always to have lived in the town" - 1858

"But for this branch of industry, and the privilage of praying on feast days in one corner of the doorway of the great mosque of the buried Patriarchs, the Jews would probably forsake a city where they are so much oppressed -- 1862"

"Its inhabitants are chiefly Mahometans, and lay heavy contributions on the Jews, whom they not without difficulty suffer to inhabit here" -- 1838

"The women were gentle, and fine-looking. They informed me that there are four hundred Jews in Hebron, that they are very poor, and greatly oppressed, and often beaten by the Mussulmen" --1851

"I have never seen a more oppressed Jewish community than that of Hebron. The Sheik is continually asking them for money. If he contemplates an excursion, he sends to the Jews for money; if any of his friends come to visit him, he sends to the Jews for money; so that the poor people are deprived of every farthing, and are therefore in a poor and wretched condition ." -- 1873

"The most thorough examination into the present condition of the Jews at Hebron has been made by Dr Wilson, who visited the place in 1843, ....They were exceedingly oppressed by the Mohammedans, who took every course to extort money from them." --- 1865

"So fanatical are the people, and so bitter is their enmity to the Christians, that not only may they not settle in the town or district of Hebron, but it is oftentimes unsafe for Christians even to pass that way." --1874.

I thnik somehow this should be added that things were not as hunkey-dory as this page currently suggest. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Who's suggesting it was hunky-dory? I've no doubt it compared at times to what Palestinian Hebronites have had to put up with for the last forty years under Israeli and settler domination, esp. in the period covered when the aftermath of Ibrahim Pasha's devastations were in effect, clan warfare between the Dura and Hebronite lineages raged, fratricidal strife occurred, and a small community of Jews were in their midst? The dominus of the Hebron region over that span of time was 'Amr clan, esp.Abd al Rahman Amr, at least until they were deposed by an Ottoman qa'imaqam in around 1860, and half-way through his period of dominion, Rabbi Schwartz wrote that he would allow no one to ill-treat the Jews, but he (and historians relate, members of his extended family) were 'leeches' who incessantly sucked the Jewish community dry to pay for his whimsies, causing the Ashkenazim to retreat to Jerusalem (By Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, A descriptive geography and brief historical sketch of Palestine, A. Hart, 1850 pp.399-400.) The meaning is, this regional chieftain forbade hisJews to be abused by the overwhelming mass of Hebronites in any way, but his motive is simply to prey on them himself. Undoubtedly as tough as the period, to cite another example, in the early 1770s when the local Jewish community sent missions abroad pleading for financial assistance in order to survive, as they suffered from another extortionate Pasha at the time.

What you need is a general source of high quality that studies this aspect historically and neutrally. I'm not particularly pleased with our use of Shragai for that period, the only important item there is the acceptance of the Jewish person on the council (that was one of the long term effects of the Ibrahamic reforms in the 1830s). Newspapers are poor sources even for recent events. Secondly, what you have to show is the pertinence of this material for a city's history, which is far more difficult. I don't think the history of Jerusalem would allow successive citations of incidental items as you propose, nor the article on Vienna, or Warsaw, both notorious antisemitic, nor any other city article where Jews have had a significant presence. What you seem to be angling at is what Salo Wittmayer Baron spoke of, ransacking archives to find sad stories, in order to make them weave the centrepiece of an identity narrative, in an article dealing with a city. We can't have every jot and tittle of grief or injustice recorded for an historically exiguous sector of its population. An Arab might claim with some justification that the whole article is both eurocentric and Judeocentric, since for most of its history it has been pagan or islamic, and sources prioritise only what interests Christians or Jews in a kind of systemic bias. Nishidani (talk) 16:28, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the rectnt history of this article is Arab-Israeli conflict-centric. there is so much devoted to that subject for lets say 20 years (in the paralel rule section) while for 250 years of byzantine rule only 2 lines? I am inclined to cut down the relevant sections and move it to Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron. i see most of it is tehre already. Here we need a brief aaccount, not so detailed, you agree? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There is a bias in sources, which dictate what weight we give to sections. There is absolutely no doubt that the history sections are imbalanced, but that is for lack of adequate sources that would allow us to expand them. As to the recent period, I agree that it should be pared down, but that can't be done quickly or easily. I've been mulling how to do it for over a year, and still cannot see my way through to a succincter version, with the excerpted material removed to the subpage if it is not present there. One thing is sure. Before we do cut it back, we should make suggestions in a separate section, and agree what may go without loss before removing anything. This should be done collaboratively, and not unilaterally given the I/P area's noted fondness for edit-warring. I'll set up a separate section, and you can begin to provide suggestions, bulleted, as to what you think can or should be removed. Nishidani (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Newbie disturbance

This edit, aside by being made by someone who just registered who came straight to this article. is suspicious. The original edit here wrote 'found about twenty (or eighty) Jewish families living there, and I changed this to twenty for the simple reason that Kosover's translation does not make that deduction. The book (p.5) reads:

in Hebron "are living no more than about twenty (eighty) Jewish families"

What that 80 means is not clear. It could be a manuscript alteration or gloss on 20, correcting it. It could reflect an ambiguity in the text between 20 or 80: it could reflect the estimated number of members constituting 20 families. It is nonsense to say no more than twenty and then bracket it with an alternative figure four times that guess, and it is certainly very odd that an eyewitness can allow a range of error 4 times his first figure which he says grammatically was the upper limit. In Gaza the same author says "about fifty (or sixty) Jewish families", by contrast (a minor and comprehensible margin of error). Given this ambiguity, neither Baybars nor the newbie can deduce the significance of that bracketed 80 (WP:OR). That is the technical reason I have it out (certainly not to repress anything). We go by RS, not by inferences.Nishidani (talk) 10:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I see Nishidani removed another thing, ie. "(or eighty)" from what I added yesterday. I see the reason s/he says why, ie. we don’t know what it means. But since this is in the book, I think we should have it say exactly as in the book (not as I added "or" eighty - i,e, what I thought it meant). AS the book does say "80" we should leave it and let the reader draw there own conclusion. As it is a translation, I would like to know why there is this different number being shown. I will search for a Hebrew version and see what they say.

