Misplaced Pages

:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Jews - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
< Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jayjg (talk | contribs) at 19:07, 27 March 2011 (→Economic history of the Jews). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 19:07, 27 March 2011 by Jayjg (talk | contribs) (→Economic history of the Jews)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Economic history of the Jews

Economic history of the Jews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Essentially a POV content fork of Jewish history. Article originally titled "Jews and money". 28bytes (talk) 18:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Keep - There are quite a few sources on this topic, listed in the References section of the article. Some of the more notable, broader sources are:
  • Baron, Salo, Kahan, Arcadius; et al, Economic history of the Jews, Nachum Gross (Ed.), Schocken Books, 1975. Originally published as an article in Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972, vol 16, pp 1266-1326.
  • Dimont, Max I., Jews, God, and History, 1962, (reprinted Penguin, 2004)
  • Foxman, Abraham, Jews and Money: The Story of a Stereotype, Macmillan, 2010
  • Goldberg, J. J., Jewish Power. Addison Wesley, 1996.
  • Krefetz, Gerald, Jews and money: the myths and the reality, Ticknor & Fields, 1982
  • Marx, Karl, On the Jewish Question, 1843.
  • Mosse, Werner Eugen, Jews in the German Economy, Oxford: Clarenden Press, 1987.
  • Muller, Jerry, Capitalism and the Jews, Princeton University Press, 2010
  • Neusner, Jacob, The Economics of the Mishnah, University of Chicago Press, 1990
  • Penslar, Derek Jonathan, Shylock's children: economics and Jewish identity in modern Europe, University of California Press, 2001
  • Perry, Marvin, Antisemitism: myth and hate from antiquity to the present, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002 (chapter 4: "Homo Judaicus Economicus: the Jew as Shylock, Parasite, and Plutocrat"). online
  • Reuveni, Gideon, (Ed.)The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship Between Ethnicity and Economic Life, Berghahn Books, 2010.
  • Sombart, Werner, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben, Duncker, 1911. Translated into English by M. Epstein: The Jews and Modern Capitalism, E.P. Dutton, 1913. English translation online here, and here, and Google version. (page numbers cited refer to the 1913 English translation)
  • Valdman, Edouard, Jews and money: towards a metaphysics of money, Schreiber, 2000

Of those, Penslar, Baron, Dimont, and Foxman are probably the broadest books; Marx and Sombart and the historically important ones. I understand that this topic has been a focus of much bigotry and antisemitism, but it is heavily commented upon, and is highly notable. If the topic is distasteful, the solution is to ensure the article is balanced and well-presented, not to delete it. --Noleander (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the work by Marx is a book? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is, you misrepresent their views, quote selectively and take things our of context, and thus create an article that can be corectly only by deleting every sentence and starting from scratch. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Keep - I'm not going to deny there are POV issues with this article, and it's quite possible it was created for not-entirely-NPOV reasons. However, it would be strange to argue this isn't a notable topic; 'economic history of the Jews' is a legitimate topic, and there is in fact a great deal to say about the historical contributions of Jews to business and banking. The fact that 'Jewish bankers' is a popular theme among anti-Semites doesn't stop it from being a notable topic; in fact, it's part of the reason this is a notable topic. The article needs to be improved to keep it neutral, but that doesn't make it a POVFORK; I'm not aware of any other article on this precise topic that it duplicates. Robofish (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep there is a big difference between notability and content neutrality. The former seems to me to be undeniable in this case, looking at the mass of citations in the article. Regarding the latter, I am personally not familiar enough with the topic to make a definitive comment. I can understand that this is a topic which arouses strong feelings among some but am personally very concerned about censorship creeping into this project.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
    • If you are not familiar enough with the topic or the sources, how can you make an informed comment here? Would you vote to keep articles on:
    • The Italians and crime
    • The Irish and alchohol
    • The Greeks and pedophilia
    • Anyone could easilyt put together an article with LOTS of reliable sources. Would any of them be encyclopedic? Not as presented. Ditto with this article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
If numerous books have been written specifically on those topics, then yes, absolutely. Regarding my expertise, I don't believe that any level of expertise is needed to be able to see the vast weight of material specifically on the topic, and understand why that makes the subject notable. Rangoon11 (talk) 13:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I haven't mentioned the title of the article. Rangoon11 (talk) 19:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. This article is not an article on the economic history of the Jews. The author just changed the name to make it sound less anti-Semitic. The contents is a series of canards, and cites books on anti-Semitism only to repeat the anti-Semitic claims, not to provide any analysis at all of anti-Semitism. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Don't you mean "this article isn't"?·Maunus·ƛ· 20:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I corrected it, thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Si: Are you saying the topic is notable, but the problem is that the article does not yet have sufficient "analysis"? Or are you saying the article's topic is not notable? --Noleander (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I make no claim for any knowledge of the topic, but even I am aware that many of the authors above are Jewish. Is it possible for Jews to be anti-semitic? That isn't a rhetorical question but a genuine one.Rangoon11 (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The Jewish author's cited by the article are being misrepresented in the article. Their views are not being represented and quotes or statements are being taken out of context. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep Extremely well-sourced and passes WP:GNG with no trouble. I suggest some editors !voting delete actually read some of the article before going with a gut reaction, a reaction to which I am sympathetic in theory, but which is not borne out by the contents of the article. There is plenty of material in it that follows WP:NPOV policy just fine. —Torchiest edits 19:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Substitute "read" for "skim" and you'd be entirely accurate, in that a superficial evaluation (i.e. length, number of references, general wikistyle) indicates an appropriate treatment of the subject. Spend two minutes reading any given sectiojn and a rather different picture emerges. Were the article gradually developed from some smaller kernel it could theoretically be rescued by rolling back to that, but it was created in its present form. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
      • I don't see a problem with a section like this:
"Jews played an important role in the dissemination of financial innovations such as mortgages, paper money, and bills of exchange. Bills of exchange (also called negotiable instruments) first appeared in Europe in the twelfth century in Italy, although the concept originated earlier in China and Islamic trading communities. Werner Sombart speculates that, because Jews played a role as intermediaries in Mediterranean trading, they were uniquely positioned to import Islamic financial techniques into Europe. Sombart also analyzed historical evidence of Jewish participation in the establishment of early important banks in Europe (including the Bank of Amsterdam, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Hamburg) and concluded that Jews played an important role in the creation of important early banking concepts in Europe. Sombart also suggested that Jews played an essential role in the creation of mortgage deeds and "pay to bearer" negotiable instruments."
