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A couple of months after the initial insert 30 June 2009 of a paragraph on financier BERNARD MADOFF it was deleted on 24 August 2009, and then deleted again on 1 December with no detailed and traceable justification in the Edit summary. In view of lack of reference to the details in the adduced text of WP:UNDUE one must assume the the deletion aims at the passus "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." If this is the case then the newly added paragraph should do since it considers Madoff's positive achievements together with one main reason for his exceptional notability, which has great importance for both the subject "American Jews", and "Finance". If such a paragraph is deleted it would raise the suspicion of wiki-CENSORSHIP, in that the subject "American Jews" would only aim at furthering a biased view of people deserving only admiration. It would amount to sheer advertising or positive discrimination. Stefanson ( talk) 15:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I will leave it at that since I feel since long quite familiar with the UNDUE-matter and do not believe in the value of screaming - neither CENSORSHIP nor UNDUE. The text in this section of TALK should be sufficient for every interested reader to form his/her own opinion on the article's reliability and adherence to the WIKI-guidelines. Stefanson ( talk) 15:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
As for the question of whether to include him, no one's rushing to include Ted Kazinsky in the Polish Americans article or Seung-Hui Cho to the Korean Americans article.-- Louiedog ( talk) 16:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
It was hardly a major event in American Jewish history. Five years from now few will know who Madof was, aside from those directly harmed by him. I would only agree to this: that the US press turned Madoff into a major event for their news cycle. Madoff helped the press spin the collapse of the US banking industry as being the result of individual greed and fraud, when in fact the reason for the collapse was much more complex, involved most Americans, and requires a serious overhaul of the regulation of investment banks and the trade in derivatives. Everyone will feel nice and warm when Madoff goes to jail, but the in the meantime the real problems don't get addressed. Madoff was a crook, but there are thousands of othe Madoffs out there who did not get caught; he got caught because of a massive economic collapse the deprived him of anything he could hide behind. And the far bigger scandal is all the many little trades - none of which were illigal, but which turned Wall Street from being a market to being a casino - behind the total collapse. Compared to this Madoff is a distraction. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I removed almost all the names from the section on "Notable American Jews" because it had become a dumping ground for everybody's favorite American Jews. (See Talk:American Jews/Archive 2#Image gallery and these edits) I don't think it's appropriate to add Madoff or Koufax or anybody else to that section, and it's got nothing to do with censorship. — Malik Shabazz Talk/ Stalk 18:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Please see below the new section created on 30 December 2009
"From MADOFF to Political Controversy", an appendix to the text above, related to the new section in the article, on
Political Controversy.
Stefanson (
talk)
17:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
This article deals with US-American Jews and not with American Jews in the main! It should be renamed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Njrwally ( talk • contribs) 14:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
When dealing with census, stats, polls, and the like, are Jews classified as White Americans? 75.4.247.171 ( talk) 06:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Today I added a new sub-section on political controversy. The following is an appendix to the talk section "No censorship of "BERNARD MADOFF" initiated on 1 December 2009, with the purpose of improving the article. The question is: are there "bad American Jews" who then are turned into unimportant, non notable people who do not deserve to figure among American Jews? The formal component of the Israel lobby, easily confounded with the Jewish lobby, has been described in Wikipedia as including media watchdog groups. The latter may also be working within Wikipedia itself and, if so, in a problematic relation to Wikipedia's WP:SOCKS guidelines, and specifically to the two recommendations of (1) Do not bias discussions by asking for supporters from other places (meatpuppetry), and (2) Do not act as a meat puppet for somebody else. Meatpuppetry or spontaneously concerted, solidary wiki-editorial action is not censorship but it has the same effect, also in suggesting that the mere mention of censorship is a sort of hysterical "screaming". I think such an actual danger can be inferred from some controversial Talk-discussions of the article on financial advisor Bernard Madoff, regarding whether and how his Jewishness should be mentioned (see the latest insert here), or on whether his name should be mentioned at all in the "Finance" subsection of this present article from which it was repeatedly deleted (see Talk section).
In the latter case arguments were advanced in the Talk, such as "As long as Wikipedia has an article on Madoff, accusations of censorship sound bizarre [...] people can go to the madoff article to learn the full story with one click ". As if - after editorial strifes - one still uncensored and editorially still controversial article of Wikipedia should justify the deletion of the very name of Madoff in another article. As a matter of fact his very name was obliterated in this present article on American Jews, and therefore the reader could not "go" to the article Bernard Madoff. His deleted name was also omitted in the remarkably obscure "Edit summary" of its first deletion, which also denied that an unnamed "something" had anything to do with finance. See "History" 24 August 2009: " WP:UNDUE, for starters. Also, not in Finance anyway." Another argument was " Why don't we have more information on Philip Roth, Sandy Koufax, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Albert Einstein, Herman Wouk, Howard Fast, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Irving Howe or Harrison Ford?" A simple search on Google shows that Bernard Madoff produces about one sixth of the number of hits for Albert Einstein, an absolute world hit-champion, not being by far comparable in such world-wide notability with any one of the other names except Philip Roth and Harrison Ford. But the point is that the our article in question had a section on finance! Another argument has been "the US press turned Madoff into a major event for their news cycle" which in turn suggests that his notability was not real notability but was constructed by the US press. It claimed that "there are thousands of other Madoffs out there who did not get caught". But nothing is mentioned about Wikipedia itself recalling that his may have been the largest investment fraud in Wall Street history, and therefore in the world's financial history, and consequently not comparable with thousands of others. Furthermore in the talk following 1 December 2009 it is acknowledged that Madoff "is sort of [sic!] important right now, but it is newsy. That he is Jewish is sort of [sic!] relevant, but he belongs in a section of famous Jewish American criminals, not famous Jews in finance. For that, there are 100s of far more notable people. And, I am not suggesting we add the 100s. Just stating that Madoff is in now [sic] way particularly notable as per finance.This is neither positive nor negative censorship". I think that this kind of argument misunderstands not only the connotations of finance and censorship but mainly notability, since it downgrades present notability in view of its presumed or postulated future decrease, and confuses positive famousness with relevant notability.
This confirms that one sees the article on American Jews as an advertising of famous admirable and good American Jews while proposing parallel articles (which would certainly be wiki-editorially obliterated as anti-semitic) for bad, criminal American Jews. How would articles in Wikipedia look like if they all followed such as policy about the good and the bad guys? And, finally: an editor removed almost all the names from the section on Notable American Jews because it had become a dumping ground for everybody's favorite American Jews, but forgot to justify why some final few (good) guys were not removed. In summary: editorial wars seem to be won by enduring censoring in rationalized passion, rather than by dull argument. That is: rhetoric for the sake of politics. I still hope that the new article section on political controversy will not be also be rhetorically deleted with a new enigmatic, blanking "Edit summary". Stefanson ( talk) 17:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I see this after an absence. I appreciate the exemplary conciseness of the list of problems with my alternative insert on POLITICAL CONTROVERSY, as perceived by Malik Shabazz (above) who immediately deleted it (30 December). But it is obtained at the cost of bypassing all my arguments which per se might have justified a reinstatement of a version of my [2], or Rjensen's [3] earlier contribution about the notable Bernard Madoff in the subsection on finance. And it also obtained at the cost of the length of my present and earlier talk-inserts [4] for which I may be gratuitously criticized. The sudden deletion of my first version by Jayjg on 24 August, 2009 with its trackless edit summary which, except for a mute, nameless reference to Talk, obliterates the very mention of Madoff's name in both the article and its history. That deletion together with the deletion by Oboler on 1 December 2009, not to mention the extremely noncommittal and remarkable deletion without edit summary by Sposer on 2 December 1009 of others' laborious editorial improvements offsetting claims of WP:UNDUE, had already violated in the edit summaries several points of WP:IMPROVE. While acknowledging that mass media politics also concerns Wikipedia as already pointed out in WP:MEAT (see more below), I assume WP:GOODFAITH for all these deletions. Procedural care, however, must be taken in the justifications in order not to strain the confidence of the general public as a critical reader and a welcome co-editor of Wikipedia.