I also saw that Nishidani added "palestinan jewish community" to what volterra reported. But that is not said in the book I found this. It is a bit odd to say that, i.e "Palestinain". They are not acutually Palestinian, but Jews, maybe Spanish. I think they should be just called jewish community. --Baybars-hamimi (talk) 12:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

By all means check the original, but remember Zero's advice. There are technical difficulties (I see them all the time) in correcting a secondary source by a personal cross-check of the original (if only because most editors then have to take someone's word for it. I'd personally be delighted however if you could check it, and get back to us here. I'm fine with sticking with the wording of the original, which mean replacing your about with no more than twenty (80) in Kosover. I wished to do this, actually, but couldn't, because we are on a 1R rule, and though I don't understand it well, usually if I make two edits to the same section within 24 hours even if in a good scholarly cause, some folks pop the champagne corks, denounce me, and call for a permaban, since they think editing here is an extension of the local war in that region.:)

As to your second point, in historical works, the area when described in the past is referred to customarily as Palestine. The sages born there ar "Palestinian Jewish sages" in academic jargon, for instance. But I'll check Kosover.Nishidani (talk) 12:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Re the addition Palestinian Jewish community read up the page (Kosover) where the writer introduces the demographics of Jerusalem, Gaza, Hebron etc. for that period by saying the whole Jewish community in Palestine was small.

The only problem there is that the phrasing is awkward.

The Italian traveller, Meshulam of Volterra (1481) found the Palestinian Jewish community, with between twenty and eighty families living in Hebron and recounted how the Jewish women of Hebron would disguise themselves with a veil in order to pass as Muslim women and enter the Cave of the Patriarchs without being recognized as Jews

should be slightly adjusted to read:-

The Italian traveller, Meshulam of Volterra (1481) found the Palestinian Jewish community in Hebron to consist of no more than twenty (80) families and recounted how Hebron's Jewish women would disguise themselves with a veil in order to pass as Muslim women and enter the Cave of the Patriarchs without being recognized as Jews

Surely your suggestion they might be Spanish Jews is anachronistic? The expulsion of the Spanish Jews took place 11 years after Meshullam of Volterra's report. The Sephardic immigration into Palestine began under the Ottoman dispensation. The Almohads of course, if we can judge by Maimonides' travails, and travels, caused an outflow of Sephardic Jewry south and eastward over three centuries earlier. Is that what you mean? I would have thought they were elements of the Musta'arabim communities, whose presence testifies to continuity in Hebron, and validates a certain POV. I know the modern narrative bias is to merge all of the extraordinarily diverse, culturally and linguistically, Jewish populations of the world into one community is strong. It's dying out in scholarship, as opposed to newspapers and genetic articles.Nishidani (talk) 12:45, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for paring down the modern section

Please excerpt material which editors propose may be dispensed with here and transferred to the relevant subpage concerning the period following the settlement after 1968

Again someone moved what I added

I added to the first part that Hebron is a "Jewish" city. and it has been delted! They said that is cause it is now 2012, not 1864. But if you look at the source, it says it is controlled by Muslims and very little Jews but is still described as a jewish town. So what could it mean? And why cant we say what is says in this book? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 15:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The IP editor changed the opening sentence to say that Hebron "is a Palestinian Jewish city", with edit summary stating that it was a "Jewish city in 1864 accroding to this bishop". As Hebron is a town in existence at present time, it is reasonable for the opening sentence to say what it is today. And you can't do that based on a source published over a hundred years ago. --Frederico1234 (talk) 16:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Well please explain what "Though subject to Mohammedan control, Hebron is a thoroughly Jewish city. The population is estimated at 10,000, 500 of whom are Polish Jews." means then. 10,000 or 100,000 arabs & 500 jews - it is still "a thoroughly Jewish city". why? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 10:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, the source refers to Hebron of 1864, which means it is quite outdated for describing present day Hebron. The quality of the source is irrelevant as it's simply too old. --Frederico1234 (talk) 11:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Please familiarise yourself with wiki core policies, Baybars. Your edit violates WP:Undue and exemplifies WP:fringe POV pushing. A self-contradictory remark (5% of a population transforms the culture and identity of the 95% other ethnic group, into the minority identity) made by an American Methodist Episcopal bishop after a day or two in a foreign city one and a half centuries ago does not constitute evidence for anything other than the gentleman's peculiar cast of mind.Nishidani (talk) 11:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Baybars. I’ve removed Laurent d'Arvieux, it says nothing not already present in the text, and the only point in citing that appears to be to add one more source that might accentuate the difficulties of the Jewish community. There are many sources for that, but we are not writing a history of Jewish oppression and angst in Hebron, but the history of the city. I think we need some organization here, by creating a section heading which gives the details, successively, of Jewish develops from the early 1500s down to the mid 1800s. Otherwise narrative flow is destroyed by a text that keeps interleaving a history with items about one community, and makes for awkwardly disjointed reading.