Seriously, everyone is going on and on about how this is a bunch of antisemitic racist conspiracy theory garbage, but what, precisely, is wrong with that paragraph? There are definitely parts of this article that need work with regard to WP:UNDUE, but there is plenty of okay content here as well. —Torchiest edits 02:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep VERY well sourced, passes GNG, etc. LiteralKa (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - That the topic meets WP:Notability guidelines is beyond dispute. From reading the Delete comments above, I suspect that the problem the Delete editors are describing is that the article presents some antisemitic canards, but it does not present them with enough context, and/or does not refute the canards clearly enough. Is that the major problem? If so, it should be an easy matter to remedy that by adding balancing/refutation material where necessary. --Noleander (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep For hundreds of years Jews played a very important role as moneylenders. I don't see why Misplaced Pages should be forbidden to present that fact and explain the issues that go along with it. Looie496 (talk) 19:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Is that what you think this article is about? And how does this make it notweorthy? At any period in time when Jews were money-lenders, Gentiles were even bigger money-lenders. Do we have an article on Irish money-lenders, Italian money-lenders ... uh ... Swiss money-lenders? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, moneylending is a major topic that the sources discuss, probably more than any other topic, except the antisemitic canards. The reason this article is notable, and the "Italian moneylenders" article is not, is because this article has a HUGE number of significant sources. If the hypothetical topics had that many sources, they would also have articles, for instance Banking in Switzerland. But, it is important to note that the sources generally do not discuss moneylending alone: they usually address it in the context of a broader discussion, including additional topics (e.g. capitalism, etc) like those found in this article. --Noleander (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Huge number of significant sources? Do you really believe that all those books on tangentially related topics somehow undergird an article like this? I can't find a single book that's exactly about a topic like this. That seems a problem in my mind. Bulldog123 03:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Quite right. Looie496's comment sugests he has not read the sources and is not qualified to comment here. I could easily write an article on "Italian moneylenders" if I did what this article does - load it with lots of sources and quote selectively, take things our of content, misrepresent, and violate NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Bulldog: regarding your comment "I can't find a single book that's exactly about a topic like this": First, there is no WP requirement that an article must have a book exactly about its topic. Second, there are several books on this topic, listed in the Reference section of the article, including Jews and money (there are three (!) books with that title), Jews and capitalism, The Economy in Jewish History, Economic Structure and Life of the Jews, Jews, God, and History (contains this topic), Antisemitism: myth and hate from antiquity to the present (contains this topic), and the historically important ''The Jews and Modern Capitalism --Noleander (talk) 15:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep The fact that there have been a number of books written on the topic indicates its notability quite clearly, IMHO. We really can't go around deleting every article that suffers from POV problems. Qrsdogg (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
To clarify my view here: my keep !vote is in no way an endorsement of the current version of the article. I think that this article should discuss how economics are used as Anti-semitic canards and racist Stereotypes of Jews. I think that it does need to be re-written, but I don't think that it should be deleted. While I won't deny that it had POV issues, I don't believe that we should delete articles on notable topics solely because they have POV issues, even when the issues are severe. Qrsdogg (talk) 02:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
SlimVirgin: A few questions: Do you think the topic is notable? or not? Have you read the sources? Why do you say there are no secondary soruces framing the issue: 100% of the material is from secondary sources, and it follows the secondary sources very closely in wording, tone, phrasing, and balance. You say there is "cherry picking" ... can you give a specific example? --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the topic is notable. The topic of Jew Suss is notable too. But that doesn't change the fact that this article is anti-Semitic. In Wiki-speak, this is a POV fork. ScottyBerg (talk) 02:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I believe that the stereotype of covetous or rich Jew is significant and widespread enough to warrant an article or at least a prominent section in some other article on views on Jews. Of course, this requires very much attention so it won't start to market the stereotype as a fact, but treat it as any other unfounded stereotype - well-known, used in jokes and comedy (South Park for example has used this stereotype several times) but ultimately false. I'm not going to raise hell about this or even be upset if you disagree, but I'd like you to consider this. Zakhalesh (talk) 20:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per SV and Maunus. The title is not reflected in the article. The first named reference is presumably a balanced book that could provide excellent content for an article of this recently dreamed up name. It has scarcely been used to write the article, and then only in a superificial way (for a short list of pre-twentieth century professions). Mathsci (talk) 21:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete. Subject may be notable, but we would have to start all over again to create a legit article. As has been mentioned at all the previous ANI's, the subtle and civil agenda-pushing on these topics has long been a problem with the creator of this article, who as outlined above has unfortunately not changed his problematic editing.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per SV. The title was changed to make it more "pleasant", but it is clearly an anti-Semitic article. It's offensive on so many levels. I wonder if we create an article called "Protestant Murderers", how long would it last? It's sad that an obvious bigoted article has even any support. OrangeMarlin 22:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete - Per Slrubenstein, SV, and Brewcrewer. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep - It is a dumb, ugly, and racist lie, but "Jews control the money" is quote a notable one. "Delete because it isn't true" is, quite frankly, a rather asinine reason to get rid of an article, not to mention being a violation of a very basic Misplaced Pages policy.. Tarc (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
No delete because it's racist. For example, the article, Jews in England is written in a more historical style and discusses how King Edward threw the Jews out of the country, quite possibly to cancel his debts. The article does not promulgate racial or religious stereotypes. Again, where are the other articles on races or religions that are there to push a racist POV? Please name one? Let me start an article about Negro dick size, and we'll see how long it lasts. Oh, and to make it more palatable, I'll change the article's name to African American sexual appendage measurements. This inclusionist viewpoint is frustrating. OrangeMarlin 00:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Oh my. Tellya what; go to the WP:ARS talkpage and link them to your post here where you call me an "inclusionist". It'll make their day. Tarc (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I didn't realize that "inclusionist" has some pejorative meaning around Misplaced Pages. I meant it strictly that you, and only you, stated that it is "dumb, ugly and racist lie" yet you want to include it in the encyclopedia. Frustrating viewpoint. Now I know that inclusionist means something different than I thought.OrangeMarlin 01:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually the ARS are the actual inclusionists and tarc is generally considered a deletionist by them.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I just read about. Please accept my apologies Tarc for even implying you were an inclusionist. Still. I think you're wrong here. OrangeMarlin 01:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