If one assumes that the listed problems with my new text were serious, I myself or, rather, Wikipedia would have needed some help and suggestions of improvement, a task which requires much more effort than sheer deletion. We should not forget that our main task is to enrich and improve Wikipedia, not to only preserve it (cf. errors of omission vs. commission, WP:IMPERFECT , WP:PRESERVE). There is a problem with that sort of Jayjg's concise statement of problems since a superficial interpretation of WP:BURDEN shifts too comfortably the total burden of proof on the author of the contribution, with a conciseness which is based on a wholesale reference to the total text of, earlier, WP:UNDUE, and later WP:BLP and WP:SYN, and perhaps ultimately on a whole alphabet of policies and guidelines without specification of the relevant details. This allows for the risk of an endless recursion of numerous subsequent objections: an editorial biasing filter by a team of soulmates in a spirit of mass media politics analog to identity politics, manufacturing consent [5] or, in the best case, self-censorship [6]. This would block any futurely suggested rewordings and improvement by me and others, with the risk of our final surrender and retraction by sheer fatigue, which has already been a symptomatic temptation after the first deletions due to the vague WP:UNDUE. This risk might get exemplified by the possible consequences of my answering the list of problems as follows:
ANSWER - The WP:PSTS details on sourcing state that "Wikipedia articles should be based on published reliable secondary sources, as such sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. However in some circumstances it may be appropriate to cite either primary or tertiary sources for supporting details." The notability of the article and the topic were already established and I used tertiary sources only for supporting details. Furthermore, WP:PSTS states that Wikipedia articles may not be used as tertiary sources, but are sometimes used as primary sources in articles about Wikipedia. I used reference to Wikipedia articles in a subsection about how Wikipedia can be used as a source for search of notable names of American Jews, not the least through cited organizations and their history.
ANSWER- WP:SYN states "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." I did not combine multiple source to reach any conclusion at all but in order to indicate where a search for notable names and events can be performed. I was not supposed to list names, them all, dozens of them depending upon situational relevance, as already suggested by others in this Talk-section. But take just one example from Israel Lobby, of a forgotten Paul Wolfowitz. " Sic transit gloria mundi", as for the mere mention of Madoff's name, and of his tremendous impact on the American Jewish community.
ANSWER - See the previous item. As i wrote: it offers directly and indirectly sources for search of names of notable American Jews, their deeds, and related events.
ANSWER - My text was the following: "A source of names of great notability or importance in national politics, in their very quality of "American Jews", has been [...]" The expression <in their very quality of "American Jews"> referred to the previous "names", and not the to the subsequently mentioned authors and entries in Wikipedia. But the question remains whether it really was a "contentious" material about living persons which justified an immediate removal by WP:BLP, instead of inviting an improvement. Would it be an insult if a reader had wrongly assumed that somebody was an American Jew? And the final note above about the reversion/deletion of my subsection was the following:
ANSWER - So, my critics shifted the criticism from UNDUE to BLP and SYN, always summarily deleting. In the process I gained insights in the risk of a biased filtering of data into the article up to now. The Madoff-question grew into a more serious and general one. I decide now to not restore my edit but rather to insert a new edit in the article's section "External links and further reading" or in a new one on "Further reading". This should avoid all the above doubts and objections, including the references to WP:BLP and WP:SYN which were adduced as the reason for the speedy removals. At the same time I overlook ( WP:GOODFAITH) that the intervention did neither take into account nor mention my own earlier arguments above, on 30 December 2009, about inclusion of Bernard Madoff in the subsection on "Finance". Not to mention deletion without edit summary.
My purpose is to provide, together with the names, a rich material for Wikipedia readers to further their own study in view of the questions considered in this article, as exemplified by what Sposer did in his own further study as per his talk-contribution above on 31 December 2009. This is except for his categorizing some Jews as "bad Jews" (a term which was not used in my edits but was inferred by and from the critics), his referal to Jews he never met, and his simple comparisons where he implicitly treats Jewry as a nationality without taking the next logical step of stating the alternative idea of a concurrent Jewish criminal organization as for other nationalities. Sposer is ultimately concerned about failing to satisfy WP:NPOV if the mention of the Israel lobby is not carefully qualified (as it already is in its Wikipedia article) but a most serious infringement of WP:NPOV seems to be to ignore the kind of information advanced in my own contribution, as I explained in my arguments (of 30 December). Furthermore, Sposer's own suggestion of 2 December 2009, (above), deserved an objection in view advocating an illegitimate content forking WP:POVFORK, given the impossibility of conceiving an inclusion of Madoff into an extended article on Jewish-American mafia.
In all this, besides aforementioned policies and guidelines, I am following the policy of Consensus as a result of the editing process in WP:CONS, and WP:EL. As a sign of politeness I refrain until further notice from introducing my text into the article. I trust everybody's goodwill in implementing the text (below), which is enframed for emphasis only on this talk-page:
CONTROVERSIES: For a broader and deeper search of names and events treated in Wikipedia and involving American Jews, please see the articles on the the Jewish lobby or, more accurately, the Israel lobby, as well as Norman Finkelstein concerning the Holocaust industry, John Mearsheimer who together with Stephen Walt co-authored work on the Israel lobby, Jonathan Pollard on the politics of military espionage, Jewish-American mafia as criminal organization, and Bernard Madoff on the political frame of a financial fraud which had a unique impact on the American Jewish community.
Stefanson ( talk) 10:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Reply to Stefanson: Wikipedia is based on consensus. It seems to me, based on the large number of editors who have reverted your edits, that there is a consensus here that your "controversy" paragraph doesn't belong in the article. You haven't managed to convince anybody that there is a controversy concerning American Jews that needs addressing in the article. — Malik Shabazz Talk/ Stalk 20:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
ENOUGH ON CONTROVERSY: After today's speedy reversion of my last edit from the announced placement which nobody had questioned, I see a final infringement of WP:NPOV. I am considering WP:DR and WP:ANI but have no time for a follow-up. Initially I did not intend to focus on MADOFF which I saw as an uncontroversial detail in the finance-subsection of the article. The form of subsequent deletions, however, convinced me that they may be the visible "top of an iceberg" of policy misinterpretations worthy of being futurely questioned by the Wikipedia community. For this useful purpose I summarize below all the relevant earlier entries into the revision and talk histories.
REVISION HISTORY:
TALK HISTORY:
Stefanson ( talk) 16:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Yesterday I returned to this page and saw the unexpected threefold aftermath of 18 January, requiring a corresponding longer answer. The systematic disregard of all my earlier arguments against misinterpretations of a subsection on Undue content and (the now opportunely forgotten) Biographies of living persons, followed by the blatant violation of the core of Neutral point of view, ends now with repeated violations of Good faith. For the purpose of illustration let's emphasize the following relevant excerpts from Sposer's talk of 18 January 2009 and contrast them with my text which was summarily deleted 13 minutes after its insertion the same day:
Sposer: A few points here. Stefanson's clear agenda here is to add negative comments about American Jews [...] Is Ted Bundy mentioned in the article on whatever religion he belongs to? I suspect that if he was Jewish, Stefanson would seek to add that information to the American Jews article too. [...] As far as the Israel Lobby, using simplistic and out of context links comes off as being a bit nefarious, even if it is not meant that way.[...] A section regarding "controversies" is a thinly veiled attempt to push a POV agenda by the editor.
And, which anti-Jewish straw man is this cannonade, including the absurd mentioning of Ted Bundy, aimed at? It is necessary to contrast that straw man with the missed correct target, the deleted text of mine, whose content I clearly emphasized above but is barely mentioned:
Stefanson: For a broader and deeper search of names and events treated in Wikipedia and involving American Jews, please see the articles on the the Jewish lobby or, more accurately, the Israel lobby, as well as Norman Finkelstein concerning the Holocaust industry, John Mearsheimer who together with Stephen Walt co-authored work on the Israel lobby, Jonathan Pollard on the politics of military espionage, Jewish-American mafia as criminal organization, and Bernard Madoff on the political frame of a financial fraud which had a unique impact on the American Jewish community.
After a discreet warning by Louiedog ("Getting back to discussion on content and not editors") who, by the way, seems to appear above as an alternative signature of Loodog, Sposer partially retracts his words and offers a welcomed apology. But the main issue remains: that remarkable and unfortunate talk-tone reveals an attitude which also pops up in Jayjg's "This seems to be an effort uniquely directed at Jews." It a talk-tone which explains the quenching disregard for my arguments against the arbitrary deletions. It is a talk-tone which fortunately stops short of requesting proofs of (good) Jewishness or of accusations of worse. Such proofs, however, even if adduced, might not be good enough, as they were not in talks/discussions about Noam Chomsky. There, by the way, both Sposer and Malik Shabazz seem even to have been involved, and intervened, in several symptomatic violations of the policy of Biographies of living persons, so they must know.
The last comments of 18 January by Louiedog seem to request that, supposedly for the sake of (a curiously misinterpreted) neutral point of view, before mentioning Madoff in the context of finance I myself (and some meatpuppets?) should simultaneously edit subsections on criminals in the articles Muslim Americans, Polish Americans, Korean Americans or Asian Americans, Italian Americans. And, as suggested by Sposer in talk 31 December 2009, also in Irish American, and German Americans. If this is not done simultaneously, in a concerted forceful action, policing editors for each one of the articles may for all future repeat the "arguments" adduced here against me: "why here but not there, why us but not them?"