(b) I’ve reedited the section on the Maccabees. What you did was plunk in a tertiary source remark for its value as asserting ‘the city was reclaimed as a Jewish town’ which the following secondary source by a specialist denies, if you read it. Uptodate specialist sources are to be preferred to dated encyclopaedic entries, and even then, adding ‘stuff’ without an eye to the disruptions that may arise in context is poor editing.Nishidani (talk) 13:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Arvieux removed because of duplication of material?

Nishidani has removed a blob from a descritipn given in 1659 b/c: " it says nothing not already present in the text". What I can see new is the following stuff:

• "A castle now stands on its highest elevation" - that is nowhere mentioned
• "They admit into it neither wine nor brandy. Water is the only drink." - also not mentioned (it is actually this bit I found and wanted to add, but on further investigation found that he had more to say about the town)
• The district is "fertile and fruitful"
• The grapes are carried to Jerusalem, and make good wine"
• The raisins "are as yellow as gold, and of exquisite flavour"
• "glass of all colours" and "flower-vases"

It also happens to say the locals "lay heavy contributions on the few Jews whom they, not without difficulty, suffer to inhabit here." That is not mentioned that it happened in the 17th cent. either?

I don't want to have sections here about "Jewish development", it is as you say, for the whole city. If someone wants, they can make a separate page about the Jewish history of Hebron, not here. Here we just a bits and bobs which are significant to all communites. By the way there are two massive paragrpah in the Islamic era, and the second one repeats somethings which are said it the top one??!!

Later it says "n the early 18th-century, the Jewish community suffered from heavy debts, almost quadrupling from 1717 to 1729" but nowhere did it mention that this was probably due to "heavy contributions" or extortion. Thank goodness you left that bit ("n the 1760s, Hebron's Jews were "almost crushed" from the extortion practiced by the Turkish pashas.") or did you miss it?! Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:30, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Please read the article, most of those observations are already there. I don't think your editing illustrates you an interest in the whole city. Nearly everything you see reflects a settler narrative, rather than a scholarly narrative. You've even put into the history section a section on Creation, I hope with a smile, if not a smirk. I'll have to fix that tomorrow.

There are dozens of mentions of the poverty of the Jewish community there and all over Palestine, which subsisted basically on handouts raised from philanthropists in the diaspora (Tzedakah), . The sheiks certainly extorted monies, as the Bedouin exacted 'taxes' on travellers. But the troubles of the community can't be assigned to 'greedy Arabs', if only because in feudal times everyone in these villages was subject to outrageous extortions or demands by the reigning power, and reading it ethnically suits a contemporary POV. Letters were regularly sent assistance. Many migrated to both Jerusalem and Hebron late in life out of a religious desire to die there, and had no independent means for a dignified life above the sheer poverty line. The productive rooted, agricultural communities form part of a much later history. Primary texts are useless in this regard since they spin for the readership a visit for pious ends, to entreat donations. One needs not primary sources, but a good economic history dealing with the overall situation of these communities in a neutral, evaluative scholarly way, like Jacob Barnay's The Jews in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century. Jewish communities all over the mediterranean from Venice to Salonika to Istambul taxed themselves, or fined malfactors in their midst, or their consumption of wine in order to provide funds for These exist, and save us all of this primary source documentation.

So, please try to use, as per the page examples, academic sources, format them correctly, and deal with the generalities rather than seeding the text with partial lachrimose data.Nishidani (talk) 15:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Canaanite royal city? Yes or no?

Currently it says "Hebron was originally a Canaanite royal city." but nerdmans dict. says "Extrabiblical evidence suggests that Hebron may have been a Canaanite royal city." So was it or wasn't it? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Enjoyed the pun about Nerd-mans. Nothing in ancient history is known for certain, we only have probabilities. There are several strong sources that assert it was. Our source uses 'may'. Either one adopts those sources which better reflect the language used, or one alters the text in accordance with the Eerdmans' source to read 'Hebron may have been a royal city of the Canaanites.' Whether it was or not shouldn't interest editors.

You added in the biblical date for Hebron's foundation. That should be removed as trivia or legend. Archeologists establish that, digs show it a thousand years older, and what the late writers of biblical legends wrote, and later generations calculated about time lines, is neither here nor there. The bible is not a reliable source except for its own stories. Nishidani (talk) 21:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, acc. to Nadav Naʼaman in Canaan in the 2nd Millennium B.C.E. - Page 183, "The Hebron tablet clearly indicates that the site was the center of an independent kingdom and that the king mentioned therein was the king of Hebron." And should we ignore Leonard H. Lesko who said in 1998 that "the Hebron tablet was found in salvage excavations and has no firm archaeological context as so far published."? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

So, what has that to do with the price of fish?Nishidani (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Jews prevented from living in Hebron in 1860s

It says: One former IDF soldier, with experience in policing Hebron, has testified to Breaking the Silence, that on the briefing wall of his unit a sign describing their mission aim was hung that read: "To disrupt the routine of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.". I want to add "In the 1860s it was said that Muslim intolerance prevented many Jews from settling in Hebron." Is that okay>? Based on (and i actually want to add something from that about david's poll, then I found this) Baybars-hamimi (talk) 14:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

No. It was written by a Christian evangelical traveller who regarded all Islamic presences as a 'Mohammadan desolation' and whose only historic guide was the Bible and is not a reliable source for this, as opposed to a statement of what Randall thought in 1862. We are now in a position to document much of the history of Hebron from secondary scholarly sources, (c) you appear to be trying to present a defence of recent events by recourse to negative examples in past Muslim Hebronite behaviour, and we don't do that kind of thing in an encyclopedia (d) what Randall wrote as a passerby is denied by details we already have,i.e.four years later:

