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My first impression is that "contemporary" is just not the right title for 'living rabbis'. Where is the line drawn between R Yitzhak kaduri and R Moshe Feinstein. One is hip, the other from another generation? Look up contemporary in wikitionary. -- Shuki 20:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the 'living' cats. Actually I can't stand that "living people cat", which is perhaps why I am particularly uneasy with this additional subcat. I got to tell you that the first time I found out about and visited this Ortho Rab cat, was a moment of bliss, and continued to be until now. Where else would so many rabbis be lumped together in one place. Until now, only here, but I suppose that we must continue with divisions... Maybe a cat with the century would be better - 1900s rabbis, 2000s rabbis? -- Shuki 21:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, how's this for a proposal: let's do it by eras of halachah. We can have tannaim, amoraim, geonim, savoraim, rishonim, achronim, and contemporary. (The last cat would be for anyone who is essentially too late to be an acharon). It requires a bit of recategorization on our part (which can be helped by WP:AWB), but I think it's best. -- Bachrach44 22:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Bachrach: What you can do on the Hebrew Wiki is not always possible to do on the English Wikipedia. In Israel there is no challenge from Reform and Conservative scholars on the same level as you have it in English in the United States. The Conservatives very seriously believe that Orthodoxy is a "false continuation" of Judaism and that it is they, the Conservatives, who are continuing the "tradition" of the Rishonim. These type of discussions have been held on Wikipedia many times. Now the problem is that the Reform and Conservatives do not recoginze the authority of the Achronim so here at Wikipedia we called the Achronim Orthodox rabbis. However, the Middle Ages (look it up) ends by the 1500s --- from the 1500s to the mid-1750s is considered to be the Early Modern Times --- and the fact is that by the 1500s there are no longer any more Rishonim. When you say: "talmud rabbis" could rfer to tannaim as well since the mishnah is included in the gemarah." While it is true that the Tannaim (of the Mishnah) are also in the Talmud, but you forget that what we are dealing with here is Wikipedia's system of categorization and in that system it would be correct to have a Talmud rabbis category function as the super-category and Mishnah rabbis as a sub-category. Thus Mishnah rabbis are those identified with the Mishnah only but Talmud rabbis includes all the rest. Please remember that there is always a struggle between keeping terminology easy for English readers whereas Hebrew terms and the Hebrew Wiki is for Hebrew speakers and mostly read by Jews only. IZAK 04:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, although I agree that the cat "orthodox rabbis" must be split somehow, I don't think I like the idea of moving Category:Mishnah rabbis and Category:Talmud rabbis to the orthodox rabbis cat. There was no formal movement called "orthodoxy" (or for that matter "conservative" or "reform"). Also, although I'm not too familiar with their principles, that both Reform and Conservative claim to follow some sort of version of the oral law, so labelling the tannaim and amoraim as orthodox doesn't feel right to me. -- Bachrach44 22:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
The latest changes are no good. The word "contemporary" is meaningles and should be abolished. Rabbis are not "measured" by their state of life or when they died. I was planning a new category called Category:Modern Orthodox rabbis which should cut down the category somewhat. Category:Middle Ages rabbis was created with that name to avoid clashes with Conservative Judaism editors, and because the word "Orthodox" is of modern vintage only. There is no need to "to improve efficiency and shorten the main list of Orthodox Rabbis" because the lists are going to be long as time goes by no matter what you do. While User:Nesher means well, and knows about the subject, he has not taken the time to learn about Wikipedia and the those who edit and have seen these categories for the last few years. He needs to slow down and learn the ropes BEFORE making major changes, which will probably be nominated for deletion at the rate he has done things. There is still more to say. (See below!) IZAK 01:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Shuki: From your exasperated questions it's obvious that you are not familiar with the way these terms are used in English and the English-speaking world. You also reveal that you do not understand how categories are strucured and how they function. Let me answer all your questions in detail:
Thanks for your serious responses. I look forward to more discussions with you. IZAK 04:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Category:Contemporary Orthodox rabbis is now redundant and should be deleted. In place, there are now more precise categories (which this episode has revealed to be overdue) and into which the so-called "contemporary" rabbis have been placed. If anyone would like to indicate that a rabbi is presently ALIVE then just put in the Category:Living people and automatically the reader knows that the rabbi is with us!