There are references to crime and such in articles about other nations' Americans, as it can be seen, for instance in Italian American. It is OK to talk about "Italian-American contingent of organized crime" but it is taboo to refer to Jewish mafia in American Jews. And it is OK to refer repeatedly to "Terrorism" and "Controversy" in the article on Muslim Americans but, again, not in the article on American Jews where one is not supposed to uncover controversies. Polish Americans in its bibliography was allowed to list a book onTraitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939, with its treatment of ethnic loyalty and its converse, betrayal (see below). And it is OK to have a subsection on "Crime" in all Wikipedia articles on American cities without offending their respective dwellers, but it is offensive and "undue" to refer to a financial crime of historical proportions, especially for the American Jewish community, in a subsection on finance in American Jews. And nobody has gone so far as wanting to mention reliable secondary sources on the bitter controversy around the by now famous Shlomo Sand's book on The invention of the Jewish people" which may be seen - as a matter of principle - as putting into question the very existence of this very same article on American Jews.
The title of the our article is neither "Venerable American Jews" nor "Contributions of American Jews to the glory of the United States." But possibly it is about their role in its history. Eventually all comparisons and metaphors break down, but the article resembles a history of Germany and Germans, or Russia and Russians, where Hitler or Stalin are not mentioned in a sub-section on world politics. And, finally, I think that it was an insult touching upon violation of WP:BLP to put the names of Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt and the Jewish lobby, at the same argumentative level of Bernard Madoff, Jewish-American mafia, and Jonathan Pollard. Not to mention the other names whose listing by Sposer comes off as a bit nefarious, such as Ted Bundy, Nidal Malik Hasan, Seung-Hui Cho, and Al Capone, who are not relevant for (non existing) sub-sections on finance or political controversy. But, regarding ethnic loyalty and its converse, betrayal (see above) please note that Jonathan Pollard is an American Jew who has proved to be officially highly esteemed by the Israeli government.
So, now I expect that the prominent editors will eventually apply the Wikipedia policy of improvement to my text. If not, a reliance on "guest editors" like me not having the time for a follow up ( WP:ANI, WP:DR) could discourage other substantial discussions in these talk pages since even naively bold edits will seem to be speedily suffocated. Stefanson ( talk) 08:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Stefanson, I never intended to imply that anyone should run around meatpuppeting or editing other articles. The place to discuss the editing of other articles is at 'those other articles'. My goal was an argument by analogy since the examples I cited of notorious people of other ethnic, religious, or nationality groups were not included for what I thought to be very obvious reasons. Further, all the affirmative inclusions you cite are of groups of the given ethnic/religious/nationality group and not specific people. I have no problem with a mention of the Jewish mafia here if someone more knowledgeable than I on the subject deems it to be notable enough for inclusion. It doesn't mean specific people start getting highlighted.
Additionally, Sposer's language is better for the simple reason that it addresses impact on and connection to the American Jewish community, something far more notable than simple almost happenstance membership in it. Kids apparently can't go on Birthright now because of the crater Madoff left - that's got to be more relevant to the American Jewish community than the fact that Madoff was born Jewish.-- Louiedog ( talk) 03:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I think if one wishes to be principled about not having long lists of people (in each of the categories mentioned) then both Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan should be left out. But if Bernanke is in, I think it seems natural and logical to also mention Greenspan. Bus stop ( talk) 20:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I do not know how to use wikipedia talkpages well enough to make a headline and all that, but I must point out that ALBERT EINSTEIN IS NOT AMERICAN!!! He is German. Please change this soon. Goodguy1066 ( talk) 18:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)Goodguy1066 Goodguy1066 ( talk) 18:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, we can at least mention that he's German-born and raised and lived in Germany for over 60 years! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodguy1066 ( talk • contribs) 15:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
I think these people should be in the gallery: Noam Chomsky, milton friedman (The Economist magazine praised him as "the most intellectual economist of the second half of the 20th century… possibly of all of it"), bob dylan, allen ginsberg(one of the best american poets) and richard Feynman. Now it looks very childish. יניבפור ( talk) 01:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's a list of better choices:
- Allen ginsberg instead of Norman Mailer (As we agreed) - Milton Friedman instead of Ben Bernanke (As we agreed)
- Dustin hoffman (won two Academy Awards, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs, three Drama Desk Awards, an Emmy Award and an Annie Award) instead of Barbra Streisand.
- Marc Spitz (Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic golds plus a silver and a bronze, five Pan American golds, 31 US Amateur Athletic Union titles and eight US National Collegiate Athletic Association titles. During those years, he set 33 world records.[1] He was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971 and 1972) instead of Hank Greenberg (only 3 langueges)
- Bob Dylan (must be on this gallery) and Noam Chomsky instead of Rahm Emanuel and Louis Brandeis
- J.D.Salinger (jewish father) instead of Asimov יניבפור ( talk) 11:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
many of the most prominent american intellectuals are jewish (let's face it, the majority). few examples: franz boas ("Father of American Anthropology"). Milton Friedman, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Paul Samuelson ,Kenneth Arrow, Paul Krugman in Economics. Saul Kripke, Thomas Kuhn, Hilary Putnam etc. (philosophy). Richard Feynman, Edward Witten, Julian Schwinger, Steven Weinberg etc. (Physics). Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir (linguistics) and so on. for that reason i think the gallery should include at least one more scientist/intellectual. i suggested noam chomsky instead of Rahm Emanuel.
i steel think mark spitz is better choice than greenberg. you forget that many reeders aren't american (just like me [israeli - my english is poor, but i know the materia as you can see]) and few know who is he. mark spitz on the other hand won 9 olympic gold medals plus silver and a bronze (huge achievement), and everybody knows him.
as i said, bob dylan must be in the gallery. and i would suggest to put him instead of mel brooks. יניבפור ( talk) 12:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
ok, i agree, bob dylan instead of mel brooks. and allen ginsberg instead of mailer and Milton Friedman instead of Ben Bernanke. יניבפור ( talk) 12:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
There must have been an magazine or a newspaper in New York about 1900, named Jewish American. But under this title, there is only a redirect to "American Jews". I just mention it, if someone is interested to do some research on that magazine or newspaper ;) The author Zalmen Zylbercweig, for example, worked for the "Jewish American" - that's why I mention it. -- Otto Normalverbraucher ( talk) 19:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I've moved the following material here for discussion:
Jews play a large role in Wall Street, both at investment banks and investment funds. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Salomon Brothers and other top Wall Street banks were founded by Jews. SAC Capital, Fortress Investment Group, Soros Capital Management, Och-Ziff, GLG Partners Renaissance Technologies and Baupost are all large hedge funds founded by Jews. Jews have also played a pivotal role in the private equity industry, founding such firms as Blackstone, Carlyle Group, TPG Capital, Warburg Pincus, Apax Partners and KKR. The top 5 largest private equity funds were all established by Jews.<ref>R. William Weisberger, "Jews and American Investment Banking," ''American Jewish Archives,'' June 1991, Vol. 43 Issue 1, pp 71-75</ref>
I originally removed it as unreferenced and non-notable, but was reverted by Rjensen, who added the given citation, alluding only to the "unreferenced" part of my comment. To begin with, it's unclear to me how much of this paragraph is actually supported by the sourced provided. I note, for example, that GLG Partners was founded in 1995 - yet the supporting reference is from 1991! Does this citation really support the material? Second, it's not clear to me that this is particularly notable, except in a " Jews control the banks and finance industry" sort of way. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869; was has it to do with an organization founded in 1995? Jayjg (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
A lot of people talk about paranoia about people saying "Jews control America", which is obviously a ridiculous antisemitic claim. However it is true that Germany is very sensitive in matters involving Jews for the obvious reason of WW2 reparations. But what is often not heard is that the majority ancestry in the US is German. Could that be a source of 'shame'? Inclusion of articles from reliable source on the matter for betterment of the article would be appreciated. -- Leladax ( talk) 17:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
As I noted in my initial revert, leftist has a connotation that implies that this was, is and continues to be a general leaning amongst the Jewish population, which is not accurate. None of the cites tied to the statements discuss this, so it is OR to add it. I am not denying that a small minority in the 30s and 40s and possibly early 50s, were involved in leftist leaning groups, but it was never a major part of the structure of Jewish politics. And, at this point, although still highly leaning towards Democrats, it is untrue now. Even using membership in organizations as a way of counting this leaning is questionable. I can recall in the 1970s, the International Committee Against Racism, which I almost joined. They were mostly fighting apartheid in South Africa, and many people in my university belonged to it (Jew and non-Jew). However, I found out that they were tied to the Communist party and did not join. I am sure many people never dug into that, and joined anyway and could thus be included as "leftist". The cause was worthy, but the apparatus around it was not. RJensen is an historian and I am sure can come up with a valid source that correctly identifies the short period where there was anything more than a tiny percent of Jews involved in so-called leftist politics. Sposer ( talk) 14:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't the contemporary politics section mention, first that Eric Cantor is now House Majority Leader, and second, that in achieving that position he has reached the highest rank of any Jew ever in the U.S. Congress? Hypercallipygian ( talk) 00:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
I am pulling the following text out of Stereotypes of Jews because it talks specifically about Jews in the United States. I would like to insert it into this article as the intro to a longer section about "Stereotypes of American Jews" but I wanted to put it up for discussion before doing that.