Hungarian Jews of the Karlin Hasidic court settled in another part of the city in 1866. Arab-Jewish relations were good, and Alter Rivlin, who spoke Arabic and Syrian-Aramaic, was appointed Jewish representative to the city council.Nishidani (talk) 15:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

There is no reason to exclude the words of contemporary travelers, properly attributed of course. It's somewhat amsuing (though not surprising) that material from someone who's not an historian (or even an academic) is used in an attempt to disprove what people at the time said. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

(a) Contemporary travellers have a thousand opinions. We've used some, where necessary, with an eye to their scholarly interests in Palestine (b)The piously evangelical text in question begins by lamenting the 'Moslem desolation' of the Holy Land. Do you put that in as well? (c) Shragai was reviewing two history books. (d) in context, the remark 1862 contradicts the evidence immediately after it. That is POV pastiche editing (e) the aim of this page is to strive wherever for the best sources, grounded in academic histories wherever possible. I'm not happy with Shragai either, but he lives there, and reads books, Randall past through in 2 days, and the only Muslim he mentions was the woman who prepared their dinner.Next we'll be citing Joe Blow on the I/P conflict because he stayed at the Hilton for a day.Nishidani (talk) 07:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Shragai was quoting from a book written by an academic who's an expert in the field? Not as far as I've been able to dig up. Do you have any other information? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 07:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Anecdotal comment from a casual visitor with no reputation as an observer. Nope. Zero 08:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

@ NMMNG :

In an article no information can be added from a primary source. It has to be corroborted from a secondary reliable source. More, the way to introduce the information depends what other reliable secondary sources say about it.

In a discussion about the removal of potentially dubious content, primary material can be used to argue for the removal (and argue that the secondary source that is used would not be reliable) but this is not a strong argument. Secondary reliable sources will always be better.

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

By the way, there are several other questionable edits here, but I'll wait until Baybars is through before addressing them. But the 1775 'blood libel' incident requires clarification from a better source. Blood libel has a very specific meaning, and appears to be used generically in the two sources for any accusation a Jew murdered someone, as opposed to a Jew murdering someone for ritual ends. Blood libels as at Damascus usually ended in slaughter. The sheikh at that time, from memory, was notorious for his rapacity. The community had just received charity funds after an appeal for them that began in the early 1770s. The issue needs clarification from strong sources, otherwise the gloss on it as blood libel should be removed. Nishidani (talk) 11:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of primary sources, most of whom are travelers, already in the article. Frankly, I don't really care specifically about this one. I do care about the attempt to whitewash how the Jews were treated. The article saying they were treated well is simply ahistorical nonsense. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:05, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, travelers' tales are primary sources. But they aren't all the same. Some travelers (like Robinson, Guerin, the SWP guys, etc) were serious observers who are frequently cited by scholars. Others are unknown and uncelebrated, and there's no reason to be kinder to them than we would be to a random modern tourist who passed through briefly. Regarding the situation of the Hebron Jews, it is easy to find sources with both positive and negative remarks. Obviously we should aim for balance. Zero 00:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, balance is needed. In the article at present we have: "Israeli organization B'Tselem states that there have been "grave violations" of Palestinian human rights in Hebron because of the "presence of the settlers within the city." The organization cites regular incidents of "almost daily physical violence and property damage by settlers in the city", curfews and restrictions of movement that are "among the harshest in the Occupied Territories", and violence and by Israeli border policemen and the IDF against Palestinians who live in the city's H2 sector." against "almost crushed from the extortion practiced by the Turkish pashas" and "with a strong tradition of hostility to Jews." Ie. there is alot of description about how the arabs of today are persecuted, but very little about Jews who were persecuted in the past. I have tried to add this, but each time it is removed or not allowed. It would be good if there was Betzelem in 1868. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 12:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is, this page is not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is about Hebron the city, its culture and institutions. To try to 'balance' the extremely meticulously documented eyewitness reports of what has taken place since 1967, in 45 years of military occupation, with what took place over a thousands years is quite pointless. The Hebronite Jews were historically a 'tiny minority', divided into sects - the Karaites themselves were ill-regarded by orthodox Jews, and, in modern times, split in a strong religious-cultural divide, and not one community, who shared little between them. There's abundant information on this divide. I don't use it, but I think retroactive attempt to 'imagine' a cohesive unified Jewish community (like any retroactive identitarian reconstruction, historically misleading) and pages can't be manipulated to push that fiction. We have, for the 'tiny minority' more details for certain periods than for the large Arab majority, because, unfortunately the detailed Arab histories of Hebron are not available, and this too troubles the page. Turkish pashas extorted money from everyone, Arabs included. A Turkish pasha drafted 700 reluctant Hebronites into his army, and 500 were decimated. Authorities treated most of their subjects with contempt as often as not, and to single out on ethnic grounds a minority and frame everything that happened to them as explainable in terms of oppressed Jews vs. oppressive Arab (or Turk) is intensely boring and POV-driven. Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

In this case it may well be needed to make a separate page about history of the Jews in Hebron. But I wouldn't remove all mention of the communtiy in this page. Just cause we don't have material for arab history available, should not mean we leave out availabe Jewish history. Isn't that what you mean by defending the inclusion of so much of the last 45 years - just becasue it is abilable and well documented we have so much detail? What we know should be included, what we don't - too bad. I think maybe we should provide the same amount of detail for each period. If there is breif early history, then the modern history on this page should also be breif, not elongated. If the modern period is very detailed, we should strive to provide detail for earlier periods too. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 10:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani said: "We have, for the 'tiny minority' more details for certain periods than for the large Arab majority" and that this "troubles the page". Also "this page is not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is about Hebron the city, its culture and institutions". But look: This is also the situation in the modern part: 1967-1995 has more details for the 500 settlers, than the thousands of arabs, i.e the "minority" is given most room (is this also "troubling"?). Also, 1997-2012 has more about persecution of 30,000 arabs (16% of the town) than about the majority rest of H1 (130,000), again, delaing mainly with "minority". In 1500s, Jews were 16% of taxable inhabitants, and you complain it gets "more detail". Yet, so much detail is devoted to settlers/30,000 arabs in modern period - i.e the parellel rule bit deals only with the "tiny minority" -18% of the town - why is this not a problem? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 12:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