The thing is, we have that pesky verifiability, not truth thing. I mean, is Obama really a secret Kenyan Marxist Muslim? Are the Moon landings fake ? This is a prolific slur propagated over, centuries...millennia, even. Why not discuss who has made it, why, and display how thoroughly absurd the civilized world takes it? Tarc (talk) 02:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
The difference is, The Kenyan Marxist Muslim article is actually called Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, and Moon landings fake is called Moon landing conspiracy theories. This article is called Economic history of the Jews - do you not see a problem with that? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 02:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Mr. JungerMan has it right. There are tons of articles that drive me crazy. There's one on Astrology that I watch and edit. Right at the top it says that it's pseudoscience and is totally unsupported by any scientific evidence. The same for a whole bun of other crazy articles. If this article was entitled "The Myth of Jews and Money" or something, and it was actually written without an anti-semitic POV, it wouldn't even matter slightly to me. And there is a giant elephant in the room about the author of the article. This is like the fifth time an article of his/hers has caused huge drama. I know, the blame can be laid on both sides of the discussion, but still....there's that old "where there's smoke" metaphor.OrangeMarlin 04:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Mr. Redlink Newbie there may have it technically right, but it is a fairly worthless point, and not a very good one to base a delete on. If the name is problematic, then change it. "Conspiracy theories regarding Jews and money" ? I dunno, I';m sure something can be hashed out. The point is, we're dealing with the subject matter here; the title is an editorial decision. Tarc (talk) 14:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I think that's backwards. The title is the only thing which isn't problematic. We can certainly have an article with the current title, but it would bear so little resemblance to this article that deletion is the better option. Meanwhile, the only title which would accurately portray the content of this article would set off klaxons in the heads of even the most knee-jerk inclusionists (which was, presumably, why it was moved). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:18, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep. I agree with Noleander. There are more than enough useful sources. The article needs to be managed carefully to avoid racism.  Nipsonanomhmata  00:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep There are sufficient books on the subject to make it notable. That there is a special relationship between either Jewish religion or culture and some aspects of money-making is something that has frequently been said, and not always by those hostile to the Jews. It's been used in offensive ways, but the topic is not inherently anti-semitic. NPOV is more important than the current notions of political correctness. DGG ( talk ) 01:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree, NPOV is critical. In fact, NPOV, or specifically the article's lack of it, is why I nominated this for deletion. If I thought it could be salvaged and made NPOV without a wholesale rewrite I would not have nominated it. 28bytes (talk) 02:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Moving pages during an AfD is frowned upon. Carrite (talk) 02:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Agree, and "anti-Semitic" is misspelled in the new title as "antisemetic." ScottyBerg (talk) 02:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, let's please leave the title alone until the AfD concludes to avoid unnecessary confusion. 28bytes (talk) 02:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Maybe it would be a good idea to split this article into Jewish View of Economics and Jewish Economic Conspiracy Theories to sort out the confusion. Qrsdogg (talk) 02:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete - The topic is notable. The content is original research of the bad sort. Meaning POV-laden crap... Blow the mother up and start over. Carrite (talk) 02:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Unsure - the opening seems alright, but these sorts of things can be tricky, since there are ways to use language so that someone unfamiliar will automatically correct it to a reasonable argument, but the racists (and those that know the racism) will see the more concealed meaning. Notably, it fails to state the reason Jews went into moneylending: because anti-Semitism blocked off other professions from them. It may be salvageable, but I'm not sure. Perhaps suspend this a week, then reevaluate? If it hasn't gotten rid of the problems by then, Delete. Ugh, that just seems wrong, though. Yeah, Delete per Carrite. Adam Cuerden 02:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete, per Carrite. A reasonable article can be written on this topic, but this ain't it - this is an carefully crafted antisemitic screed, disguised as well researched and footnoted neutral treatment. I'll give just one example: A common antisemitic canard is that Jewish bankers used their wealth to underwrite wars, thereby profiteering form human misery. Sure enough, this canard appears in the article , neutrally stated as " Jewish banking firms often preferred to lend to governments, in particular, for financing armies and wars." This is cited to pages 6-7 of Cameron, which actually says no such thing, instead giving prominence to Jews lending to government for post-war rebuilding efforts in France, etc... It woudl take hours to go through all the rest of this crap. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 02:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Cameron on page 6 does discuss the topic: "Shortly afterward, the youngest son, James, established a branch in Paris where, under the nose of Napoleon, he cooperated with the other branches in financing the allies ." That is just one source among dozens of other secondary sources (not cited) that discuss the key role that the families played in war financing. The secondary sources make that point repeatedly, I did not fabricate it. Please read the sources more carefully. --Noleander (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per Maunas. Boatloads of WP:SYNTH and some WP:OR. If anything is salvageable, merge it. Bulldog123 03:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • uuurgh - in two minds here. Article quality isn't a prerequisite for deletion, but the original name of this article, and osome of the sections in it are truly cringeworthy - the Financial_scandals has some pretty incredible one-liners in it that I'd have to say are misrepresentative as stated because of lack of context: "Gerald Krefetz comments that Jews are particularly prone to push the boundaries of morality in law in the realm of international banking" - just...wow...there are large amounts of synthesis here. I do acknowledge the stereotype is notable, but if aspects of it are a fallacy, and the proportions are in fact (eg facts like reticence to discuss money...duh! Um..that is most folks I know regardless of religion/race/skin colour/shoe size/star sign etc. -then much of this article is really not notable. To sum up, needs to be pruned massively, and restrict to secondary sources to avoid synthesis..and even then there are problems. Given the practicalities on this, I suppose in an ideal world this'd be a keeper for me, but with the pragmatic reality and chance of decent cleanup are low, I think I'd not be unhappy to see it deleted due to misinformation in its current form. And I am an inclusionist Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete It's unsalvageable nonsense consisting of cherry picked SYNTH. Johnuniq (talk) 03:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete Per WP:DEL#REASON WP:POVFORK. Alternatively, redirect to Jewish history JoeSperrazza (talk) 04:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep The ideas presented in the article are no doubt notable, this article is also neither SYNTH nor a POVFORK, so I see no reason to delete it. The article does seem to have some POV problems so I suggest this article is either gone through by a group of editors immediately to fix POV or the article is userfied until its content is more acceptable. Passionless -Talk 04:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • This sort of topic is notable, but I would certainly suggest having a clearer focus for the article and naming it something like Rich Jew stereotype (as suggested on ANI.) Grandmasterka 06:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep with cleanup. This article appears to have POV problems, but when an article on a clearly notable topic violates NPOV, the solution is to improve it, not delete it. If everyone who’s campaigning for deletion were to instead devote themselves to cleaning up the article, it might be possible to fix most of its POV problems even before the AFD is closed.