Thus under Category:Orthodox rabbis there is now some new sub-categories using KNOWN and accepted non-controversial academic and ecyclopedic nomenclature:
The above should go a long way towards sorting out the ever-growing list of Orthodox rabbis of all shades and parties etc. IZAK 07:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
IZAK - what have you gone and done? I created one new category called "contemporary Orthodox Rabbis (the name might have been a mistake - so you could have changed it to "living rabbis" - big deal), gained at least the partial acceptance of Bachrach and Shuki and was completely uncontroversial - living rabbis are alive, there's no doubt about that.
While I accept that I acted hastily and should have consulted other "wikipedians", a consensus on this issue is elusive and we've been bogged down by similar debates for eons. That being the case and with all my rushing - you've acted completely unilaterally and created upwards of ten new categories! I was trying to clean up the situation while you've come along and fragmented things.
Please explain to me: who can define whether X Rabbi is "haredi" and Y is "Modern Orthodox"? What in the world is "Religious Zionist Orthodox"! Are "hassidim" not "Haredi"? You've brought in some major POV issues. Also, I regard it as a grave injustice to the memories of many, many holy religous Rabbis since the Middle Ages and beyond to lump them in the Category:rabbis section with modern Reform "Rabbis". They are acknowledged today as Orthodox - even if that term is new it is clearly definable and any Jew can answer a straight yes or no - one cant say the same about "Modern Orthodox" or "haredi" - religious people study their works - yet they are considerd in the same league as Geiger and Medelsohn! I fail to see the logic.
While I may have overdone it, you have in my opinion exacerbated the situation. Please take note - we both need concensus. Nesher 17:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia guidelines: "Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category." Nesher 17:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
breathing - it's more than just a good idea. :-) Serously, everyone relax and cool it on the name calling. (and yes, I mean everyone). Not everyone is happy with what everyone else has done, but I've dealt with all of you in the past, and know you all to be mature adults. I know that while we may all have our own opinions, and may be stubborn at times, I have no doubts that we can all work together to try and find a workable solution. Keep the communication lines open because that's the only way to move forward. -- Bachrach44 19:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
This is only tangentially related to the previous discussions, but while taking a look at the Hebrew wiki I noticed something very cool. They have timelines at the top of each rabbi's page showing when they lived in comparison to the periods of halakha. Take rashi, the Maharal, and rabbeinu tam for examples of what I mean. For us visual learners, this is a wonderful little tool. I'm curious to know what other people think of it. It appears that they did it by having one image for each rabbi (assumably with a generic template which we can borrow and then just overlaying red bars). Should we try to copy this feature? -- Bachrach44 19:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Bachrach: I am not sure what you want to do. It is a bad idea to add this kind of "timeline info" onto category pages which are kept clear of information which belongs in articles themselves. A category page is NOT an article page. IZAK 05:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
What do you say to creating a category called "20th Century Orthodox Rabbis" (or something to that effect). Also, to clear up the unwieldy array of new categories describing rabbis as "Modern Orthodox", "Religious Zionist Orthodox(?)" and "Haredi/Hassidic", who supports lumping these together - with a few exceptions - into a "Living Orthodox Rabbis" category? Nesher 16:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
IZAK: I sense a very fine line between the two categories above. True, there are many Religious Zionist Rabbis that are in fact Haredi - but virtually all of the Modern Orthodox Rabbis in their category are religious zionist. Thus, I beleive that Rabbis should be categorised based on their RELIGIOUS beliefs and not their POLITICAL beliefes, the latter being far more subjective, with a far greater spectrum and also defying logical categorisation.