You focus on a policy at a time, while ignoring how encyclopedias, like this, are written, in terms of several leading policy guidelines. One writes articles optimally from RS which have studied this violent stand-off in great detail,(the 'bias' is in the RS) while we have few reliable books on things which should interest the page. The modern settler presence, though small, has made a huge impact on Hebronite life. The old yishuv had no impact at all on Hebron or its general institutional culture. Nishidani (talk) 13:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I really doubt there are not enough books about other things about Hebron. Are you saying we only have books about the conflcit for the 30 years of israeli rule that we have to dedicate 100% to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the "israeli rule" section? (that was until I added 12% about the arab elections and mayor). I think it was added by people who wanted us to think Hebron is only about Israeli occupation, nothing else. How sad. First you complain that Jews were the minority, so we should not have so much about them. Then the problem is they made no impact, so we should ignore them too. It seems you will always have an answer! Look: This is not only about adding things which have made an impact. It is about things of interest, and though you may feel it is boring, I find it of great interest that the Jews in 1774 were rounded up and held in fear of their lives for 24hrs and then had 10 boys selected to be killed as retribution, and who were saved at the last monment, and were impoverished as a result and probably left the town soon after. The harrasement that casused a tiny minority of Arab shops in hebron to close in 2012 is just as significant as the impact harassment made to 18th century Jews. I know we dont have colour photos to prove it or websites devoted to the subject - but it happened, and we should not be trying to stifle it. Tell me, did Mr Ezra really make such an impact on the town during "british rule" that you devote 14% (prev. 18%) of the paragrpah just about him? Baybars-hamimi (talk) 13:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

There are substantial Arab histories of the city, and we use none. That is the single great failing of this article. It awaits someone who can edit directly from these neglected but indispensable historical works on the city. I don't 'complain' Jews were in the minority. I said, historically, the city has deep symbolic importance in Jewish tradition, but has hardly, unlike Jerusalem, anything to bear witness to that. It has, over time, rarely had any notable Jewish imprint on its landscape. The Jewish community from medieval to recent times was, according to all traveller reports, chronically impoverished, and not because of Turkish extortions alone. Most were small pious groups either settling to spend their last years there, or to practice their faith in a holy city. They lived on handouts. Elliott Horowitz at Bar-Ilan reviews Jewish historiography argues that it developed a strong penchant for digging up details of prior woes in order to 'contextualize' as unfortunate but 'understandable' any poor behaviour by them later (614 at Jerusalem etc). His colleague Ariel Toaff has a similar line. Your point seems to be, 'sure, things are tough for Arabs (see the post-1967 section) but they had it coming. We were treated brutally in 1773/5 and 1929. I don't think one should approach encyclopedic articles that way. Any city's history, if written that way, would be markedly different. At London we would register the massacres under Richard Lionheart, at Paris the Dreyfus affair, at York we have the 1190 massacre, but nothing else. The list could be exapanded to whatever city Jews, or any other minority, dwelt in. Get the point?Nishidani (talk) 14:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you have twice previously compared this page to Jerusalem. Yet despite all the human rights violation and terrible conditions faced by arabs in East Jerusalem in some quarters, ie. Silwan, there is nothing about this anywhere there. Why so much here then?

You did not answer why you agree to give so much space to Ezra and the rabbis either. And why are you happy to promote use of Arab histories which have not been mentioned in secondary sources?

I would also not compare capital cities to the village that Hebron was at the time. And provincial European towns should have a healthy helping of their minority Jewish presence, be it put the Christian in a bad light or not.

The medieval Arabs also did not leave a notable imprint on its landscape? Or did they - what was it? That they instituted the table of Abraham and an edict preventing non-Muslims from the cave? The Islamic, Crusader and Ayyubid and Mamluk rule sections are mainly consisting of what empire was in control of the whole of Palestine. Very little about the town itself. Instead we have Islamic fairy tales presented as fact, that the Prophet “alighted” in Hebron during his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. Guess what: his shoe fell off and someone put it in a mosque. (Muhammed did not visit Hebron, neither did his shoe ever make it there.) Baybars-hamimi (talk) 16:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

1775 Hebron Blood Libel - or not?

It Arab attitudes to Israel, by Yehoshafat Harkabi - 1974 - Page 270, says "Such a libel in Jerusalem and Hebron is described by Bezalel Landau ("The Blood Libel in Jewish History," Mahanayim. No. 80)." but he makes a point that it was not an accusation that they used the blood for ritual. Nevertheless, I looked in B landau in the hebrew orig. and he does use "blood libel":

עלילת דם אירעה לפני כ- 200 שנה גם בחברון, ובאיגרת משנת תקל"ה מסופר על עלילת דם לכל פרטיה ודקדוקיה:

"המוסלמים העלילו על תושבי חברון היהודים, שהם אשמים בהריגת בנו של השייח הגדול מלך הארץ, והטמנתו בבור שופכים. השייח הסגיר את כל היהודים במקום אחד, טף ונשים לנקום נקם - - - ונשארנו סגורים כ"ד שעות - - - ונגמר הדין כי השייח יבחר לו עשרה נפשות מישראל, ויטביעם במקום אשר נמצא בנו - - - ותיכף בא השייח ויבחר לו עשרה בחורים מבחר הצאן לעשות בהם משפט כתוב", ורק בחסדי ה' ניצלו מידו. --Baybars-hamimi (talk) 23:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Harkabi's not enough. The use of that kind of polemical language is very slipshod in a certain vein of general literature. I have a lot of good books on blood libel, and this doesn't fit the description of it. Nishidani (talk) 09:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC) (hurrah. I can sign this page!)

