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What a question that is. Anyone who has read Singer's stories can answer that question unequivocally. But here at Wikipedia, we do not rely on original research. Before I get into my reasons why Wikipedia should add the word 'Jewish' somewhere on the first line of Singer's Wikipedia article, I need to make one point that is not directly, only tangentially related. There is no question that Judaism is not just a religion, but is very much a nationality. There are myriad ways to prove this, but the one I like is to ask, "Is someone who does not practice Jewish law, whose mother was Jewish, is he/she Jewish?" The answer is: of course. I hope everyone will agree that the following people were/are Jewish: IB Singer, Philip Roth, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Aviv Gefen, Carol King, Sigmund Freud, etc... Why are they all Jewish despite not keeping the Sabbath or keeping Kosher? They are all Jewish because of a thing that in Hebrew is called "Am Israel" which means, "The Nation of Israel." The nationhood of the Jews is what allowed them to come together to create a new state of Jews in the Land of Israel. Even though the above is not really connected to the issue at hand, whether Singer's nationality was Jewish or Polish, I think it is important to point out. That said, I think we can all agree that Singer was at least an ethnic Jew, whatever that means. He was steeped in Jewish culture, and his writings were entirely, exclusively, overwhelming about that culture.
Just in case you need proof, here are some sources which prove his dedication to writing about universal themes through the medium of Jewish experience: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1978/singer/biographical/; https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Bashevis-Singer; https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4242/the-art-of-fiction-no-42-isaac-bashevis-singer; https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/25/obituaries/i-b-singer-narrator-of-jewish-folkways-dies.html
More important is Wikipedia's own guidelines for biographies. According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, Singer's ethnicity needs to be included in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Here is why, based on this quote from the MOS: "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless they are relevant to the subject's notability." Let's dissect this statement. "In general" means usually, but it does not mean "never be used". Sometimes ethnicity is relevant and should be included if "it is relevant to the subject's notability." That Singer is a "Jewish writer" is the essence of his notability. In addition it might be incorrect to mention his Polish roots since according to the MOS the "place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless (it is) relevant to the subject's notability." Being American, and definitely being Polish, are much less relevant to his life and art.
Finally, according to Oliszydlowski we need a consensus to make the change. I say we already have a consensus: Here are the editors in the last few weeks who have tried to correct the article's first sentence by adding the word Jewish, somewhere, anywhere, in the first, all-important sentence and in the short description as well, but have been prevented from doing so by one editor, who instead of opening up a discussion on the Talk page, threatened to have the long list of good faith editors reported for disruptive editing and even vandalism. Me and Dan Holsinger and UClaudius and Amire80 and 204.9.57.83 and JacobOGold and Dreifoos and 139.137.128.43 and 139.137.128.48
I hope we get a lot of people involved in this very important discussion. Thanks for participating. DaringDonna ( talk) 15:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Agreed.
If anything, the suggested change acknowledges both Singer's Polish and Jewish ethnicities, which cannot be said for the version we keep coming back to. UClaudius ( talk) 16:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
IB Singer wrote in Yiddish--the language of European Jews, and later English. Ethnically Polish writers did not write in Yiddish--they wrote in Polish. Did IB Singer write any books in Polish? TAPwiki ( talk) 19:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Is it more accurate to describe Singer in the following way (or something similar) and not the way it is written now: Isacc Bashevis Singer...was a Polish-born Jewish-American writer in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. DaringDonna ( talk) 17:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
This article has been a subject of a media piece here which reveals what inappropriate canvassing has taken place here (likely in the section(s) above). It describes how the now-blocked User:IBSLiteraryTrust learned how to game the system: "“The administrators on Wikipedia were not interested in upholding what might be factual information,” IBSLiteraryTrust said in a recent interview. “Their main concern was that people should play by their rules. To me, that kind of game is not a game worth playing.” Then he reconsidered. “It’s not a game worth playing alone,” he said." Then IBSLiteraryTrust "recruited help through Facebook; others came from Twitter. Someone would edit the first line to add the word Jewish... The final decision, based on a consensus... was to identify Singer in his entry’s first sentence as Jewish, not Polish." - that's an obvious violation of WP:CANVASS and WP:TAGTEAM, achieving a "consensus" through recruiting SPA and opinionated voters. Given this, the RfC above has to be considered invalidated and the issue at hand should be restored back to an earlier version, before the disclosed canvassing took place. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:07, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
21:24, 30 January 2022 (UTC) Topper'sDad ( talk)—== Autopilot use of rules ==
Given the long controversy about this article, this seems like a good place to suggest that the use of rules is no substitute for subject-matter knowledge. I read in the public press that one argument for calling I. B. Singer Polish is that there is no Jewish nation. By that logic, noting that there was no nation called Poland during the nineteenth century, we should change the article on Frédéric Chopin to describe him as Prussian. I hope none of us would be willing to make that edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Topper'sDad ( talk • contribs) 21:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Isaac Bashevis Singer article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article has been
mentioned by multiple media organizations:
|
What a question that is. Anyone who has read Singer's stories can answer that question unequivocally. But here at Wikipedia, we do not rely on original research. Before I get into my reasons why Wikipedia should add the word 'Jewish' somewhere on the first line of Singer's Wikipedia article, I need to make one point that is not directly, only tangentially related. There is no question that Judaism is not just a religion, but is very much a nationality. There are myriad ways to prove this, but the one I like is to ask, "Is someone who does not practice Jewish law, whose mother was Jewish, is he/she Jewish?" The answer is: of course. I hope everyone will agree that the following people were/are Jewish: IB Singer, Philip Roth, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Aviv Gefen, Carol King, Sigmund Freud, etc... Why are they all Jewish despite not keeping the Sabbath or keeping Kosher? They are all Jewish because of a thing that in Hebrew is called "Am Israel" which means, "The Nation of Israel." The nationhood of the Jews is what allowed them to come together to create a new state of Jews in the Land of Israel. Even though the above is not really connected to the issue at hand, whether Singer's nationality was Jewish or Polish, I think it is important to point out. That said, I think we can all agree that Singer was at least an ethnic Jew, whatever that means. He was steeped in Jewish culture, and his writings were entirely, exclusively, overwhelming about that culture.