David Schneder writes "Three large clusters of traits are part of the Jewish stereotype (Wuthnow, 1982). First, [American] Jews are seen as being powerful and manipulative. Second, they are accused of dividing their loyalties between the United States and Israel. A third set of traits concerns Jewish materialistic values, aggressiveness, clannishness." [1]
-- Pseudo-Richard ( talk) 16:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
. Cheers.-- Louiedog ( talk) 19:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking of adding Carl Sagan to the infobox pictures of famous Jews, as he was a Jew, albeit nonpracticing. Would that be acceptable? Saberwolf116 ( talk) 15:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
In the article Luso-American, it is written that "In September 1654, shortly before the Jewish New Year, twenty-three Jews of Portuguese ancestry from Recife, Brazil, arrived in New York, which at the time was under Dutch rule and known as New Amsterdam. This arrival was the beginning of Jewish-American history. Sephardic Portuguese Jews were also the early settlers of Newport, Rhode Island (where the country's first synagogue was founded), Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore." However, I don't see any reference of such migration here. The website of the Center for Jewish History ( http://www.cjh.org/p/52) states that "2004 marked a significant landmark in American Jewish history: the 350th anniversary of the arrival of 23 Sephardic Jews from Recife, Brazil to what was still New Amsterdam. These refugees wrote the first page of a new chapter in the annals of Jewish history." Moreover, the article Spanish and Portuguese Jews also brings this peculiar historical fact. Despite having such relevance, the article over here only states that "Jews have been present in what is today the United States of America as early as the 17th century.[8][9] However, they were small in numbers and almost exclusively Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry", apparently considering such migration irrelevant. Seeing it from an international perspective, this fact is very relevant. Do you guys agree on including a reference to such migration?
-- Jgsodre ( talk) 02:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Expanding on from the observation that there are no religious figures in the infobox, here are my thoughts.
e.g.: Leonard Bernstein Louis Brandeis Albert Einstein Milton Friedman Hank Greenberg Abraham Joshua Heschel Henry Kissinger Philip Roth Mark Rothko Steven Spielberg Barbara Streisand
P.S. If you are looking for a token "Bad guy" (apart from Kissinger!) I can't think of anyone better than Bobby Fischer.
Zargulon ( talk) 14:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps I was a little harsh on Feynman. I personally still Friedan narrowly misses the cut (just like a lot of other indisputably great and well-known people) but I take your point. Perhaps if there was a female painter or sculptor to replace her with instead of Rothko.. Anyway my interpretation of what you wrote seems to be that you are ok with replacing Feynman and Dylan (without prejudice to their greatness or otherwise..) with, e.g. Milton Friedman and Leonard Bernstein? Zargulon ( talk) 17:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm.. by that criterion, Madonna would be as Jewish as hell, and maybe Michael Jackson. But what do I know.. Zargulon ( talk) 18:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok. What about taking Diane Feinstein out to replace with the religious figure? I think she is hardly known at all outside America. Zargulon ( talk) 18:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I would be prepared to use gender as a tie-break, but I think it is better to have a more famous man than a woman who would clearly be there just because of her gender, as I think is the case with Feinstein. Debbie Friedman is completely below the radar for me. Zargulon ( talk) 18:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Well I am stumped for the religious figure(s). It's not that I'd object, but just don't think that the Lubavitcher/Satmar Rebbe or any of the others have any significant public footprint outside of the Jewish world. In the UK we could go for Jonathan Sacks or Hugo Gryn who are/were well-known public personalities. What about Shmuley Boteach.. Zargulon ( talk)
Zargulon, I think we also have to keep in mind that we need good head shots of whoever is added, which limits our choices. Jayjg (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
how about this: we rotate the pictures every week (month?), so that in the course of a year, a goodly number of all the people mentioned above will be shown. 12 x 52 = a lot of people highlighted. this will solve a lot of the arguments since if this week there are too many scientists, then next week there will be too many orthodox jews, etc. comments? Soosim ( talk) 11:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
There's a great deal of humor that is considered in the discourse to be reflective of Jewish culture. Surely, any article mentioning Jewish American culture should mention the influence of Woody Allen in such films as Annie Hall, Seinfeld, or its spiritual successor Curb Your Enthusiasm. How about Seth Rogen's wearing a Superjew t-shirt in Funny People, as reflective of the self-parodying Jewish consciousness of Heeb Magazine?-- Louiedog ( talk) 16:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
AndresHerutJaim ( talk · contribs) has been making many changes to the infobox on the page, generally adding all sorts of images of young actors. As has been discussed here many times, the pictures in the infobox are a careful balance of men and women from all sorts of professions, all Jews, and geared towards overall significance. It's unclear that these additions match those criteria, and in any event need to be discussed first. AndresHerutJaim, please explain which pictures you wish to add/delete, and why. Jayjg (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Guys, did you know Shia LaBeouf is Jewish? It seems the world is a Kippah.-- AndresHerutJaim ( talk) 01:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I have news: this funny man and this one are so Jewish as this guy and this one. Probably it would be easier simply to ask which famous actor is NOT Jewish.-- AndresHerutJaim ( talk) 23:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Feynman is definitely staying. He self-identifies as Jewish and American many times in his writings. He is extremely notable. And his personality and life is representative of American culture (far more than Einstein, for example). As for whoever added Emma Goldman, this is a very controversial choice and should be removed (we don't have Lenin in the Russian infobox). It's also a little bizarre to include Gertrude Stein, considering that she was an extreme anti-semite. Even Ayn Rand would be less controversial. Avaya1 ( talk) 04:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Why don't you include any religious jews in your info box, Like Moshe Feinstein, the Satmar Rav, Menachem Mendel Schneerson … etc. I think it is mistaken to show only a cross segment of the secular jewish population when the Religious jewish population has had a larger effect on the jewish character of the US, even though they maybe smaller in numbers. yisraeldov ( talk) 14:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I think the lack of any religious figures is an issue we should at least discuss. I see three possible approaches:
Thoughts? Jayjg (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
If we do a google search on the names of American Jewish religious figures to try to (crudely) ascertain which are the most well-known/influential, we get the following results:
Religious leader | Google hits | Google book hits |
---|---|---|
Solomon Schechter | 678,000 | 225,000 |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson | 509,000 | 15,700 |
Abraham Joshua Heschel | 459,000 | 88,300 |
Judah Magnes | 391,000 | 17,500 |
Stephen Samuel Wise | 308,000 | 42,200 |
Joseph B. Soloveitchik | 291,000 | 71,600 |
Moshe Feinstein | 136,000 | 16,900 |
Mordecai Kaplan | 67,900 | 23,500 |
Joel Teitelbaum | 48,600 | 4,080 |
While google hits isn't an exact science, it's pretty clear we shouldn't be picking Feinstein, Kaplan, or Teitelbaum. In addition, Orthodoxy is the smallest of the the major movements of American Judaism (Reform is the largest, Conservative next largest). So, it would seem to make sense to go with Schechter, but we might also want to use Magnes or Wise instead, representing the Reform movement. Jayjg (talk) 20:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry If I jumped the gun, but I added the Chabad rebbe, it seems that at least a few people agreed with me or at least didn't object. Also now there is a place for a religious jew on the board. If there are any objections please put them under this section, it was getting confusing looking in 15 different places. On a side note, any one that knows me personally will be shocked that I would be the one to put the Chabad rebbe, but I think it is the logical thing to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yisraeldov ( talk • contribs) 21:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Boteach is clearly Orthodox. He may have some views atypical of your classic Orthodox rabbi, but he is a practicing Orthodox Jew. If there is no reliable source that says he is not Orthodox, you cannot use that as reason to reject him. I would guess he is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, which is the main Orthodox Rabbinical group and a group that has been oft criticized for kowtowing to Haredi Israeli edicts that are not in any way, shape or form in line with American Orthodox views. If he has not been ex-communicated or had his smicha removed, he is Orthodox. I still see Schneerson as more notable due to the global importance of Chabad and even Kahane due to his involvement with the JDL (be that moral or immoral). But the view that Boteach is not Orthodox sounds like a view limited to a very small percentage of ultra-Orthodox members of the religion. Boteach certainly has greater moral, and in my mind, Jewish standing, than the types harassing women at the Wailing Wall. Sposer ( talk) 13:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
A couple of months after the initial insert 30 June 2009 of a paragraph on financier BERNARD MADOFF it was deleted on 24 August 2009, and then deleted again on 1 December with no detailed and traceable justification in the Edit summary. In view of lack of reference to the details in the adduced text of WP:UNDUE one must assume the the deletion aims at the passus "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." If this is the case then the newly added paragraph should do since it considers Madoff's positive achievements together with one main reason for his exceptional notability, which has great importance for both the subject "American Jews", and "Finance". If such a paragraph is deleted it would raise the suspicion of wiki-CENSORSHIP, in that the subject "American Jews" would only aim at furthering a biased view of people deserving only admiration. It would amount to sheer advertising or positive discrimination. Stefanson ( talk) 15:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I will leave it at that since I feel since long quite familiar with the UNDUE-matter and do not believe in the value of screaming - neither CENSORSHIP nor UNDUE. The text in this section of TALK should be sufficient for every interested reader to form his/her own opinion on the article's reliability and adherence to the WIKI-guidelines. Stefanson ( talk) 15:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
As for the question of whether to include him, no one's rushing to include Ted Kazinsky in the Polish Americans article or Seung-Hui Cho to the Korean Americans article.-- Louiedog ( talk) 16:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
It was hardly a major event in American Jewish history. Five years from now few will know who Madof was, aside from those directly harmed by him. I would only agree to this: that the US press turned Madoff into a major event for their news cycle. Madoff helped the press spin the collapse of the US banking industry as being the result of individual greed and fraud, when in fact the reason for the collapse was much more complex, involved most Americans, and requires a serious overhaul of the regulation of investment banks and the trade in derivatives. Everyone will feel nice and warm when Madoff goes to jail, but the in the meantime the real problems don't get addressed. Madoff was a crook, but there are thousands of othe Madoffs out there who did not get caught; he got caught because of a massive economic collapse the deprived him of anything he could hide behind. And the far bigger scandal is all the many little trades - none of which were illigal, but which turned Wall Street from being a market to being a casino - behind the total collapse. Compared to this Madoff is a distraction. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I removed almost all the names from the section on "Notable American Jews" because it had become a dumping ground for everybody's favorite American Jews. (See Talk:American Jews/Archive 2#Image gallery and these edits) I don't think it's appropriate to add Madoff or Koufax or anybody else to that section, and it's got nothing to do with censorship. — Malik Shabazz Talk/ Stalk 18:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Please see below the new section created on 30 December 2009
"From MADOFF to Political Controversy", an appendix to the text above, related to the new section in the article, on
Political Controversy.