Why is Harkabi not enough? Your private opinion about the language he's using notwithstanding, of course. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I have found some more, hopefully acceptable sources:

"When the son of a local sheikh mysteriously disappeared in 1773, Hebron Jews were slandered by a blood libel that falsely accused them of murdering him." (Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel - Page 45, Jerold S. Auerbach - 2009)

"Various prohibitions, the ban on bachelors under sixty years of age from settling in Jerusalem, the continual wars in the forties and in the seventies, and the libel in Hebron in 1773 also caused many people to leave the country" (The Jews in Palestine in the eighteenth century: under the ... - Page 32, Y. Barnay – 1992)

"There was no improvement during the 18th century, which was marked by disease, decrees of expulsion, a blood libel, and upheavals during the rebellion of Ali Bey" (Encyclopaedia Judaica - Volume 8 - Page 747 Fred Skolnik, Michael Berenbaum - 2007)

Hopegully these sources will allow us to use the term and keep mention of this unfortunate event in the article. We may have to change the date from 1775 to 1773, though. I looked at Blood libel and it says that the early blood libels did not include the thing that they drained the blood to use for passover bread - that was only later and is on egyptain TV a few years ago. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 12:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

A blood libel is not a libel, or false accusation. A blood libel occurs when Jews are accused of killing for ritual purposes, namely to obtain blood that is then putatively used for some magico-religious end. If all false accusations against Jews concerning murder are 'blood libels' the term loses its specific gravity. Nishidani (talk) 13:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Please explain in terms of wikipedia policy why you think the above two sources can't be used, not in terms of your private opinion. You don't accept that kind of stuff from other people so should stop doing so yourself. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

When sources, none of them particularly good on an obscure historical event, use a term rhetorically for a POV effect, and violate the nature meaning of a term (see Blood libel) in order to give an unhistorical and political slant to an article, then best practice and commonsense means you avoid it. None of the sources cited give any evidence that the extortion for the murder involved a charge that the Jews of Hebron used the blood of the murdered man for ritual purposes. Tell me where wikipedia condones the incorrect and slanted use of passionate language as conformable to the criteria of WP:NPOV? A huge fuss was made at Jerusalem over the meaning of the word "capital" to defend its use there as defined in a dictionary, irrespective of POV. You supported that, I think. The dictionary meaning was sufficient. Here, you appear to think I must justify in terms of policy my refusal to accept a solecistic use of the word 'blood libel'. Some coherence.Nishidani (talk) 21:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Please also note the conflict in dates in the sources, 1773 (Auerbach, Barnay, etc.) or 1775 (Ben-Gurion, Louis Finkelstein)? We're asked to accept sources for a blood libel in Hebron, when the sources cannot even get such a basic thing as the date correct, left alone the correct meaning of the word? ('We may have to change the date from 1775 to 1773, though.')

I looked at Blood libel and it says that the early blood libels did not include the thing that they drained the blood to use for passover bread - that was only later and is on egyptain TV a few years ago.

Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source. If you wish to know about blood libels and their historical depth, read Ariel Toaff. He's a better source than Egyptian tv.Nishidani (talk) 21:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You regularly accuse people of "blogging" or stating their private opinion when they make arguments like you did above. You're the last person to talk about lack of coherence.

Is Jerold S. Auerbach a reliable source for the history of the Jews in Hebron? Is Encyclopaedia Judaica? Don't tell me that you personally think they're using the wrong term because I could not possibly care less. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You have a problem with me. Every time you address my remarks, you can't avoid making personal comments on what you perceive to be my manner or defects. If the tick continues, seek help somewhere. It's in patent violation of wiki protocols. Otherwise drop it and stick to the point.

Auerbach's that accurate that he even says the British Mandatory authorities were Muslims, without realizing the implications of one of many stupid generalizations he makes in a field he has no sure grip on, other than identitarian political defensiveness over Hebron and contempt for Arabs.

I asked two questions. Blood libel is used in these several sources loosely, and not in the proper sense. The sources are in conflict over the date. You can use no source until you establish which date is the correct one. If you don't 'care less' about getting details right, then consider going somewhere else, rather than trying to supervise an encyclopedia committed to accuracy, or trying tediously to annoy people.Nishidani (talk) 13:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

According to this, Jerold S. Auerbach is Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College. Mr. Auerbach taught courses on the United States in the twentieth century, the history of freedom of speech, and the history of Israel. His book about the history of the Jews in Hebron was published by Rowman & Littlefield, which among other things publishes professional and scholarly books throughout the humanities and social sciences.

He is a reliable source according to wikipedia standards. Your friend Nableezy recently taught me that if a reliable source says something that might not be 100% accurate, and no reliable source contradicts it, it can go in articles. The guys at RS/N concurred. I, as usual, follow Nableezy's lead on how the rules work. So you can stop telling me why you personally think Auerbach is wrong as that's completely irrelevant and find a reliable source that explicitly contradicts him.