Other than the POV problems, the other main argument for deletion appears to be that controlling the world’s money is a negative stereotype of Jews. This argument is a red herring, because whether it’s a negative stereotype or not has nothing to do whether the economic history of Jews is a notable topic. A good analogy is that being criminals is a negative stereotype of black people, but we still have the articles Race and crime, Race and crime in the United States, and Race and crime in the United Kingdom, in addition to an article about the Criminal black man stereotype. The reason is because both for that topic and this one, in addition to racist stereotyping, there is also a large body of scholarly literature discussing the topic.
I agree with the sentiment that DGG expressed here, in that if the article gets deleted because its topic relates to a negative stereotype, it will be a victory for people who want Misplaced Pages to avoid dealing with topics that can be found offensive. I’m Ashkenazi Jewish by ancestry, so I’m someone who ought to be offended by this stereotype. But in this case I don’t care: for Misplaced Pages to cover a notable topic is more important than that. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep It is a very well referenced article, the references of which relate directly to the topic and, almost all of them are entirely about the topic at hand. If there are POV issues, which I didn't see from a quick scan through, then that can be fixed by editing the article. However, you can't say that there are POV issues just because it is discussing such a topic, I think that in and of itself is being racist. Or, at least, culturally biased. If you look at the article neutrally, it's quite clear that it is a subject that is notable and has been extensively discussed throughout history by a vast number of scholars. I'm personally glad that the sources used are all rather recent ones, since that makes them less likely to have POV issues themselves and also makes them able to give a more complete understanding of the history of the subject. Silverseren 06:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • It doesn't read POV to me, it reads anti-Semitic, which is not a "point of view." It is racist, and unless racism is now legal on Misplaced Pages, then your comments about not seeing them is strange.OrangeMarlin 16:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • One more item. Have you actually read the references? I can write an article on just about anything, quote mine from some pretty good books, and prove that the Holocaust didn't happen. Oh wait, people do that. The author appears to have mined the information that supports anti-semitism. Slrubenstein makes better points about that below. OrangeMarlin 16:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep Per comments by Rangoon11 who I consider has expressed the same view I would have on the subject. --Domer48'fenian' 09:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete It's thinly veiled antisemitic tripe. If you vote to keep, I hope you're also volunteering to clean it up. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong delete Clear anti-Semitic air about the article - given the previous title of the article - and largely unfixed POV issues. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 11:27pm • 12:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete It should be returned to user sandbox and the people that voted for keep should NPOV it like user:Anthonyhcole suggested.--Shrike (talk) 12:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment There is certainly a valuable article that could be written on this topic. For comparison, compare eg the article on Banking and Bankers from Encyclopedia Judaica (2nd ed), licensed by the Jewish Virtual Library; and the article Banking from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia. A lot of interesting academic work has been done on eg the da Pisa family, who became arguably the most important bankers in Italy in the 1400s (our article on Jehiel da Pisa is from the 1906 encyclopedia, and could use a lot of update); as well as eg the Jewish banking in England in the 1200s, which appears to have been extraordinarily lucrative, despite the arbitrary and capricious taxes applied (the king kept taking all their money every few years; yet despite this they seemed to be able to re-generate their assets almost regardless). On the one side, from the point of view of Jewish history, this is a recognised, important, relevant and well-defined topic. From the other direction, from the point of view of financial history, the specifically Jewish angle is a distinctive, interesting and significant. The history of how the Rothschilds, Montagus, Goldsmids and Mocattas came to such prominence in the London bullion markets, and what particular shared factors caused those families to emerge, and to become with others the so-called "Cousinhood", is as interesting and significant (and, importantly for us, as written about in such terms) as the factors behind what became the celebrated phenomenon of Quaker businesses such as the Cadburys, Terrys, Rowntrees and Frys just in chocolate. So there is certainly an interesting topic here. Possibly it would be named History of Jews in Banking -- compare our various articles on "History of the Jews in XYZ place/country/city". On the other hand, there is a clear gap between the present article currently up for AFD as against for example the approach and coverage of the EJ article; so if the decision is going to be to keep the present article, there is a lot of work that is going to be needed to bring it into line with what we probably should be looking for. Jheald (talk) 13:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Nobody (with the exception of straw men spun together by those opposed to its removal) is arguing that it is not possible to create a neutral article on the subject of the economic history of the Jewish people. The question is whether a 100k+-treatment of that subject (or, more specifically, "Jews and banking") which evidently does not constitute a neutral article is befitting our encyclopedia when dumped here in its entirety by a user who has a history of creating works with similar problems, and whether leaving it in place is likely to positively or negatively impact Misplaced Pages's reputation for neutrality and accuracy. I don't believe anyone would be opposed to this article being started afresh post-deletion and worked on in an iterative, collaborative manner to ensure that it does not unduly advance certain concepts to the detriment of its neutrality. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • I agree with these comments. One could write a good article on economic history, and there is a Wikiproject on Jewish history that might be a source of expertise on this (although Jheald seems also to have some expertise) (and a real economic history article would probably limit itself to Jews in Europe and a second article on Jews in Arab Caliphates, because the sources and laws were so different). But this article was not written as an "Economic history of the Jews" and the article shows no comprehension of the sources it cites on Jewish history, Jewish law, or European history, or economic history. I voted to delete this article because it was written as part of a long tradition of articles written by Noleander that use sources in ideosyncratic ways and that consistently misrepresent the views presented in the sources, and ignore mainstream scholarship on the topics. I also voted to delete it because in order to write the good article Jheald suggests one would first have to delete the contents of this article. Let's delete this, and wait until people who really are knowledgable in economic history have the time to write even a reasonable stub, rather than an embarassment to the whole project. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete—article is WP:SYNTH of random sources, only vaguely related to the topic. For example, the part about the Bible. In any case, economic history articles can be written about political entities (sovereign states or other territories), not about nations. How about an "Economic history of the Persians" article? Such a topic is inherently unencyclopedic; certain Jewish (or Persian) individuals might have done something significant related to the economy of France for example, does that warrant inclusion in the article? How do we determine something like that? —Ynhockey 13:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