Stefanson (
talk)
17:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
This article deals with US-American Jews and not with American Jews in the main! It should be renamed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Njrwally ( talk • contribs) 14:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
When dealing with census, stats, polls, and the like, are Jews classified as White Americans? 75.4.247.171 ( talk) 06:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Today I added a new sub-section on political controversy. The following is an appendix to the talk section "No censorship of "BERNARD MADOFF" initiated on 1 December 2009, with the purpose of improving the article. The question is: are there "bad American Jews" who then are turned into unimportant, non notable people who do not deserve to figure among American Jews? The formal component of the Israel lobby, easily confounded with the Jewish lobby, has been described in Wikipedia as including media watchdog groups. The latter may also be working within Wikipedia itself and, if so, in a problematic relation to Wikipedia's WP:SOCKS guidelines, and specifically to the two recommendations of (1) Do not bias discussions by asking for supporters from other places (meatpuppetry), and (2) Do not act as a meat puppet for somebody else. Meatpuppetry or spontaneously concerted, solidary wiki-editorial action is not censorship but it has the same effect, also in suggesting that the mere mention of censorship is a sort of hysterical "screaming". I think such an actual danger can be inferred from some controversial Talk-discussions of the article on financial advisor Bernard Madoff, regarding whether and how his Jewishness should be mentioned (see the latest insert here), or on whether his name should be mentioned at all in the "Finance" subsection of this present article from which it was repeatedly deleted (see Talk section).
In the latter case arguments were advanced in the Talk, such as "As long as Wikipedia has an article on Madoff, accusations of censorship sound bizarre [...] people can go to the madoff article to learn the full story with one click ". As if - after editorial strifes - one still uncensored and editorially still controversial article of Wikipedia should justify the deletion of the very name of Madoff in another article. As a matter of fact his very name was obliterated in this present article on American Jews, and therefore the reader could not "go" to the article Bernard Madoff. His deleted name was also omitted in the remarkably obscure "Edit summary" of its first deletion, which also denied that an unnamed "something" had anything to do with finance. See "History" 24 August 2009: " WP:UNDUE, for starters. Also, not in Finance anyway." Another argument was " Why don't we have more information on Philip Roth, Sandy Koufax, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Albert Einstein, Herman Wouk, Howard Fast, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Irving Howe or Harrison Ford?" A simple search on Google shows that Bernard Madoff produces about one sixth of the number of hits for Albert Einstein, an absolute world hit-champion, not being by far comparable in such world-wide notability with any one of the other names except Philip Roth and Harrison Ford. But the point is that the our article in question had a section on finance! Another argument has been "the US press turned Madoff into a major event for their news cycle" which in turn suggests that his notability was not real notability but was constructed by the US press. It claimed that "there are thousands of other Madoffs out there who did not get caught". But nothing is mentioned about Wikipedia itself recalling that his may have been the largest investment fraud in Wall Street history, and therefore in the world's financial history, and consequently not comparable with thousands of others. Furthermore in the talk following 1 December 2009 it is acknowledged that Madoff "is sort of [sic!] important right now, but it is newsy. That he is Jewish is sort of [sic!] relevant, but he belongs in a section of famous Jewish American criminals, not famous Jews in finance. For that, there are 100s of far more notable people. And, I am not suggesting we add the 100s. Just stating that Madoff is in now [sic] way particularly notable as per finance.This is neither positive nor negative censorship". I think that this kind of argument misunderstands not only the connotations of finance and censorship but mainly notability, since it downgrades present notability in view of its presumed or postulated future decrease, and confuses positive famousness with relevant notability.
This confirms that one sees the article on American Jews as an advertising of famous admirable and good American Jews while proposing parallel articles (which would certainly be wiki-editorially obliterated as anti-semitic) for bad, criminal American Jews. How would articles in Wikipedia look like if they all followed such as policy about the good and the bad guys? And, finally: an editor removed almost all the names from the section on Notable American Jews because it had become a dumping ground for everybody's favorite American Jews, but forgot to justify why some final few (good) guys were not removed. In summary: editorial wars seem to be won by enduring censoring in rationalized passion, rather than by dull argument. That is: rhetoric for the sake of politics. I still hope that the new article section on political controversy will not be also be rhetorically deleted with a new enigmatic, blanking "Edit summary". Stefanson ( talk) 17:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I see this after an absence. I appreciate the exemplary conciseness of the list of problems with my alternative insert on POLITICAL CONTROVERSY, as perceived by Malik Shabazz (above) who immediately deleted it (30 December). But it is obtained at the cost of bypassing all my arguments which per se might have justified a reinstatement of a version of my [2], or Rjensen's [3] earlier contribution about the notable Bernard Madoff in the subsection on finance. And it also obtained at the cost of the length of my present and earlier talk-inserts [4] for which I may be gratuitously criticized. The sudden deletion of my first version by Jayjg on 24 August, 2009 with its trackless edit summary which, except for a mute, nameless reference to Talk, obliterates the very mention of Madoff's name in both the article and its history. That deletion together with the deletion by Oboler on 1 December 2009, not to mention the extremely noncommittal and remarkable deletion without edit summary by Sposer on 2 December 1009 of others' laborious editorial improvements offsetting claims of WP:UNDUE, had already violated in the edit summaries several points of WP:IMPROVE. While acknowledging that mass media politics also concerns Wikipedia as already pointed out in WP:MEAT (see more below), I assume WP:GOODFAITH for all these deletions. Procedural care, however, must be taken in the justifications in order not to strain the confidence of the general public as a critical reader and a welcome co-editor of Wikipedia.