That two sources conflict about the date does not disqualify both. We put both possible dates in the article. That's what you'd have insisted we do if we were talking about information you liked, and that's what we should do here. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

If you would like to follow the venerable Nableezy's lead, you may want to consider whether two sentences in a 223 page book merits the weight the two sentences currently given in this relatively, compared to the book on one aspect of Hebron's history, short article. Would you care for some direction? Hell, a page earlier an entire paragraph is devoted to the friendship between a rabbi and a pastor. Nishidani, I suggest taking this to WP:NPOV/N and getting outside input on whether or not this merits even a mention here. Does a throw away reference to a blood libel in a 200+ page book merit two sentences in this article? I dont think so. nableezy - 19:34, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying that if something is mentioned only once in a large book it shouldn't be included? That's interesting, I can work with that. Could you be a bit more specific though? I wouldn't want to err while I apply this rule to some other stuff. You have noticed that more than one RS mentions this, right? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I am not saying that. I am saying that this is a top-level article and should be treated as such with the less notable events being moved to more specific articles. I think this could go in any number of articles on the basis of that mention in a large book. But this article? Not so much. If many sources that discuss the history of Hebron discuss this issue then that would support the idea that it should be noted in our history of Hebron. But as far as I can tell that isnt true. Right now, this off-hand mention gets as much detail as the murder of 29 worshiping Muslims. You really think that is right? nableezy - 20:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

That would make sense if there was a History of Hebron article. But there isn't. Which of the any number of more specific articles do you think this would belong in? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 00:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Make that article. Simple enough. I didnt say that the articles this would fit in, in my view, currently exists, now did I? nableezy - 03:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC) nableezy - 03:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

You can do better than that. Once again, this time with feeling. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 04:29, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The so-called reliable sources contradict themselves on the date. The fact that Jews were extorted by the use of slander is all that needs noting.

Look. The amount of historical, academic documentation on Israeli violence in Hebron is a thousand times more detailed in incident and event than what a trawling in the historical literature for a thousand years of the minute Jewish settlement there. I've exercised great restraint in not' making a havoc of the page by exploiting what I know to make this some gambit in the I/P area. All I see recently is misery-stacking, scraping the barrel. I recently saw an edit making it a terrorist central for suicide. Well I have several sources documenting that a decade earlier it was the major centre for Jewish West Bank terrorism with Kach INC foundational leaders grounded there. I don't put that in. It's called sober neutral judgement that focuses on the history of a town, amd does not do research to scrap up ammo for the ideological battles that two in every three sources throw our way.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You're joking, right? The sections for Israeli rule and Palestinian rule, that cover about 45 years, focus mainly on the hardship Palestinians suffer due to the settlers, and combined are almost the same size as the Ottoman rule section, which covers around 450 years. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I am sure that the dispute among the dates arises from the conversion of the Hebrew year into the secular date. The Hebrew year given in many Hebrew sources is תקל'ה which overlaps 1774/1775. The month may not still exist, so we don’t know which corresponding year it is in. But this date itself may be inaccurate as it may have been gotten from a letter appealing for help which apparently was written a year or a few months after the occurrence, hence some sources backdate it to 1773. That’s my OR. I think Nishidani’s has a good argument and we should think about accepting his/er OR here. Maybe we should indeed ignore these sources which are either “polemical language is very slipshod in a certain vein of general literature”, or “none of them particularly good on an obscure historical event” or inaccurate and stupid. We have to use our common sense! If nowadays the meaning means to kill the child to use his blood for passover bread or to mix into sacremental wine, that seems not to have been the case in 1773/4/5, when they were accused of just kiling him for fun and tossed his body into the common cesspit. I think they may have used the term beacuase his was a child. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 16:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair input. Check the origin of the phrase 'blood libel' (b) The practices attributed to Jews (and Christians in the early Roman empire), and constituting blood libel, are ancient and in medieval times the accusation was made frequently against Ashkenazi Jews. Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Just because

"The amount of historical, academic documentation on Israeli violence in Hebron is a thousand times more detailed in incident and event than what a trawling in the historical literature for a thousand years of the minute Jewish settlement there."

does not mean we should just ignore violence of yesteryear in Hebron. It would be very wrong. We should try and include as much as is necessary, especially because it is not as well documented. In my opinion, the article only includes bits about the settlemtns and its problems in the bit for the modern history! So we ignore the other 80% of the town, and devote the modern history section to the settlers only? What is going on here?! From Israeli rule to I-P rule, there is no history besides the jewish settlers???!! This is silly. I cant believe it has been so for so long! I think the whole situation should be summed up in a few sentanecs, not paragraphs. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 21:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

And yet one rarely mentioned instance of a "libel" merits multiple sentences? Come off it. nableezy - 21:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

We mention it because it seems a significant occurance. And I feel we have to, because just like everyday there is settler violence, and we have so much to represent that, every day in history there was similar harassment against Jews, so we can add a little here and there to give the picture. I guess we could just say "and the (blood) libel in 1774", but why not spend a few more words to detail it more? Thats what Nishidani did with Mr Ezra say how well he merged in "with his friends!" (actuall he was a haganah spy) and for wanting to provide the names of the three rabbis involved in the Hebron Yeshiva. Why do they deserve mention on a page about a town where the Jews were minute %age and where they headed but just one institution of that community? I thought at first that was overdoing it a bit, but it seems not? I have read the original letter that was sent abroad for help and it seems this accusation was a significant event, hence why Barnay lists as one of the main reasons that caused Jews to leave the country, and we have enough already here about the ghost town and the Arabs just leaving settler area. That is significant, why not this? I cant beleive this caused so much feedback here. If this is the case with everything I add, I may just give up now. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 10:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