For most of their history the Jewish people have not had a state/land of their own, and have been nomadic so are something of a special case and certainly are not analagous to Persians. A more relevant comparator might be the Kurds. Rangoon11 (talk) 13:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
A fortiori then. An article on the economic history of a diasporic people would be too long and complex when you have Jews living under very different legal regimes in different countries with very different political systems and economies - the economy of Feudal Europe for example was quite different from the economy of the Islamic Caliphates or the Byzantine Empire. The point is, this article is not about the economic history of the Jews. When it was first written it did not have that title, the title was changed because the original title so clearly reflected the unencyclopedic nature of the article, which is a mishmash of anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century, with anachronistic uses of other sources to support the stereotype. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
By that, if I may say, somewhat curious, logic there should be no articles on the Jews as a people at all.Rangoon11 (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Regarding the article title, the new title seems to fit the content very well indeed. However I have no idea why the title was changed, since it actually mirrored the exact title of a number of books on the topic, including by Jewish authors.Rangoon11 (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
The problem is, the article systematically misrepresents these sources. I will give one example:
According to Penslar, rabbinic commentator Maimonides, in his work Mishneh Torah - a fundamental treatise on Judaism - treated the rule that Jews may charge interest to non-Jews (Deut 23:19-21) as a "positive commandment" or obligation, and that the purpose of the commandment was (he quotes Maimonides) "not to help him , nor to deal graciously with him, but rather to harm him".
This is all Noleander writes concerning Penslar's treatment of the rule from Deuteronomy. Problems: first, general ignorance - this is about a Medieval interpretation of the Bible, but instead of being in the section on the bible or Medeival Judaism, it is in the section on the Talmud. Second, it misrepresents Penslar's analysis of Maimonides; according to Penslar, Maimonides was incorporating into his thought a Christian notion that developed out of the concept of "just war," in which economic relations between different nations were a peaceful form of war, and that it was equally just for Gentiles to charge Jews exhorbitant interest rates. Third, it misrepresents medieval Jewish thought: after bringing up Maimonides as an example of the influence of Christian practices on Jews, Penslar goes on to discuss how other Medieval sages rejected Mainmonides' views as a misinterpretation of the Bible. Now, I could do the same with every example in the argument, and it would take up scores of paragraphs, which is why I limit myself to just one example. The point is, Rangoon keeps praising the article for using such great sources, yet Rangoon is either being disingenuous in not pointing out all the errors and misrepresentations ... or perhaps Rangoon has never read any of these sources, and is just too ignorant to be able to judge just how reliable the article's use of sources is. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, I stated early on in this discussion that I am not an expert on the topic. I am also not Jewish. However I don't belive either fact precludes me from this discussion. The specific example which you have just given may well demonstrate a specific factual mistake in the article. Many Misplaced Pages articles have factual errors. However, with much of the content and sources there will be a great deal of scope for debate and discussion about content, tone, interpretation etc. This is the case with most articles but especially with one such as this. Different editors will have different views, but through the usual process of discussion, debate and consensus a better, more comprehensive and neutral article can develop. The article at present does not strike me as being anti-semitic, but I do feel strongly that it would benefit by editors such as yourself, who clearly have very different interpretations of the sources than Noleander (and are obviously highly knowledgable on the subject), adding their perspective to it. Why not engage in that process of article improvement rather than seeking deletion?Rangoon11 (talk) 16:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
While being an expert is never required to edit articles, where a matter hinges significantly on the nature of sources presented to establish something it is obviously important to be able to comprehend the sources to the extend of being able to argue over them. I am neither Jewish nor do I consider the study of history of Jewish culture to be areas of expertise, but I am easily able to run a cursory eye over the sources given and verify the legitimacy of the arguments raised in favour of the article's removal. I cannot understand why you have not attempted to do so yourself. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Fully agreed in terms of debating fine points of source interpretation, and for that very reason I wouldn't attempt to get involved in closely editing this article. However I have read the article, and to my inexpert - and let me stress non anti-semitic - eye the article does not appear - judged purely on the words written rather than the motivations for them having been written - to be a work of anti-semitism. I don't belive that one has to be an expert to have a view on this. Yes it covers issues of anti-semitism and yes it could certainly benefit from the contributions of additional editors who have other interpretations of the sources, but that does not make it a work of anti-semitism. To make that judgement based on the text of the article one would, in my view, need to be able to look into the mind of the author. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Or, you could look at the author's editing history. This is an author who has already been brought up a number of times for writing articles which independent editors have considered to have significant negative undertones along similar lines to this one: contrary to previous assertions on this discussion, at least one of which (Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood) had been deleted. Indeed, the author has apparently promised to avoid such controversy in the past. In this case I believe actions speak louder than words. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Rangoon, you write, "The article at present does not strike me as being anti-semitic," but are you not aware that one of the most common anti-Semitic slur against Jews is that they are money-grubbing userers who exploit Gentiles? If you were adding content to this article, and you read a page - just one page - of a book by Penslar that quotes Maimonides as saying Jews have an obligation to practice usury against gentiles, that it seems likely that he adopted this position from Christions who held an analogous position, and that contemporary Jewish legal scholars argued that he was wrong and then added to the article that according to Penslar Maimonides said Jews have an obligation to practice usury against Gentiles ... ... ... and did not add the rest of what Penslar said, that this is not simply a "factual error" but rather a deliberate distortion that has the effect of promoting an anti-Semitic stereotype? Who cares what her motives are, the point is, she made a choice to include the prejudicial material as if it were Penslar's point and not to include what Penslar actually says is the point based on the context? Rangoon, I want to assume good faith on your part, but if you cannot tell the difference, they sorry, friend, but you simply lack good judgment. IN any event, you were making a positive claim, that we should keep this particle because it is based on reliable sources. It is reasonable to expect anyone who makes such a claim to have based the claim on a knowledge of the sources being used. If you do not know these sources, how can you claim that the article is worth keeping because of the sources it uses - with any integrity? Or do you think we can make a decision about keeping or deleting an article based on flippant opinions that are not based on any evidence?Slrubenstein | Talk
There are a number of separate issues here which in my view are getting conflated. 1. Is the topic notable? 2. Is the article a work of anti-semitism? 3. Is the interpretation of sources in the article correct?