The effect would be that Rabbis in the Religious Zionist Category (essentially a fickle political division) would be moved to either MO or Haredi. This further unifies and consolidates the existing structures and in my view is something that should be considered. Also, Bachrachs's idea of timelines on category pages may not be practical, but it most certainly should be a welcome addition to the articles themselves. Thank you, Nesher 12:53, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I truly expect the rest of the non-sephardic haredi rabbis to be placed into a new cat Category:Ashkenazic Haredi rabbis in Israel. Anything less than that is demeaning. -- Shuki 21:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have doubts about:
because they seem ill-defined and combining two to four dimensions together: the religious movement, the political movement and in the case of Separdic Haredi rabbis in Israel also a sub-ethnicity with the locale of Israel. Category:Modern Orthodox rabbis on the other hand seems rabbis with a better defined religious movement. It is a-political and non-ethnic, as it combines right and some left, and Ashkenazi with some Sephardic. I propose to keep it. gidonb 22:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm growing tired of this hideous maze of rabbis categories. Hence I've put forward a couple of Cfd's so there can be a fair vote and debate about this matter open to everyone. I will hopefully add the Haredi rabbis category and MO categories to the list of those being considered, I repeat only considered for deletion. If they're worthy, of course they'll get voted to be kept, and if not... Nesher 15:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see here. -- Shuki 21:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Cross-posted from: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism:
Hi: I disagree with the above CfD votes nominated by User:Shuki and User:Nesher. The categories are clear and precise, and it seems that Nesher and Shuki are not fully familar with the way categories are set up and constructed with super-categories first and a number of extending sub-categories. The numbers of rabbis in Category:Orthodox rabbis was growing and some changes were introduced to create accurate sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories, something that is done all the time on Wikipedia. The new categories and sub-categories were created based on fact, logic, and reality. If they had problems with it, Nesher and Shuki could have brought the subject over here for some discussion if they had more to say and wanted to bring others in and share their views. However, now that there is a formal vote, it becomes a broader issue, and it can be opened up further here as well.
The votes are presently taking place at:
Thank you and Shabbat Shalom! IZAK 13:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Unlike "the French" -- in the English speaking world, especially in the United States, the majority of Jews belong to Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism and all editors must take into account their reactions to editing (just as you would expect them to be sensitive to your positions) that will make all the "Sages d'Israël" appear as a subset of Category:Orthodox rabbis only. Your kano'es is all very nice, but it may serve to inevitably ignite a tinderbox either in the present or down the line. IZAK 09:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Biography: Science and Academia Category‑class | ||||||||||
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Judaism Category‑class | |||||||
|
My first impression is that "contemporary" is just not the right title for 'living rabbis'. Where is the line drawn between R Yitzhak kaduri and R Moshe Feinstein. One is hip, the other from another generation? Look up contemporary in wikitionary. -- Shuki 20:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the 'living' cats. Actually I can't stand that "living people cat", which is perhaps why I am particularly uneasy with this additional subcat. I got to tell you that the first time I found out about and visited this Ortho Rab cat, was a moment of bliss, and continued to be until now. Where else would so many rabbis be lumped together in one place. Until now, only here, but I suppose that we must continue with divisions... Maybe a cat with the century would be better - 1900s rabbis, 2000s rabbis? -- Shuki 21:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, how's this for a proposal: let's do it by eras of halachah. We can have tannaim, amoraim, geonim, savoraim, rishonim, achronim, and contemporary. (The last cat would be for anyone who is essentially too late to be an acharon). It requires a bit of recategorization on our part (which can be helped by WP:AWB), but I think it's best. -- Bachrach44 22:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Bachrach: What you can do on the Hebrew Wiki is not always possible to do on the English Wikipedia. In Israel there is no challenge from Reform and Conservative scholars on the same level as you have it in English in the United States. The Conservatives very seriously believe that Orthodoxy is a "false continuation" of Judaism and that it is they, the Conservatives, who are continuing the "tradition" of the Rishonim. These type of discussions have been held on Wikipedia many times. Now the problem