History often tells us little. And when we have little to go by, we do not seize on a partisan spin of an obscure event in order to write a lachrymose account (Salon Wittmayer Baron's description of how much Jerwish history used to be written, as a tale of victims. The best scholarship in Israel is more confident, and doesn't churn the whingeing quern). As to 1773/5, we have as yet no good secondary source, by which one understands, a scholar who has reviewed the primary evidence (Auerbach hasn't apparently) and made his informed call on the event. We simply have a meme, spun as 1773 or 1775, repeated in synthetic sources that, on the face of it, spin an incident involving extortion in terms of the popular blood libel label used loosely in polemical histories. Blood libels characteristically inflame a population and lead to revenge killings and the destruction of property, another thing (so far) unattested. I see you have your local sources in the Hebronite community from your remarks about Ezra. If you buy my argument about undue, then the whole article collapses because, aside from an exiguous presence, they have virtually no historical presence in the city from some centuries BCE down to modern times. I've done my best to attest to that presence, but in any neutral gaze, the case you are making is full of (a) just so fairy tales from Babylonia weaving folk stories as if they were history (there are none of the Biblical 'patriarchs' in the tomb) (b) some heretics from Cairo (the Karaites) and then a low flux of people from the 16th century. The city has been Pagan, Roman, Byzantine and Arab for most of its history. Despite that, we bend the rules to document the Jewish presence because of its mythical value in Jewish traditions. But if your idea is one of rewriting this 'history' as one of terror, then you are not being encyclopedic, but rather trying to give the slant friends in Hebron give to the place.Nishidani (talk) 12:32, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not this “rewriting” Hebron’s Jewish history as one of terror – for indeed it was just that, a history of miserable existence under unbearable Arab and Turkish yoke – why else do you think they seemingly had “virtually no historical presence in the city from some centuries BCE down to modern times” – it is because they were persecuted and not tolerated there:

”The old rabbi talked to me how he had left his country in Europe many years before, and come with his wife and children to lay their home in the Holy Land. He was now eighty years old; and for 30 years, he said, he had lived with the sword suspended over his head; had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecution, he never knew at what moment the bloodhounds might not be let loose upon him; that, since the country had been wrested from the Sultan by the Pacha of Egypt, they had been comparatively safe and tranquil; though some idea may be formed of this comparative security from the fact that during the revolution two years before, Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath descended was the unhappy Hebron; and while their guilty brethren were sometimes spared, the unhappy Jews, never offending, but always suffering, received full weight of Arab vengeance. Their houses were ransacked and plundered: their gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried away, and their wives and daughters violated before their eyes by a brutal soldiery.” (1853)

Not even the above event deserved a link according to you: () when it was clear the uninvolved Jews were earmarked for specific attack by government forces and it was not merely an "obscure event". There is no good reason whatsoever to whitewash such information in this article, be Jews a minority, be they of no general significance, be they lachrymose in nature. That you feel we have to include it as a favour is rather offensive. Should I complain about how the recent history section deals solely with the lachrymose nature of the Palestinian lives in H2? Does nothing else happen in Hebron beside settlers chucking rubbish onto netting? I can’t understand why it is of great importance that we note a rather “obscure” fact that on one Purim, some children dressed as a terrorist? I am sure tens of children dress as terrorist in Hams parades in the city, Has any scholar made an informed call on this specific phenomena of settler kids dressing as a terrorist? Talk about partisan spin……. Baybars-hamimi (talk) 16:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, so, as I said, you have a grievance and a theory, and you are editing to put that over. A Hebron Jewish folk tale says that the community, importuned by Jerusalem emissaries to give a substantial sum of money for the mikvah of redeeming captives, turned them away, and in punishment were subject to 10 times the sum in extortionate demands from the local pasha.If outsiders; Jews or Turks, are going to tax you harshly, provide for your own.

Any poor community or minority in any pre-20th century city would have similar tales to tell. The Arab contemporaries would weep in telling you of the devastations the same Ibrahim Pasha caused in decimating 500 of the 700 Arab men of Hebron he enrolled as soldiers. What you are doing is selectic ethnic reading of history, which historians don't do, looking for what happened to Jews, insouciant to the social context where anyone else may have suffered, as did the Christians of Palestine under the same Jezzar Pasha, an Ottoman Bosnian by the way, not an Arab, who afflicted the Jewish community in Hebron.

You're dead wrong about Purim, which celebrates a double story of attempted and successful genocide. Have you forgotten the 1986 march to Beit Romano where the settlers hung an effigy of Haman, represented as an Arab. Have you forgotten 2000/1 and the Adloyada parade? The Purim cult there, which influenced Goldstein, is alive and kicking just as is the indidious meme by rabbinical figures associating the Arabs with Amalek, over which there is a certain halakhic duty. You want sources for all this. I've held off, but if you really like to exchange crap, I could start a tit-for-tat war (which of course I won't) by sourcing in for starters: 'The settlers in Kiryat Arba Hebron are among the most militant and violent of the Israelis living in the territories.' (Shalom Goldman,Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, & the Idea of the Promised Land, UNC Press ‎2010 p.285) I have about 200 hundred pages of stuff like that gathered over 5 years, all studiously kept out of this article.It's a simple game of chess to play, you know.Nishidani (talk) 20:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

1. Packard, Frederick Adolphus. (1855)The Union Bible Dictionary American Sunday-School Union, p 304
2. Palestine and Syria: Handbook for travellers, Karl Baedeker (Firm), Albert Socin, Immanuel Benzinger - 1898. pg. 134.