The sources used in the article are high quality - they are books devoted entirely to the topic, and a number have precisely the same title as the article prior to its recent renaming - and many are by Jewish authors. The article topic is clearly highly notable. Have sources been cherry-picked to present a certain perspective on the topic which does not reflect well on the Jewish people? This cannot be answered definitely and I don't discount the possibility, but do I feel unable to make a clear judgment based on the article text and I don't honestly feel that even my reading all of the books in question and becoming an expert on Jewish history and culture would enable me to make such a judgement, since I would have my own interpretations of the sources which would be no more or less correct than those of Noleander. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Rangoon writes, "The sources used in the article are high quality" - are you kidding? Dimont is not a historian and not a credible historical source. Baron and Sacher were important in their day but are no longer considered authoritative, as their work has been superceded by more recent scholars on every front. Foxman is not a historian, he is an advocate against anti-Semitism but not a scholar and no authority on Jewish economic history. Krefetz was a popular writer of books on finance and wrote his opinions on Jewish history but this does not make him an economic historian or even a historian, he is not a credible authority on Jewish economic history. Ditto Marvin Perry and JJ Goldberg, neither of them are credible historians. Sombart was a notable economic historian - in 1911. Historians now consider his work anti-Semitic, and his scholarship is generally rejected by economists. Marx of course is an important thinker, but his essay "on the jewish Question" is not about Jewish economic history, it is an argument about Hegelian and post-Hegelian theories of "freedom" and not even relevant to this article. Edouard Valdman is a journalist, not a historin, and his book is not economic history. The real economic historians - Reuveni, Mosse, and Muller, are hardly used at all in the article, anything from them is an isolated quote on how Jews love money, taken out of context and not representing these scholars' views. How can you say these are high wuality sources on the topic? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I believe that you forgot three vital words at the start of your post: 'In my opinion'.Rangoon11 (talk) 23:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, to write encyclopedia article one must be able to assess proper sources. If you cannot do it, don't bother. If you cannot provide any counter arguments, don't bother. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep but stubify. This clearly a valid encyclopedic topic, but I share the concerns many of the expressed about whether this particular article provides encyclopedic coverage of the topic, and I suggest that it would best to reduce it to a stub and rebuild it. I am not persuaded that it is necessary for this page to be deleted rather than rewritten, and I am concerned that doing so will lose many valuable references which could be used in the construction of a better article. However, if it is deleted please can this be done without prejudice to the creation of a new article which genuinely tries to tell the economic history, rather than simply listing antisemitic canards? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep and stub or delete - I agree that there are several sources which clearly indicate the subject in general is notable, but also agree that a great deal of the content is seriously questionable. "Jews and Money" was a very dubious title - "Economic history of the Jews" is a much more defensible one, given their status as, for much of history, a rather separate socio-political group. Unfortunatly, much of the content is at best dubiously related to that title. So either remove all the dubious material, keeping the title and the NPOV content only, or delete outright and allow an article on the current title to be started from scratch. John Carter (talk) 15:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
John: could you give an example or two of the "dubious" material? And do you mean dubious as in "the material is wrong and not sourced" or "the material doesnt fit within the Economic history rubric? --Noleander (talk) 15:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
You have a section titled "Why were Jews so influential in the rise of capitalism?" The question assumes that they were inspite of the many historians and sociologists that say the contrary. The section doesn't mention any of the much more widely credited theories of the rise of capitalism that have to do with either the protestant work ethic (weber) or the heritage colonialism turning mercantilism into capitalism. This is a clear breach of WP:UNDUE and shows very poor editorial judgment at the very least. The problem of not putting Jewish economic history into the general perspective of economic history persists throughout the article.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
You are correct, there are other alternative theories, and in fact the article already includes the statement: "Philosopher Max Weber was of the latter mindset, and he suggested that the Reformation and Protestantism, not Jews, were the primary causes of the rise of capitalism.". I concur with your point that that information could be more prominently stated. However, it is also true that the "Why were Jews so influential in the rise of capitalism?" section is an accurate summary of what many notable scholars have discussed, using their exact terminology. --Noleander (talk) 17:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
And, as per your own comments above, the heading in question is representative of only one side in an apparently disputed question. As such, it fairly clearly qualifies as non-neutral, and rather obviously so. Given that you have in effect acknowledged that the heading is non-neutral, but apparently believe it should be kept anyway, I think there are reasonable questions what else might qualify. If, as Slrubinstein says, someone were willing and able to go through the article and remove all the acknowledged and unacknowledged POV issues quickly, it might qualify for being kept. Otherwise, I agree with Slrubinstein that deleting the article, and starting over with content which presumably would not have these flaws from the beginning, is probably the better way to go, particularly given the short history of the extant article. John Carter (talk) 17:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep Content disputes are rarely solved at AfD, and the problem here is that the topic is clearly notable. The original title is not relevant to the AfD - all that matters is that there is nothing here for AfD - the issues should be dealt with on the article talk page as a content matter. I do not "like" the article, but that is not grounds for deletion. Collect (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