If one assumes that the listed problems with my new text were serious, I myself or, rather, Wikipedia would have needed some help and suggestions of improvement, a task which requires much more effort than sheer deletion. We should not forget that our main task is to enrich and improve Wikipedia, not to only preserve it (cf. errors of omission vs. commission, WP:IMPERFECT , WP:PRESERVE). There is a problem with that sort of Jayjg's concise statement of problems since a superficial interpretation of WP:BURDEN shifts too comfortably the total burden of proof on the author of the contribution, with a conciseness which is based on a wholesale reference to the total text of, earlier, WP:UNDUE, and later WP:BLP and WP:SYN, and perhaps ultimately on a whole alphabet of policies and guidelines without specification of the relevant details. This allows for the risk of an endless recursion of numerous subsequent objections: an editorial biasing filter by a team of soulmates in a spirit of mass media politics analog to identity politics, manufacturing consent [5] or, in the best case, self-censorship [6]. This would block any futurely suggested rewordings and improvement by me and others, with the risk of our final surrender and retraction by sheer fatigue, which has already been a symptomatic temptation after the first deletions due to the vague WP:UNDUE. This risk might get exemplified by the possible consequences of my answering the list of problems as follows:
ANSWER - The WP:PSTS details on sourcing state that "Wikipedia articles should be based on published reliable secondary sources, as such sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. However in some circumstances it may be appropriate to cite either primary or tertiary sources for supporting details." The notability of the article and the topic were already established and I used tertiary sources only for supporting details. Furthermore, WP:PSTS states that Wikipedia articles may not be used as tertiary sources, but are sometimes used as primary sources in articles about Wikipedia. I used reference to Wikipedia articles in a subsection about how Wikipedia can be used as a source for search of notable names of American Jews, not the least through cited organizations and their history.
ANSWER- WP:SYN states "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." I did not combine multiple source to reach any conclusion at all but in order to indicate where a search for notable names and events can be performed. I was not supposed to list names, them all, dozens of them depending upon situational relevance, as already suggested by others in this Talk-section. But take just one example from Israel Lobby, of a forgotten Paul Wolfowitz. " Sic transit gloria mundi", as for the mere mention of Madoff's name, and of his tremendous impact on the American Jewish community.
ANSWER - See the previous item. As i wrote: it offers directly and indirectly sources for search of names of notable American Jews, their deeds, and related events.
ANSWER - My text was the following: "A source of names of great notability or importance in national politics, in their very quality of "American Jews", has been [...]" The expression <in their very quality of "American Jews"> referred to the previous "names", and not the to the subsequently mentioned authors and entries in Wikipedia. But the question remains whether it really was a "contentious" material about living persons which justified an immediate removal by WP:BLP, instead of inviting an improvement. Would it be an insult if a reader had wrongly assumed that somebody was an American Jew? And the final note above about the reversion/deletion of my subsection was the following:
ANSWER - So, my critics shifted the criticism from UNDUE to BLP and SYN, always summarily deleting. In the process I gained insights in the risk of a biased filtering of data into the article up to now. The Madoff-question grew into a more serious and general one. I decide now to not restore my edit but rather to insert a new edit in the article's section "External links and further reading" or in a new one on "Further reading". This should avoid all the above doubts and objections, including the references to WP:BLP and WP:SYN which were adduced as the reason for the speedy removals. At the same time I overlook ( WP:GOODFAITH) that the intervention did neither take into account nor mention my own earlier arguments above, on 30 December 2009, about inclusion of Bernard Madoff in the subsection on "Finance". Not to mention deletion without edit summary.
My purpose is to provide, together with the names, a rich material for Wikipedia readers to further their own study in view of the questions considered in this article, as exemplified by what Sposer did in his own further study as per his talk-contribution above on 31 December 2009. This is except for his categorizing some Jews as "bad Jews" (a term which was not used in my edits but was inferred by and from the critics), his referal to Jews he never met, and his simple comparisons where he implicitly treats Jewry as a nationality without taking the next logical step of stating the alternative idea of a concurrent Jewish criminal organization as for other nationalities. Sposer is ultimately concerned about failing to satisfy WP:NPOV if the mention of the Israel lobby is not carefully qualified (as it already is in its Wikipedia article) but a most serious infringement of WP:NPOV seems to be to ignore the kind of information advanced in my own contribution, as I explained in my arguments (of 30 December). Furthermore, Sposer's own suggestion of 2 December 2009, (above), deserved an objection in view advocating an illegitimate content forking WP:POVFORK, given the impossibility of conceiving an inclusion of Madoff into an extended article on Jewish-American mafia.
In all this, besides aforementioned policies and guidelines, I am following the policy of Consensus as a result of the editing process in WP:CONS, and WP:EL. As a sign of politeness I refrain until further notice from introducing my text into the article. I trust everybody's goodwill in implementing the text (below), which is enframed for emphasis only on this talk-page:
CONTROVERSIES: For a broader and deeper search of names and events treated in Wikipedia and involving American Jews, please see the articles on the the Jewish lobby or, more accurately, the Israel lobby, as well as Norman Finkelstein concerning the Holocaust industry, John Mearsheimer who together with Stephen Walt co-authored work on the Israel lobby, Jonathan Pollard on the politics of military espionage, Jewish-American mafia as criminal organization, and Bernard Madoff on the political frame of a financial fraud which had a unique impact on the American Jewish community.
Stefanson ( talk) 10:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Reply to Stefanson: Wikipedia is based on consensus. It seems to me, based on the large number of editors who have reverted your edits, that there is a consensus here that your "controversy" paragraph doesn't belong in the article. You haven't managed to convince anybody that there is a controversy concerning American Jews that needs addressing in the article. — Malik Shabazz Talk/ Stalk 20:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
ENOUGH ON CONTROVERSY: After today's speedy reversion of my last edit from the announced placement which nobody had questioned, I see a final infringement of WP:NPOV. I am considering WP:DR and WP:ANI but have no time for a follow-up. Initially I did not intend to focus on MADOFF which I saw as an uncontroversial detail in the finance-subsection of the article. The form of subsequent deletions, however, convinced me that they may be the visible "top of an iceberg" of policy misinterpretations worthy of being futurely questioned by the Wikipedia community. For this useful purpose I summarize below all the relevant earlier entries into the revision and talk histories.
REVISION HISTORY:
TALK HISTORY:
Stefanson ( talk) 16:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Yesterday I returned to this page and saw the unexpected threefold aftermath of 18 January, requiring a corresponding longer answer. The systematic disregard of all my earlier arguments against misinterpretations of a subsection on Undue content and (the now opportunely forgotten) Biographies of living persons, followed by the blatant violation of the core of Neutral point of view, ends now with repeated violations of Good faith. For the purpose of illustration let's emphasize the following relevant excerpts from Sposer's talk of 18 January 2009 and contrast them with my text which was summarily deleted 13 minutes after its insertion the same day:
Sposer: A few points here. Stefanson's clear agenda here is to add negative comments about American Jews [...] Is Ted Bundy mentioned in the article on whatever religion he belongs to? I suspect that if he was Jewish, Stefanson would seek to add that information to the American Jews article too. [...] As far as the Israel Lobby, using simplistic and out of context links comes off as being a bit nefarious, even if it is not meant that way.[...] A section regarding "controversies" is a thinly veiled attempt to push a POV agenda by the editor.
And, which anti-Jewish straw man is this cannonade, including the absurd mentioning of Ted Bundy, aimed at? It is necessary to contrast that straw man with the missed correct target, the deleted text of mine, whose content I clearly emphasized above but is barely mentioned:
Stefanson: For a broader and deeper search of names and events treated in Wikipedia and involving American Jews, please see the articles on the the Jewish lobby or, more accurately, the Israel lobby, as well as Norman Finkelstein concerning the Holocaust industry, John Mearsheimer who together with Stephen Walt co-authored work on the Israel lobby, Jonathan Pollard on the politics of military espionage, Jewish-American mafia as criminal organization, and Bernard Madoff on the political frame of a financial fraud which had a unique impact on the American Jewish community.
After a discreet warning by Louiedog ("Getting back to discussion on content and not editors") who, by the way, seems to appear above as an alternative signature of Loodog, Sposer partially retracts his words and offers a welcomed apology. But the main issue remains: that remarkable and unfortunate talk-tone reveals an attitude which also pops up in Jayjg's "This seems to be an effort uniquely directed at Jews." It a talk-tone which explains the quenching disregard for my arguments against the arbitrary deletions. It is a talk-tone which fortunately stops short of requesting proofs of (good) Jewishness or of accusations of worse. Such proofs, however, even if adduced, might not be good enough, as they were not in talks/discussions about Noam Chomsky. There, by the way, both Sposer and Malik Shabazz seem even to have been involved, and intervened, in several symptomatic violations of the policy of Biographies of living persons, so they must know.
The last comments of 18 January by Louiedog seem to request that, supposedly for the sake of (a curiously misinterpreted) neutral point of view, before mentioning Madoff in the context of finance I myself (and some meatpuppets?) should simultaneously edit subsections on criminals in the articles Muslim Americans, Polish Americans, Korean Americans or Asian Americans, Italian Americans. And, as suggested by Sposer in talk 31 December 2009, also in Irish American, and German Americans. If this is not done simultaneously, in a concerted forceful action, policing editors for each one of the articles may for all future repeat the "arguments" adduced here against me: "why here but not there, why us but not them?"
There are references to crime and such in articles about other nations' Americans, as it can be seen, for instance in Italian American. It is OK to talk about "Italian-American contingent of organized crime" but it is taboo to refer to Jewish mafia in American Jews. And it is OK to refer repeatedly to "Terrorism" and "Controversy" in the article on Muslim Americans but, again, not in the article on American Jews where one is not supposed to uncover controversies. Polish Americans in its bibliography was allowed to list a book onTraitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939, with its treatment of ethnic loyalty and its converse, betrayal (see below). And it is OK to have a subsection on "Crime" in all Wikipedia articles on American cities without offending their respective dwellers, but it is offensive and "undue" to refer to a financial crime of historical proportions, especially for the American Jewish community, in a subsection on finance in American Jews. And nobody has gone so far as wanting to mention reliable secondary sources on the bitter controversy around the by now famous Shlomo Sand's book on The invention of the Jewish people" which may be seen - as a matter of principle - as putting into question the very existence of this very same article on American Jews.
The title of the our article is neither "Venerable American Jews" nor "Contributions of American Jews to the glory of the United States." But possibly it is about their role in its history. Eventually all comparisons and metaphors break down, but the article resembles a history of Germany and Germans, or Russia and Russians, where Hitler or Stalin are not mentioned in a sub-section on world politics. And, finally, I think that it was an insult touching upon violation of WP:BLP to put the names of Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt and the Jewish lobby, at the same argumentative level of Bernard Madoff, Jewish-American mafia, and Jonathan Pollard. Not to mention the other names whose listing by Sposer comes off as a bit nefarious, such as Ted Bundy, Nidal Malik Hasan, Seung-Hui Cho, and Al Capone, who are not relevant for (non existing) sub-sections on finance or political controversy. But, regarding ethnic loyalty and its converse, betrayal (see above) please note that Jonathan Pollard is an American Jew who has proved to be officially highly esteemed by the Israeli government.
So, now I expect that the prominent editors will eventually apply the Wikipedia policy of improvement to my text. If not, a reliance on "guest editors" like me not having the time for a follow up ( WP:ANI, WP:DR) could discourage other substantial discussions in these talk pages since even naively bold edits will seem to be speedily suffocated. Stefanson ( talk) 08:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Stefanson, I never intended to imply that anyone should run around meatpuppeting or editing other articles. The place to discuss the editing of other articles is at 'those other articles'. My goal was an argument by analogy since the examples I cited of notorious people of other ethnic, religious, or nationality groups were not included for what I thought to be very obvious reasons. Further, all the affirmative inclusions you cite are of groups of the given ethnic/religious/nationality group and not specific people. I have no problem with a mention of the Jewish mafia here if someone more knowledgeable than I on the subject deems it to be notable enough for inclusion. It doesn't mean specific people start getting highlighted.
Additionally, Sposer's language is better for the simple reason that it addresses impact on and connection to the American Jewish community, something far more notable than simple almost happenstance membership in it. Kids apparently can't go on Birthright now because of the crater Madoff left - that's got to be more relevant to the American Jewish community than the fact that Madoff was born Jewish.-- Louiedog ( talk) 03:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I think if one wishes to be principled about not having long lists of people (in each of the categories mentioned) then both Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan should be left out. But if Bernanke is in, I think it seems natural and logical to also mention Greenspan. Bus stop ( talk) 20:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I do not know how to use wikipedia talkpages well enough to make a headline and all that, but I must point out that ALBERT EINSTEIN IS NOT AMERICAN!!! He is German. Please change this soon. Goodguy1066 ( talk) 18:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)Goodguy1066 Goodguy1066 ( talk) 18:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, we can at least mention that he's German-born and raised and lived in Germany for over 60 years! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodguy1066 ( talk • contribs) 15:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
I think these people should be in the gallery: Noam Chomsky, milton friedman (The Economist magazine praised him as "the most intellectual economist of the second half of the 20th century… possibly of all of it"), bob dylan, allen ginsberg(one of the best american poets) and richard Feynman. Now it looks very childish. יניבפור ( talk) 01:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's a list of better choices:
- Allen ginsberg instead of Norman Mailer (As we agreed) - Milton Friedman instead of Ben Bernanke (As we agreed)
- Dustin hoffman (won two Academy Awards, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs, three Drama Desk Awards, an Emmy Award and an Annie Award) instead of Barbra Streisand.
- Marc Spitz (Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic golds plus a silver and a bronze, five Pan American golds, 31 US Amateur Athletic Union titles and eight US National Collegiate Athletic Association titles. During those years, he set 33 world records.[1] He was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971 and 1972) instead of Hank Greenberg (only 3 langueges)
- Bob Dylan (must be on this gallery) and Noam Chomsky instead of Rahm Emanuel and Louis Brandeis
- J.D.Salinger (jewish father) instead of Asimov יניבפור ( talk) 11:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
many of the most prominent american intellectuals are jewish (let's face it, the majority). few examples: franz boas ("Father of American Anthropology"). Milton Friedman, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Paul Samuelson ,Kenneth Arrow, Paul Krugman in Economics. Saul Kripke, Thomas Kuhn, Hilary Putnam etc. (philosophy). Richard Feynman, Edward Witten, Julian Schwinger, Steven Weinberg etc. (Physics). Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir (linguistics) and so on. for that reason i think the gallery should include at least one more scientist/intellectual. i suggested noam chomsky instead of Rahm Emanuel.
i steel think mark spitz is better choice than greenberg. you forget that many reeders aren't american (just like me [israeli - my english is poor, but i know the materia as you can see]) and few know who is he. mark spitz on the other hand won 9 olympic gold medals plus silver and a bronze (huge achievement), and everybody knows him.
as i said, bob dylan must be in the gallery. and i would suggest to put him instead of mel brooks. יניבפור ( talk) 12:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
ok, i agree, bob dylan instead of mel brooks. and allen ginsberg instead of mailer and Milton Friedman instead of Ben Bernanke. יניבפור ( talk) 12:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
There must have been an magazine or a newspaper in New York about 1900, named Jewish American. But under this title, there is only a redirect to "American Jews". I just mention it, if someone is interested to do some research on that magazine or newspaper ;) The author Zalmen Zylbercweig, for example, worked for the "Jewish American" - that's why I mention it. -- Otto Normalverbraucher ( talk) 19:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I've moved the following material here for discussion:
Jews play a large role in Wall Street, both at investment banks and investment funds. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Salomon Brothers and other top Wall Street banks were founded by Jews. SAC Capital, Fortress Investment Group, Soros Capital Management, Och-Ziff, GLG Partners Renaissance Technologies and Baupost are all large hedge funds founded by Jews. Jews have also played a pivotal role in the private equity industry, founding such firms as Blackstone, Carlyle Group, TPG Capital, Warburg Pincus, Apax Partners and KKR. The top 5 largest private equity funds were all established by Jews.<ref>R. William Weisberger, "Jews and American Investment Banking," ''American Jewish Archives,'' June 1991, Vol. 43 Issue 1, pp 71-75</ref>
I originally removed it as unreferenced and non-notable, but was reverted by Rjensen, who added the given citation, alluding only to the "unreferenced" part of my comment. To begin with, it's unclear to me how much of this paragraph is actually supported by the sourced provided. I note, for example, that GLG Partners was founded in 1995 - yet the supporting reference is from 1991! Does this citation really support the material? Second, it's not clear to me that this is particularly notable, except in a " Jews control the banks and finance industry" sort of way. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869; was has it to do with an organization founded in 1995? Jayjg (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
A lot of people talk about paranoia about people saying "Jews control America", which is obviously a ridiculous antisemitic claim. However it is true that Germany is very sensitive in matters involving Jews for the obvious reason of WW2 reparations. But what is often not heard is that the majority ancestry in the US is German. Could that be a source of 'shame'? Inclusion of articles from reliable source on the matter for betterment of the article would be appreciated. -- Leladax ( talk) 17:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
As I noted in my initial revert, leftist has a connotation that implies that this was, is and continues to be a general leaning amongst the Jewish population, which is not accurate. None of the cites tied to the statements discuss this, so it is OR to add it. I am not denying that a small minority in the 30s and 40s and possibly early 50s, were involved in leftist leaning groups, but it was never a major part of the structure of Jewish politics. And, at this point, although still highly leaning towards Democrats, it is untrue now. Even using membership in organizations as a way of counting this leaning is questionable. I can recall in the 1970s, the International Committee Against Racism, which I almost joined. They were mostly fighting apartheid in South Africa, and many people in my university belonged to it (Jew and non-Jew). However, I found out that they were tied to the Communist party and did not join. I am sure many people never dug into that, and joined anyway and could thus be included as "leftist". The cause was worthy, but the apparatus around it was not. RJensen is an historian and I am sure can come up with a valid source that correctly identifies the short period where there was anything more than a tiny percent of Jews involved in so-called leftist politics. Sposer ( talk) 14:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't the contemporary politics section mention, first that Eric Cantor is now House Majority Leader, and second, that in achieving that position he has reached the highest rank of any Jew ever in the U.S. Congress? Hypercallipygian ( talk) 00:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
I am pulling the following text out of Stereotypes of Jews because it talks specifically about Jews in the United States. I would like to insert it into this article as the intro to a longer section about "Stereotypes of American Jews" but I wanted to put it up for discussion before doing that.
David Schneder writes "Three large clusters of traits are part of the Jewish stereotype (Wuthnow, 1982). First, [American] Jews are seen as being powerful and manipulative. Second, they are accused of dividing their loyalties between the United States and Israel. A third set of traits concerns Jewish materialistic values, aggressiveness, clannishness." [1]
-- Pseudo-Richard ( talk) 16:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
. Cheers.-- Louiedog ( talk) 19:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking of adding Carl Sagan to the infobox pictures of famous Jews, as he was a Jew, albeit nonpracticing. Would that be acceptable? Saberwolf116 ( talk) 15:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
In the article Luso-American, it is written that "In September 1654, shortly before the Jewish New Year, twenty-three Jews of Portuguese ancestry from Recife, Brazil, arrived in New York, which at the time was under Dutch rule and known as New Amsterdam. This arrival was the beginning of Jewish-American history. Sephardic Portuguese Jews were also the early settlers of Newport, Rhode Island (where the country's first synagogue was founded), Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore." However, I don't see any reference of such migration here. The website of the Center for Jewish History ( http://www.cjh.org/p/52) states that "2004 marked a significant landmark in American Jewish history: the 350th anniversary of the arrival of 23 Sephardic Jews from Recife, Brazil to what was still New Amsterdam. These refugees wrote the first page of a new chapter in the annals of Jewish history." Moreover, the article Spanish and Portuguese Jews also brings this peculiar historical fact. Despite having such relevance, the article over here only states that "Jews have been present in what is today the United States of America as early as the 17th century.[8][9] However, they were small in numbers and almost exclusively Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry", apparently considering such migration irrelevant. Seeing it from an international perspective, this fact is very relevant. Do you guys agree on including a reference to such migration?
-- Jgsodre ( talk) 02:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Expanding on from the observation that there are no religious figures in the infobox, here are my thoughts.
e.g.: Leonard Bernstein Louis Brandeis Albert Einstein Milton Friedman Hank Greenberg Abraham Joshua Heschel Henry Kissinger Philip Roth Mark Rothko Steven Spielberg Barbara Streisand
P.S. If you are looking for a token "Bad guy" (apart from Kissinger!) I can't think of anyone better than Bobby Fischer.
Zargulon ( talk) 14:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps I was a little harsh on Feynman. I personally still Friedan narrowly misses the cut (just like a lot of other indisputably great and well-known people) but I take your point. Perhaps if there was a female painter or sculptor to replace her with instead of Rothko.. Anyway my interpretation of what you wrote seems to be that you are ok with replacing Feynman and Dylan (without prejudice to their greatness or otherwise..) with, e.g. Milton Friedman and Leonard Bernstein? Zargulon ( talk) 17:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm.. by that criterion, Madonna would be as Jewish as hell, and maybe Michael Jackson. But what do I know.. Zargulon ( talk) 18:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok. What about taking Diane Feinstein out to replace with the religious figure? I think she is hardly known at all outside America. Zargulon ( talk) 18:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I would be prepared to use gender as a tie-break, but I think it is better to have a more famous man than a woman who would clearly be there just because of her gender, as I think is the case with Feinstein. Debbie Friedman is completely below the radar for me. Zargulon ( talk) 18:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Well I am stumped for the religious figure(s). It's not that I'd object, but just don't think that the Lubavitcher/Satmar Rebbe or any of the others have any significant public footprint outside of the Jewish world. In the UK we could go for Jonathan Sacks or Hugo Gryn who are/were well-known public personalities. What about Shmuley Boteach.. Zargulon ( talk)
Zargulon, I think we also have to keep in mind that we need good head shots of whoever is added, which limits our choices. Jayjg (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
how about this: we rotate the pictures every week (month?), so that in the course of a year, a goodly number of all the people mentioned above will be shown. 12 x 52 = a lot of people highlighted. this will solve a lot of the arguments since if this week there are too many scientists, then next week there will be too many orthodox jews, etc. comments? Soosim ( talk) 11:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
There's a great deal of humor that is considered in the discourse to be reflective of Jewish culture. Surely, any article mentioning Jewish American culture should mention the influence of Woody Allen in such films as Annie Hall, Seinfeld, or its spiritual successor Curb Your Enthusiasm. How about Seth Rogen's wearing a Superjew t-shirt in Funny People, as reflective of the self-parodying Jewish consciousness of Heeb Magazine?-- Louiedog ( talk) 16:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
AndresHerutJaim ( talk · contribs) has been making many changes to the infobox on the page, generally adding all sorts of images of young actors. As has been discussed here many times, the pictures in the infobox are a careful balance of men and women from all sorts of professions, all Jews, and geared towards overall significance. It's unclear that these additions match those criteria, and in any event need to be discussed first. AndresHerutJaim, please explain which pictures you wish to add/delete, and why. Jayjg (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Guys, did you know Shia LaBeouf is Jewish? It seems the world is a Kippah.-- AndresHerutJaim ( talk) 01:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I have news: this funny man and this one are so Jewish as this guy and this one. Probably it would be easier simply to ask which famous actor is NOT Jewish.-- AndresHerutJaim ( talk) 23:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Feynman is definitely staying. He self-identifies as Jewish and American many times in his writings. He is extremely notable. And his personality and life is representative of American culture (far more than Einstein, for example). As for whoever added Emma Goldman, this is a very controversial choice and should be removed (we don't have Lenin in the Russian infobox). It's also a little bizarre to include Gertrude Stein, considering that she was an extreme anti-semite. Even Ayn Rand would be less controversial. Avaya1 ( talk) 04:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Why don't you include any religious jews in your info box, Like Moshe Feinstein, the Satmar Rav, Menachem Mendel Schneerson … etc. I think it is mistaken to show only a cross segment of the secular jewish population when the Religious jewish population has had a larger effect on the jewish character of the US, even though they maybe smaller in numbers. yisraeldov ( talk) 14:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I think the lack of any religious figures is an issue we should at least discuss. I see three possible approaches:
Thoughts? Jayjg (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
If we do a google search on the names of American Jewish religious figures to try to (crudely) ascertain which are the most well-known/influential, we get the following results:
Religious leader | Google hits | Google book hits |
---|---|---|
Solomon Schechter | 678,000 | 225,000 |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson | 509,000 | 15,700 |
Abraham Joshua Heschel | 459,000 | 88,300 |
Judah Magnes | 391,000 | 17,500 |
Stephen Samuel Wise | 308,000 | 42,200 |
Joseph B. Soloveitchik | 291,000 | 71,600 |
Moshe Feinstein | 136,000 | 16,900 |
Mordecai Kaplan | 67,900 | 23,500 |
Joel Teitelbaum | 48,600 | 4,080 |
While google hits isn't an exact science, it's pretty clear we shouldn't be picking Feinstein, Kaplan, or Teitelbaum. In addition, Orthodoxy is the smallest of the the major movements of American Judaism (Reform is the largest, Conservative next largest). So, it would seem to make sense to go with Schechter, but we might also want to use Magnes or Wise instead, representing the Reform movement. Jayjg (talk) 20:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry If I jumped the gun, but I added the Chabad rebbe, it seems that at least a few people agreed with me or at least didn't object. Also now there is a place for a religious jew on the board. If there are any objections please put them under this section, it was getting confusing looking in 15 different places. On a side note, any one that knows me personally will be shocked that I would be the one to put the Chabad rebbe, but I think it is the logical thing to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yisraeldov ( talk • contribs) 21:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Boteach is clearly Orthodox. He may have some views atypical of your classic Orthodox rabbi, but he is a practicing Orthodox Jew. If there is no reliable source that says he is not Orthodox, you cannot use that as reason to reject him. I would guess he is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, which is the main Orthodox Rabbinical group and a group that has been oft criticized for kowtowing to Haredi Israeli edicts that are not in any way, shape or form in line with American Orthodox views. If he has not been ex-communicated or had his smicha removed, he is Orthodox. I still see Schneerson as more notable due to the global importance of Chabad and even Kahane due to his involvement with the JDL (be that moral or immoral). But the view that Boteach is not Orthodox sounds like a view limited to a very small percentage of ultra-Orthodox members of the religion. Boteach certainly has greater moral, and in my mind, Jewish standing, than the types harassing women at the Wailing Wall. Sposer ( talk) 13:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)