Just in case you need proof, here are some sources which prove his dedication to writing about universal themes through the medium of Jewish experience: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1978/singer/biographical/; https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Bashevis-Singer; https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4242/the-art-of-fiction-no-42-isaac-bashevis-singer; https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/25/obituaries/i-b-singer-narrator-of-jewish-folkways-dies.html
More important is Wikipedia's own guidelines for biographies. According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, Singer's ethnicity needs to be included in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Here is why, based on this quote from the MOS: "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless they are relevant to the subject's notability." Let's dissect this statement. "In general" means usually, but it does not mean "never be used". Sometimes ethnicity is relevant and should be included if "it is relevant to the subject's notability." That Singer is a "Jewish writer" is the essence of his notability. In addition it might be incorrect to mention his Polish roots since according to the MOS the "place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless (it is) relevant to the subject's notability." Being American, and definitely being Polish, are much less relevant to his life and art.
Finally, according to Oliszydlowski we need a consensus to make the change. I say we already have a consensus: Here are the editors in the last few weeks who have tried to correct the article's first sentence by adding the word Jewish, somewhere, anywhere, in the first, all-important sentence and in the short description as well, but have been prevented from doing so by one editor, who instead of opening up a discussion on the Talk page, threatened to have the long list of good faith editors reported for disruptive editing and even vandalism. Me and Dan Holsinger and UClaudius and Amire80 and 204.9.57.83 and JacobOGold and Dreifoos and 139.137.128.43 and 139.137.128.48
I hope we get a lot of people involved in this very important discussion. Thanks for participating. DaringDonna ( talk) 15:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Agreed.
If anything, the suggested change acknowledges both Singer's Polish and Jewish ethnicities, which cannot be said for the version we keep coming back to. UClaudius ( talk) 16:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
IB Singer wrote in Yiddish--the language of European Jews, and later English. Ethnically Polish writers did not write in Yiddish--they wrote in Polish. Did IB Singer write any books in Polish? TAPwiki ( talk) 19:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Is it more accurate to describe Singer in the following way (or something similar) and not the way it is written now: Isacc Bashevis Singer...was a Polish-born Jewish-American writer in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. DaringDonna ( talk) 17:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
This article has been a subject of a media piece here which reveals what inappropriate canvassing has taken place here (likely in the section(s) above). It describes how the now-blocked User:IBSLiteraryTrust learned how to game the system: "“The administrators on Wikipedia were not interested in upholding what might be factual information,” IBSLiteraryTrust said in a recent interview. “Their main concern was that people should play by their rules. To me, that kind of game is not a game worth playing.” Then he reconsidered. “It’s not a game worth playing alone,” he said." Then IBSLiteraryTrust "recruited help through Facebook; others came from Twitter. Someone would edit the first line to add the word Jewish... The final decision, based on a consensus... was to identify Singer in his entry’s first sentence as Jewish, not Polish." - that's an obvious violation of WP:CANVASS and WP:TAGTEAM, achieving a "consensus" through recruiting SPA and opinionated voters. Given this, the RfC above has to be considered invalidated and the issue at hand should be restored back to an earlier version, before the disclosed canvassing took place. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:07, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
21:24, 30 January 2022 (UTC) Topper'sDad ( talk)—== Autopilot use of rules ==
Given the long controversy about this article, this seems like a good place to suggest that the use of rules is no substitute for subject-matter knowledge. I read in the public press that one argument for calling I. B. Singer Polish is that there is no Jewish nation. By that logic, noting that there was no nation called Poland during the nineteenth century, we should change the article on Frédéric Chopin to describe him as Prussian. I hope none of us would be willing to make that edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Topper'sDad ( talk • contribs) 21:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)