POV forks are routinely deleted or merged here. Just as everyone here agrees that a legitimate article could be written about this topic, everyone also agrees that the vast bulk of this article would have to be deleted to conform with NPOV. It is clearly the easiest process to delete it completely and rewrite from scratch. Will you take on the job of sorting the few kernels of wheat from the huge mass of chaff that this article includes? ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Collect, if this really is your reason - and I have never had cause to question your sincerity - then I urge you to change your conclusion. Our AFD policy states that these pages are for the discussion not only of deletion but of other options: "the page may be kept, merged or redirected, transwikied (copied to another Wikimedia project), renamed/moved to another title, userfied to a user subpage, or deleted per the deletion policy." If this page could simply be improved by editing, in a reasonable period of time, I would vote to keep also. But as it stands all contents either promotes an anti-Semitic stereotype or misrepresents the sources used. See my example to Rangoon, just above. Now, I di dnot create this article and I do not have the time to delete evey sentence and rewrite it to represent the sources accurately. Do you know that there are people who will do this? Otherwise, WP will have an article that will systematically mislead anyone who reads it. Think of the high school or college students, or just anyone in the general public right now may be reading this article ... and drawing from it facts that are false, views that are misrepresented, information that is inaccurate. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I believe you know I greatly respect you and your opinions. In this case, however, it is my belief that Misplaced Pages is better served by having editors actively improve an article on what appears to be a notable topic than to use AfD for removal of the topic (I am assuming here that there is no place to obviously merge the information into, as I generally have !voted "merge" where such appeared viable). I believe that you would find my opinions concerning NPOV to be very much in accord with yours in any article talk page discussion, as the content certainly does appear to present an "interesting" point of view. Collect (talk) 17:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Collect, my point is that an article that in every paragraph misrepresents the sources and the views in those sources, and that also has a systematic bias to including any "information" (quotation marks because the information is usually information taken from sources that are either presented in an incomplete or out-of-context form) cannot be made public to the world-wide readership of the largest on-line encyclopedia. If I agreed ith you thn the solution would be to delete the content and keep this as a stub, and invite people who actually are knowledgable about economic history and Jewish history (and who also are committed to NPOV and NOR) to turn it into an article. As Adam Cuerdan has tried - yet, other editors insist on our keeping an article that presents anti-semitic portrayals of Jews as facts, and misrepresents all its sources. Why? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of stubifying it, but keeping the references section. Any anti-Semitic tracts in it will need to be marked as such, however, because, well, I'm not an expert on anti-Semitism, so have no way of knowing if any are, outside of the really famous ones like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I've attempted to reduce it to a neutral statement of the topic, please forgive me if any ignorance seeped through; this is not a subject I'm expert on, at all. Adam Cuerden 16:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Never mind, any attempts in that line are being reverted. Adam Cuerden 16:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I think that was the right idea though, good try. Qrsdogg (talk) 17:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Our AFD Policy states emphatically that "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD." It is therefore not appropriate to bring content disputes of this sort here. The idea that we should delete imperfect articles in order to recreate them is refuted by our editing policy. Retention of any part of the aarticle during this process would violate our licensing policy and so make editing difficult. Deletion as a deliberate step in improvement would therefore be quite improper. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
That's supposed to address articles which merely lack quality, rather than those written to fundamentally distort the subject matter. But that's a nice bag of wikilaws you've got there nonetheless. Gold star for effort, in attempting to retain an article broadly perceived as antisemitic because of your position on notability. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Where is your evidence that this article is antisemitic? Or about the intentions of the principal author?Rangoon11 (talk) 19:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete this article is a combination of unrelated topics. It's just isn't it. Broccolo (talk) 17:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per nominator. Content fork and SYNTH. -- nsaum75  19:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment The contents of the article have changed radically since this AfD began. I believe a lot of the contentious material has been removed at this point, and since this has really been a content dispute all along, I think that makes an even stronger case for keeping the article, as it remains a notable subject with good sourcing. —Torchiest edits 19:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • If you think the bad stuff has been removed and what is left is okay, I would say that this is actually even more reason to delete it, because even after having removed what you thought was most offensive, we are still left with the POINT and COATRACK problems. An article that goes from the Talmud (600 CE) to the Tanakch (200 CE) to the rise of socialism (19th century) to the Middle Ages is obviously NOT an article on history, it cannot even follow a historical arc. Moreover, an article that claims that "Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Georg Hegel" conclude that Jews are less moral than Christians is yup still definitely NOT economic history, not even history and youp, still anti-Semitic. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • I suppose I'm biased, since I think Capitalism is great, and find nothing wrong with being associated with it. Negative remarks from the people you listed is a positive thing, in my opinion. —Torchiest edits 01:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete Article quality can usually be improved, but not when the article is a coatrack and a mess of synth in the first place. This can go away. Jtrainor (talk) 19:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Note Most of the problematic material has now been edited out, and the current state should be examined by editors. Collect (talk) 20:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I rather thought I had made substantial edits. If there is more to remove, kindly do so. I was more concerned that some might feel my edits were too substantial. Collect (talk) 22:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I find it hilarious that all of the users voting delete are hiding behind the word antisemitic like it means something and ignoring the sources used. The delete voters have yet to actually put forth a valid rationale that proves the topic is non-notable, they have yet to prove that the sources listed at the top of this page don't deal with the subject. All they do is go on and on about content issues, things that AfD is not for. Furthermore, it is extremely worrisome that Jewish users on Misplaced Pages are banding together to try to get Noleander sanctioned for his incredibly well-referenced articles. Can anyone actually say that the economic history of the Jews (Or even Jews and Money, which is the title of a number of the references) is a non-notable topic and actually prove that statement? Silverseren 21:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
CommentYou are joking, right? You really think we should be publishing antisemitic articles? Why? As for sources, who is hiding anything, except you? User:Mathsci/example is a careful study of one example. Here is another:
According to Penslar, rabbinic commentator Maimonides, in his work Mishneh Torah - a fundamental treatise on Judaism - treated the rule that Jews may charge interest to non-Jews (Deut 23:19-21) as a "positive commandment" or obligation, and that the purpose of the commandment was (he quotes Maimonides) "not to help him , nor to deal graciously with him, but rather to harm him".