is that the Reform and Conservatives do not recoginze the authority of the Achronim so here at Wikipedia we called the Achronim Orthodox rabbis. However, the Middle Ages (look it up) ends by the 1500s --- from the 1500s to the mid-1750s is considered to be the Early Modern Times --- and the fact is that by the 1500s there are no longer any more Rishonim. When you say: "talmud rabbis" could rfer to tannaim as well since the mishnah is included in the gemarah." While it is true that the Tannaim (of the Mishnah) are also in the Talmud, but you forget that what we are dealing with here is Wikipedia's system of categorization and in that system it would be correct to have a Talmud rabbis category function as the super-category and Mishnah rabbis as a sub-category. Thus Mishnah rabbis are those identified with the Mishnah only but Talmud rabbis includes all the rest. Please remember that there is always a struggle between keeping terminology easy for English readers whereas Hebrew terms and the Hebrew Wiki is for Hebrew speakers and mostly read by Jews only. IZAK 04:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, although I agree that the cat "orthodox rabbis" must be split somehow, I don't think I like the idea of moving Category:Mishnah rabbis and Category:Talmud rabbis to the orthodox rabbis cat. There was no formal movement called "orthodoxy" (or for that matter "conservative" or "reform"). Also, although I'm not too familiar with their principles, that both Reform and Conservative claim to follow some sort of version of the oral law, so labelling the tannaim and amoraim as orthodox doesn't feel right to me. -- Bachrach44 22:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
The latest changes are no good. The word "contemporary" is meaningles and should be abolished. Rabbis are not "measured" by their state of life or when they died. I was planning a new category called Category:Modern Orthodox rabbis which should cut down the category somewhat. Category:Middle Ages rabbis was created with that name to avoid clashes with Conservative Judaism editors, and because the word "Orthodox" is of modern vintage only. There is no need to "to improve efficiency and shorten the main list of Orthodox Rabbis" because the lists are going to be long as time goes by no matter what you do. While User:Nesher means well, and knows about the subject, he has not taken the time to learn about Wikipedia and the those who edit and have seen these categories for the last few years. He needs to slow down and learn the ropes BEFORE making major changes, which will probably be nominated for deletion at the rate he has done things. There is still more to say. (See below!) IZAK 01:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Shuki: From your exasperated questions it's obvious that you are not familiar with the way these terms are used in English and the English-speaking world. You also reveal that you do not understand how categories are strucured and how they function. Let me answer all your questions in detail:
Thanks for your serious responses. I look forward to more discussions with you. IZAK 04:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Category:Contemporary Orthodox rabbis is now redundant and should be deleted. In place, there are now more precise categories (which this episode has revealed to be overdue) and into which the so-called "contemporary" rabbis have been placed. If anyone would like to indicate that a rabbi is presently ALIVE then just put in the Category:Living people and automatically the reader knows that the rabbi is with us!
Thus under Category:Orthodox rabbis there is now some new sub-categories using KNOWN and accepted non-controversial academic and ecyclopedic nomenclature:
The above should go a long way towards sorting out the ever-growing list of Orthodox rabbis of all shades and parties etc. IZAK 07:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
IZAK - what have you gone and done? I created one new category called "contemporary Orthodox Rabbis (the name might have been a mistake - so you could have changed it to "living rabbis" - big deal), gained at least the partial acceptance of Bachrach and Shuki and was completely uncontroversial - living rabbis are alive, there's no doubt about that.
While I accept that I acted hastily and should have consulted other "wikipedians", a consensus on this issue is elusive and we've been bogged down by similar debates for eons. That being the case and with all my rushing - you've acted completely unilaterally and created upwards of ten new categories! I was trying to clean up the situation while you've come along and fragmented things.
Please explain to me: who can define whether X Rabbi is "haredi" and Y is "Modern Orthodox"? What in the world is "Religious Zionist Orthodox"! Are "hassidim" not "Haredi"? You've brought in some major POV issues. Also, I regard it as a grave injustice to the memories of many, many holy religous Rabbis since the Middle Ages and beyond to lump them in the Category:rabbis section with modern Reform "Rabbis". They are acknowledged today as Orthodox - even if that term is new it is clearly definable and any Jew can answer a straight yes or no - one cant say the same about "Modern Orthodox" or "haredi" - religious people study their works - yet they are considerd in the same league as Geiger and Medelsohn! I fail to see the logic.
While I may have overdone it, you have in my opinion exacerbated the situation. Please take note - we both need concensus. Nesher 17:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia guidelines: "Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category." Nesher 17:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
breathing - it's more than just a good idea. :-) Serously, everyone relax and cool it on the name calling. (and yes, I mean everyone). Not everyone is happy with what everyone else has done, but I've dealt with all of you in the past, and know you all to be mature adults. I know that while we may all have our own opinions, and may be stubborn at times, I have no doubts that we can all work together to try and find a workable solution. Keep the communication lines open because that's the only way to move forward. -- Bachrach44 19:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
This is only tangentially related to the previous discussions, but while taking a look at the Hebrew wiki I noticed something very cool. They have timelines at the top of each rabbi's page showing when they lived in comparison to the periods of halakha. Take rashi, the Maharal, and rabbeinu tam for examples of what I mean. For us visual learners, this is a wonderful little tool. I'm curious to know what other people think of it. It appears that they did it by having one image for each rabbi (assumably with a generic template which we can borrow and then just overlaying red bars). Should we try to copy this feature? -- Bachrach44 19:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Bachrach: I am not sure what you want to do. It is a bad idea to add this kind of "timeline info" onto category pages which are kept clear of information which belongs in articles themselves. A category page is NOT an article page. IZAK 05:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
What do you say to creating a category called "20th Century Orthodox Rabbis" (or something to that effect). Also, to clear up the unwieldy array of new categories describing rabbis as "Modern Orthodox", "Religious Zionist Orthodox(?)" and "Haredi/Hassidic", who supports lumping these together - with a few exceptions - into a "Living Orthodox Rabbis" category? Nesher 16:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
IZAK: I sense a very fine line between the two categories above. True, there are many Religious Zionist Rabbis that are in fact Haredi - but virtually all of the Modern Orthodox Rabbis in their category are religious zionist. Thus, I beleive that Rabbis should be categorised based on their RELIGIOUS beliefs and not their POLITICAL beliefes, the latter being far more subjective, with a far greater spectrum and also defying logical categorisation.
The effect would be that Rabbis in the Religious Zionist Category (essentially a fickle political division) would be moved to either MO or Haredi. This further unifies and consolidates the existing structures and in my view is something that should be considered. Also, Bachrachs's idea of timelines on category pages may not be practical, but it most certainly should be a welcome addition to the articles themselves. Thank you, Nesher 12:53, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I truly expect the rest of the non-sephardic haredi rabbis to be placed into a new cat Category:Ashkenazic Haredi rabbis in Israel. Anything less than that is demeaning. -- Shuki 21:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have doubts about:
because they seem ill-defined and combining two to four dimensions together: the religious movement, the political movement and in the case of Separdic Haredi rabbis in Israel also a sub-ethnicity with the locale of Israel. Category:Modern Orthodox rabbis on the other hand seems rabbis with a better defined religious movement. It is a-political and non-ethnic, as it combines right and some left, and Ashkenazi with some Sephardic. I propose to keep it. gidonb 22:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm growing tired of this hideous maze of rabbis categories. Hence I've put forward a couple of Cfd's so there can be a fair vote and debate about this matter open to everyone. I will hopefully add the Haredi rabbis category and MO categories to the list of those being considered, I repeat only considered for deletion. If they're worthy, of course they'll get voted to be kept, and if not... Nesher 15:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see here. -- Shuki 21:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Cross-posted from: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism:
Hi: I disagree with the above CfD votes nominated by User:Shuki and User:Nesher. The categories are clear and precise, and it seems that Nesher and Shuki are not fully familar with the way categories are set up and constructed with super-categories first and a number of extending sub-categories. The numbers of rabbis in Category:Orthodox rabbis was growing and some changes were introduced to create accurate sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories, something that is done all the time on Wikipedia. The new categories and sub-categories were created based on fact, logic, and reality. If they had problems with it, Nesher and Shuki could have brought the subject over here for some discussion if they had more to say and wanted to bring others in and share their views. However, now that there is a formal vote, it becomes a broader issue, and it can be opened up further here as well.
The votes are presently taking place at:
Thank you and Shabbat Shalom! IZAK 13:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Unlike "the French" -- in the English speaking world, especially in the United States, the majority of Jews belong to Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism and all editors must take into account their reactions to editing (just as you would expect them to be sensitive to your positions) that will make all the "Sages d'Israël" appear as a subset of Category:Orthodox rabbis only. Your kano'es is all very nice, but it may serve to inevitably ignite a tinderbox either in the present or down the line. IZAK 09:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)