This is all Noleander writes concerning Penslar's treatment of the rule from Deuteronomy. Problems: first, general ignorance - this is about a Medieval interpretation of the Bible, but instead of being in the section on the bible or Medeival Judaism, it is in the section on the Talmud. Second, it misrepresents Penslar's analysis of Maimonides; according to Penslar, Maimonides was incorporating into his thought a Christian notion that developed out of the concept of "just war," in which economic relations between different nations were a peaceful form of war, and that it was equally just for Gentiles to charge Jews exhorbitant interest rates. Third, it misrepresents medieval Jewish thought: after bringing up Maimonides as an example of the influence of Christian practices on Jews, Penslar goes on to discuss how other Medieval sages rejected Mainmonides' views as a misinterpretation of the Bible. Now, I could do the same with every example in the argument, and it would take up scores of paragraphs, which is why I limit myself to just one example. The point is, Rangoon keeps praising the article for using such great sources, yet Rangoon is either being disingenuous in not pointing out all the errors and misrepresentations ... or perhaps Rangoon has never read any of these sources, and is just too ignorant to be able to judge just how reliable the article's use of sources is.
Dimont is not a historian and not a credible historical source. Baron and Sacher were important in their day but are no longer considered authoritative, as their work has been superceded by more recent scholars on every front. Foxman is not a historian, he is an advocate against anti-Semitism but not a scholar and no authority on Jewish economic history. Krefetz was a popular writer of books on finance and wrote his opinions on Jewish history but this does not make him an economic historian or even a historian, he is not a credible authority on Jewish economic history. Ditto Marvin Perry and JJ Goldberg, neither of them are credible historians. Sombart was a notable economic historian - in 1911. Historians now consider his work anti-Semitic, and his scholarship is generally rejected by economists. Marx of course is an important thinker, but his essay "on the jewish Question" is not about Jewish economic history, it is an argument about Hegelian and post-Hegelian theories of "freedom" and not even relevant to this article. Edouard Valdman is a journalist, not a historin, and his book is not economic history. The real economic historians - Reuveni, Mosse, and Muller, are hardly used at all in the article, anything from them is an isolated quote on how Jews love money, taken out of context and not representing these scholars' views. How can you say these are high quality sources on the topic?Slrubenstein | Talk 21:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • You've just told us yourself that the article has several high quality sources. This is not a FA or GA review and so the detail of what is currently done with these sources is not significant. Our editing policy tells us to welcome imperfect early drafts as they may be improved by further editing. AFD is not cleanup. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
What I mean is, if we remove from the article everything that violates NOR or NPOV, SYNTH or COATRACK right now, we would be left with nothing. One can write an article on the economic history of the Jews in Europe (one could write a separate article on the Economic history of Jews in the Muslim world, and if one use sources not mentioned in this article, one could write an article on the Economic history of the Jews in Ancient Israel) - but one would have to start from scratch. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Again, you are completely diverting away from what I said. Looking over that, I see that, yes, it needs to be rewritten, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a notable topic supported by very reliable sources. Rewriting an article is also not for AfD. It sounds to me that this is something you should have worked on with Noleander on the talk page instead of this campaign against him. Silverseren 21:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • WP:VAGUEWAVE. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    Thank you, Colonel, it's a valid point. I'll try to explain. My initial impression is that the topic is not encyclopedic. An article can be written about a common characteristic of a group of people; economic activity of Jewish people through the history is too diverse to justify such an interpolation. We are talking about variety of epochs, countries, economies, cultures and conditions so wide, that any generalization seems unreasonable. Additionally, the current discussion of the author's contribution at WP:AN/I, makes me think this article is a part of ongoing WP:COATRACK attempt. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete This is a tough one. I have read this entire debate, and agree with many editors that a good article can and should be written on this topic, but it will take exceptional care and a high degree of expertise to do the job right. I conclude that the present article can't be salvaged. I find the arguments of Slrubenstein, Slim Virgin, brewcrewer and MathSci to be especially persuasive. Cullen328 (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete--MONGO 04:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep - I have to agree with the Keep sayers here. I see no apparent reason for deletion of this material.--BabbaQ (talk) 12:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom, SV, JFW, etc. Avi (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete clearly an anti-Semitic content fork. I can see nothing worth saving here - it's a badly written, random coat-racky assembly of facts. In general we should avoid any articles of the form "X and Y", where Y is an ethnic, cultural or religious group. Just to take one example, in their early history, Quakers in England were also barred from the universities and professions, and started many banks and other successful businesses, and that is not a reason for denigrating Quakers any more than it is for denigrating Jews. --NSH001 (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete. Not any easy conclusion, and one I've pondered for some days. But here is my thinking. The old title -- not a proper/notable topic. The new title -- not reflective of the content, though if it were we would have something to work with. The content -- clearly deserving of the above aspersions. If this were deleted but for clearly appropriate content, I would vote keep, but as it is overwhelmingly and at great length inappropriate in its current form, delete is preferable. If someone then wants to create a proper article, I would be supportive of that effort.--Epeefleche (talk) 17:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Jewish history, taking anything salvageable (not much I suspect) to that article, where an NPOV section can be developed and maybe spun out again in time. Southend sofa (talk) 18:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom, slrubenstein, brewcrewer, Carrite, Cullen328, SV, JFW, Mathsci, and Epeefleche. The content doesn't reflect the title, and is not representative of the proper literature on the title, but instead is cherry-picked OR used to support an antisemitic stereotype. And because of the documented abuse of the sources it actually uses, none of it can be trusted or re-used anywhere. Also, all those votes stating "well sourced" or "I see no reason to delete" have not in any way addressed the reasons for deletion, and are therefore effectively meaningless. Jayjg 19:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Categories: