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 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
Mary is obviously famous and she is in mentioned in List of Jews so should I add her in famous jews?
Zain 20:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well I didn't ask for Jesus because I thought he was not on the list of jews. (Now checked he was on the list).
Ok now to original issue. Well I think 'reason' of being famous is not an issue here. It is only the result, 'famous' which is relevant. Second if 'mythical' (, a lot of people will disagree on usage of this term here,) is a problem then this article should write some thing like. 'People who are considered mythical by some people are not mentioned in this article'. It will be ok.
Zain 20:48, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well he is quite 'non-mythical' Paul of Tarsus.
Please I am not asking to add some/all of them. It will make article difficult to manage. Only thing I am asking for is that this article should clarify that people who might be seen as Jews by few because of their descent are not discussed in this article because they are not see as Jews by majority. Zain 21:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
But the end result is that he is a famous jew!. Zain 20:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, on your many points above, I am not accusing you of not operating in good faith, and I am glad that you have used the talk pages. I am saying, however, that there needs to be a reasonable attempt to listen to the many arguments raised by others here, and that your threat to "POV" this article was inappropriate, given that everyone has acted very civily to your suggestions. The situation is simple:
I would ask that any future reply respond to each of these four points, thanks. -- Goodoldpolonius2 21:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's positive so here is point 2 point as u asked.
Zain 21:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain:
Does this address your concern? -- Goodoldpolonius2 22:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If this article excludes other claims it should simply say that they are excluded. Doing following two simultaneously will cause problem
It will cause future problems too. Let me try to give example of future problems. These people can claim a place in this article. Unless we clear in this article that these people are not discussed in this article. One example I gave earlier which u said are anti-Semantic. Please note that if a claim is viewed as anti-semantic we can't exclude it. We even have article on 'holocaust denial'. Following is list of additional potential problems unless we clarify.
Zain 22:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please note the following.
As far as widening of the definition is concerned I only tried to show that if we don't clarify that who are excluded, they have right to claim a place in this article, even if their believe is 'incorrect' or their have 'bad faith'.
As per wikipedia policy.
So I only had to show that people believe in it. Whether those believe is 'correct' or 'incorrect'. Whether these believes are 'good faith' or 'bad faith'. These issues are covered thoroughly in the articles which I referred.
As including all these will make article difficult to manage. We should simply say that they are excluded.
Zain 14:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain 20:21, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, the burden of proof rests with you. Please provide some substantial evidence, or else be willing to let this argument drop. -- Goodoldpolonius2 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) It would also be helpful in understanding your argument if you let us know exactly what language you would like to insert into the article and where so that we can discuss exactly those changes. Thanks. -- Goodoldpolonius2 05:27, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cross posted from User talk:MPerel.
Can you tell what you mean by 'ethnic'. Do you mean 'race' ? ethnic here appears to be more of a vessel term. Please use some explicit term. And if ethnic is the only term to describe it, then tell that what ethnic means here?
Zain 01:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
-- Goodoldpolonius2 03:19, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well frankly initially my concern was only descend. I know the pushtoon claims, first hand. Most important thing is that they don't use this claim to get any advantage. In fact many pukhtoons see this claim true although they feel it is offensive! Other claims of descend came into my mind when I read articles like
Silent Holocaust and mentions of willfully/forcefully conversions in various Jewish articles/sources.
After you asked for additional sources which specifically call them self Jews. I did a small research and found there are many others which specifically use the word Jew. I also discovered that in Bible the word 'Jew' is only used to describe the race. Many like 'Paul' also used the same term. Paul continued to call himself a 'Jew'. After seeing these and many other claims, I felt more stronger that article needs more clarification that, which people this article actually discussed.
'who is jew' article discusses various definitions. But this article doesn't makes clear that which one of these choices is chosen here and which of the choices are rejected. Whole sections of history/Statistics/Famous people depend upon the choice of the definition. So it should be made more clear that which choice(s) are employed in this article. Currently it only says that religion is not the only base chosen in this article.
Zain 12:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, please look at my previous post, since I do not think you had a chance to see it and respond. Also, I would again request that you provide some credible, outside links to sources that are about groups that are considered Jews by some significant and contemporary minority, but are not addressed in the Who is a Jew? article (as converted "Messianic Jews" are). You have not done so despite four or five requests, just as you have never responded to my criticisms of the list of Wikipedia articles you keep reproducing at various locations, claiming they are also Jews. If you want to continue to discuss, please (1) be specific in what you want in the article and where, (2) be specific in your outside evidence about why your opinion is accurate, and (3) please respond to the challenges you have received about your evidence to date. Otherwise, there is not much to say. Goodoldpolonius2 15:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply here. First let me say, Zain, that having a non-native-English-speaking contributor like yourself participate on these articles is beneficial since you have fresh eyes to give feedback on points the article may not make clear. I don't think anyone considers you anti-Jewish, however, I can see the communication gap is frustrating on both ends : )
What I observe is that this article only attempts to define “Jew” in a very broad general sense, and is not intended to specifically include or exclude any particular groups. It merely points the reader to more specific articles where finer definitional aspects are further explored.
So lets consider whether it is successful in leaving a broad enough definition to at least leave open for discussion some of the sample groups you’ve mentioned in the sub articles. (Let me mention that I think you have uncovered some problems that DO need to be addressed).
I only see two sentences that actually offer any kind of definition of Jew in this article. The first is found in the first sentence of the first paragraph. The second is found in the last sentence of the second paragraph:
1) “The word Jew is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or a member of the Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes.”
2) "Ethnic Jews include both so-called "religious Jews," meaning those who practice Judaism, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense."
-- MPerel 20:56, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
MPerel, thanks for breaking this down into digestable chunks. I think the issue with the second sentence is the two part catagorization into religious and secular traditions. Perhaps we can say that "Jews include both those Jews actively practicing Judaism, and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews by virtue of their family's Jewish heritage and their own cultural identification." This excludes individuals that decide they are Jewish without any Jewish parents/grandparents/etc or any formal conversion, which is what you would expect from any nationality - you are either born into it, or you naturalize into it (coversion). You can't simply select it without either of these qualifications
Incidentally, I have a problem with our use of Jew as "ethnic" group, rather than cultural or national group. The soc.culture.jewish FAQ has a really good description that I put out there for people's consideration, although I certainly do not feel a need to push this point (nor do I agree with all of it):
"Judaism can be thought of as being simultaneously a religion, a nationality and a culture.
Throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century, most of the European world agreed that Jews constituted a distinct nation. This concept of nation does not require that a nation have either a territory nor a government, but rather, it identifies, as a nation any distinct group of people with a common language and culture. Only in the 19th century did it become common to assume that each nation should have its own distinct government; this is the political philosophy of nationalism. In fact, Jews had a remarkable degree of self-government until the 19th century. So long as Jews lived in their ghettos, they were allowed to collect their own taxes, run their own courts, and otherwise behave as citizens of a landless and distinctly second-class Jewish nation.
Of course, Judaism is a religion, and it is this religion that forms the central element of the Jewish culture that binds Jews together as a nation. It is the religion that defines foods as being kosher and non-kosher, and this underlies Jewish cuisine. It is the religion that sets the calendar of Jewish feast and fast days, and it is the religion that has preserved the Hebrew language.
Is Judaism an ethnicity? In short, not any more. Although Judaism arose out of a single ethnicity in the Middle East, there have always been conversions into and out of the religion. Thus, there are those who may have been ethnically part of the original group who are no longer part of Judaism, and those of other ethnic groups who have converted into Judaism.
If you are referring to a nation in the sense of race, Judaism is not a nation. People are free to convert into Judaism; once converted, they are considered the same as if they were born Jewish. This is not true for a race" -- Goodoldpolonius2 21:23, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, good points, that as with any nationality - you are either born into it, or you naturalize into it (conversion). Before I saw your suggested sentence, I came up with the following: Ethnic Jews include people who identify themselves as Jews due to ancestral heritage, religion, or culture. It should be noted that not all people who identify as Jews are accepted as Jews under Jewish law, or by the larger Jewish community. For further discussion of this, see "Who is a Jew". Something that mentions the larger group of people who self-identify as Jews, but yet addresses the fact that not everyone who says they're Jewish is considered Jewish by all. -- MPerel 22:17, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
Well I think both terms 'national jew' and 'ethinic jew' are some what 'vessel terms'. But to write a practical encyclopedic article we have to use it. I didn't disagreed with any content of the article. I only asked that more explanation should be offered to avoid potential confusion. Only disagreement was that there is not even slight confusion (except for me of course) worth more explanation.
So here is a practical solution. If we use the term 'ethinic jew', we should make an article Who is ethnic Jew? and give it as a link here. If 'national jew' is chosen we should make an article titled Who is national jew?. So we will get rid of need of explanations in this article.
These reference articles will be very helpful. And if we ever get in dispute again that whether Jesus, merry or paul should be mentioned here. The decision will be very easy. And all that dispute will go in those articles not here.
A personal note: Although I am not anti-jew. I don't believe in hate due to religion or race. But problem is that I am pro-Palestinian. This makes me at odd with others here, on regular basis. Now mostly my interest in this article, is due to my current interest in 'Arab-Israeli conflict'. Ironically my interest 'Arab Israel conflict' developed due to my interest in this article, when I was very new to wikipedia. And just by the way my interest in wikipedia was due to my interest in open source. Now the interest is almost exclusively due to articles with high difference of opinions.
Zain 21:02, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
-- Goodoldpolonius2 21:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Any way although irrelevant to original discussion but these have to be answered. I had no intention to make a 'bridge'. That's why I never asked any of them to be mentioned here. The post which is not even on this page (Although I can have an idea that how that information of that post got into this article), On that 'unrelated' post I mentioned that I am not sure whether it is 'correct' or 'incorrect'. My obvious choice to find relevant information just for sake of encyclopedic context was this article. This article although looked to be most relevant by title, but had nil information about the subject. That was fully acceptable because descent is not accepted as mainstream definition especially among those who are converted to other religions. The other part was that, this article never clear that this article excludes such information. So it gave me the impression that probably this doesn't exist. And my perceived possibility is incorrect. So for sake of curiosity I posted that why they are not mentioned. But alas the answer was not very objective. All answers were very subjective (with few exceptions).
As an encyclopedia, it is for information. The information was not there. And explanation why it is not there was also very clear. But any how if you see my entire posts carefully. I have said repeatedly that I don't want any change in this article. Basically such believes (if exist) are of minor opinion.
Now about the term I misspelled it. It is Weasel word
Let me put some quotes from the article
Wikipedia policy say to avoid such words. So does the 'ethnic jew' term helps reader to decide whether Jesus, Paul, or marry , or all Israelites are 'ethnic jew'. Whether Albright is 'ethnic jew'. Where to draw the line?
The wording should be such that reader should be very clear that which people this article discusses. And which people this article excludes. If such distinction is not very easy. Just make a separate article of Who is ethnic jew?. And the problem will be exported from this article at least for now. And in this article we will be more comfortable to tell that which person is excluded and which is included and why?
'Who is jew' article is not the solution. It tells about different definitions. While in this article we are sticking with only one definition. (Which is understandable to avoid disputes). Now if we are taking one of the many definitions present. The 'ethnic jew' definition is most difficult to draw the line (At least theoratically). But is the broadest to give a national sense. (which is the most used sense of the term). As this is an objective an factual article. (history, statistics, famous people). It needs a very sharpened definition because many sections in this article require clear distinction between 'ethnic jew' or 'non-ethnic jew'.
Zain 23:32, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, I am getting a bit depressed here. I have written maybe 30 replies to you, rationally and with great consideration, answering every point you have ever brought up. You almost never directly reply to these challenges. Additionally, I have edited the begining of this article in response to your point and Jmabel edited Who is a Jew? similarly. Yet you keep inventing new objections -- most recently the distinction between ethnic and non-ethnic Jews. There is no such thing as ethnic and non-ethnic Jews - there are simply Jews. This article discusses Jews, and leaves the tasks of defining Jews to the Who is a Jew? article, which includes information on the elements that might make someone Jewish under various definitions such as ethnicity, religion, nationhood, etc. For example, the article describes how Mary and Jesus would be considered Jews, and describes the objections of who might disagree with that view. It specifically talks about Albright. Yet you keep raising these issues again and again, without any outside support for your assertions.
The nature of the cases you feel are not covered in the article are not clear. I have asked you a dozen times to provide sources indicating that the Who is a Jew? article is not inclusive enough of the definition of Jew. Yet you keep quoting wiki rules that don't apply without ever stating exactly what changes you would like to make to the article, and what your outside support for those changes are. Please do this now, provide sources outside Wikipedia, or there is no reason to keep considering your objections. Regretfully, -- Goodoldpolonius2 01:46, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In what sense is "ethnic Jew" a weasel term? It is used because "Jew" is a word with several different definitions (as discussed in the lead of this article). It is a term that emphasizes inclusion of people who may not practice Judaism. To draw an analogy: the word "Romanian" can mean either a citizen of Romania, regardless of ethnicity, or an ethnic Romanian -- a person of a particular heritage -- regardless of citizenship. Is the latter category perfectly defined? No. Is it clear enough in most cases to be useful? Yes.
There are other topics where imprecision is inherent. For example, we have articles on Left-wing politics, Right-wing politics, Liberalism, Conservatism etc. It's not always easy to say whether each particular individual or even political viewpoint clearly fits one of these categories, but that doesn't mean that they are not useful in talking about politics. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Found an intersting tidbit on identification as a nationality (or not). According to Michael Riff, The Face of Survival: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Past and Present, Valentine Mitchell, London, 1992, ISBN 0853032203, page 87–88, the Polish national census in 1931 asked separate questions about religion and nationality. Of about 3.1 million Jews (by religion) in Poland at that time, about three quarters also identified it as their nationality. The remainder, explains Riff, were "either assimilated Jews or ultra-Orthodox and Chassidic Jews who opposed the concept of Jewish nationality for religious reasons." Not sure if there's somewhere this belongs in an article, but it is one of the few statistics I've ever seen polling a large number of Jews on whether they consider Jewishness a "nationality". -- Jmabel | Talk 05:18, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I cut the following recently added paragraph.
Inclusion of this would give more space to discussion in this article of Jews of color in the United States than we give to Ashkenazim or Sephardim. This may well belong somewhere in Wikipedia (although I'd sure like to see a citation), but not here. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
Why does the link 'Britain' under Jewish populations lead to the article History of the Jews in England. Unless this was done for a good reason, the link text should be changed to England, or the article be changed to cover all of Britain.
My (genuinely) ignorant question: I don't speak Hebrew. I gather that with reference to Jews as citizens in Israel there is an important distinction that is expressed by two Hebrew words, roughly ezrahut and leom. Is this true, if so what is the distinction, and is there some article that should mention this? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
Goodoldpolonius2 reverted my edit. His/her revert implies it's a fact that Jews are ethnic group when it's not. Marcus2 21:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Because I believe Jews are members of a religious sect and I don't think they can have two ethnicities. They are Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, German, etc. Marcus2 21:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Marucs2, it might be worth rereading the discussions with Zain above. In any case, I think that there is a fundamental problem here with the way that you are defining ethnicity, as equivalent to the standard concept of "race." People can be of more than one ethnicity, since it is an affiliative grouping, while, in the old conception of race, they could only be "white" or "black," or some other race, part of why the concept is so bad. This overlapping concept of ethnicity depends on level of analysis -- an ethnic Swede could also be considered an "ethnic European" as well, depending on their affiliation, despite your claim that people only have one ethnic group. Generally, ethnicity is a fuzzy term, but "Jewishness" would almost always be considered to meet the standards of ethnic group, both historically and today. -- Goodoldpolonius2 02:15, 15 Feb 2005 (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 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
Mary is obviously famous and she is in mentioned in List of Jews so should I add her in famous jews?
Zain 20:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well I didn't ask for Jesus because I thought he was not on the list of jews. (Now checked he was on the list).
Ok now to original issue. Well I think 'reason' of being famous is not an issue here. It is only the result, 'famous' which is relevant. Second if 'mythical' (, a lot of people will disagree on usage of this term here,) is a problem then this article should write some thing like. 'People who are considered mythical by some people are not mentioned in this article'. It will be ok.
Zain 20:48, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well he is quite 'non-mythical' Paul of Tarsus.
Please I am not asking to add some/all of them. It will make article difficult to manage. Only thing I am asking for is that this article should clarify that people who might be seen as Jews by few because of their descent are not discussed in this article because they are not see as Jews by majority. Zain 21:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
But the end result is that he is a famous jew!. Zain 20:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, on your many points above, I am not accusing you of not operating in good faith, and I am glad that you have used the talk pages. I am saying, however, that there needs to be a reasonable attempt to listen to the many arguments raised by others here, and that your threat to "POV" this article was inappropriate, given that everyone has acted very civily to your suggestions. The situation is simple:
I would ask that any future reply respond to each of these four points, thanks. -- Goodoldpolonius2 21:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's positive so here is point 2 point as u asked.
Zain 21:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain:
Does this address your concern? -- Goodoldpolonius2 22:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If this article excludes other claims it should simply say that they are excluded. Doing following two simultaneously will cause problem
It will cause future problems too. Let me try to give example of future problems. These people can claim a place in this article. Unless we clear in this article that these people are not discussed in this article. One example I gave earlier which u said are anti-Semantic. Please note that if a claim is viewed as anti-semantic we can't exclude it. We even have article on 'holocaust denial'. Following is list of additional potential problems unless we clarify.
Zain 22:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please note the following.
As far as widening of the definition is concerned I only tried to show that if we don't clarify that who are excluded, they have right to claim a place in this article, even if their believe is 'incorrect' or their have 'bad faith'.
As per wikipedia policy.
So I only had to show that people believe in it. Whether those believe is 'correct' or 'incorrect'. Whether these believes are 'good faith' or 'bad faith'. These issues are covered thoroughly in the articles which I referred.
As including all these will make article difficult to manage. We should simply say that they are excluded.
Zain 14:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain 20:21, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, the burden of proof rests with you. Please provide some substantial evidence, or else be willing to let this argument drop. -- Goodoldpolonius2 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) It would also be helpful in understanding your argument if you let us know exactly what language you would like to insert into the article and where so that we can discuss exactly those changes. Thanks. -- Goodoldpolonius2 05:27, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cross posted from User talk:MPerel.
Can you tell what you mean by 'ethnic'. Do you mean 'race' ? ethnic here appears to be more of a vessel term. Please use some explicit term. And if ethnic is the only term to describe it, then tell that what ethnic means here?
Zain 01:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
-- Goodoldpolonius2 03:19, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well frankly initially my concern was only descend. I know the pushtoon claims, first hand. Most important thing is that they don't use this claim to get any advantage. In fact many pukhtoons see this claim true although they feel it is offensive! Other claims of descend came into my mind when I read articles like
Silent Holocaust and mentions of willfully/forcefully conversions in various Jewish articles/sources.
After you asked for additional sources which specifically call them self Jews. I did a small research and found there are many others which specifically use the word Jew. I also discovered that in Bible the word 'Jew' is only used to describe the race. Many like 'Paul' also used the same term. Paul continued to call himself a 'Jew'. After seeing these and many other claims, I felt more stronger that article needs more clarification that, which people this article actually discussed.
'who is jew' article discusses various definitions. But this article doesn't makes clear that which one of these choices is chosen here and which of the choices are rejected. Whole sections of history/Statistics/Famous people depend upon the choice of the definition. So it should be made more clear that which choice(s) are employed in this article. Currently it only says that religion is not the only base chosen in this article.
Zain 12:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, please look at my previous post, since I do not think you had a chance to see it and respond. Also, I would again request that you provide some credible, outside links to sources that are about groups that are considered Jews by some significant and contemporary minority, but are not addressed in the Who is a Jew? article (as converted "Messianic Jews" are). You have not done so despite four or five requests, just as you have never responded to my criticisms of the list of Wikipedia articles you keep reproducing at various locations, claiming they are also Jews. If you want to continue to discuss, please (1) be specific in what you want in the article and where, (2) be specific in your outside evidence about why your opinion is accurate, and (3) please respond to the challenges you have received about your evidence to date. Otherwise, there is not much to say. Goodoldpolonius2 15:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply here. First let me say, Zain, that having a non-native-English-speaking contributor like yourself participate on these articles is beneficial since you have fresh eyes to give feedback on points the article may not make clear. I don't think anyone considers you anti-Jewish, however, I can see the communication gap is frustrating on both ends : )
What I observe is that this article only attempts to define “Jew” in a very broad general sense, and is not intended to specifically include or exclude any particular groups. It merely points the reader to more specific articles where finer definitional aspects are further explored.
So lets consider whether it is successful in leaving a broad enough definition to at least leave open for discussion some of the sample groups you’ve mentioned in the sub articles. (Let me mention that I think you have uncovered some problems that DO need to be addressed).
I only see two sentences that actually offer any kind of definition of Jew in this article. The first is found in the first sentence of the first paragraph. The second is found in the last sentence of the second paragraph:
1) “The word Jew is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or a member of the Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes.”
2) "Ethnic Jews include both so-called "religious Jews," meaning those who practice Judaism, and so-called "secular Jews," those who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews in a cultural or ethnic sense."
-- MPerel 20:56, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
MPerel, thanks for breaking this down into digestable chunks. I think the issue with the second sentence is the two part catagorization into religious and secular traditions. Perhaps we can say that "Jews include both those Jews actively practicing Judaism, and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews by virtue of their family's Jewish heritage and their own cultural identification." This excludes individuals that decide they are Jewish without any Jewish parents/grandparents/etc or any formal conversion, which is what you would expect from any nationality - you are either born into it, or you naturalize into it (coversion). You can't simply select it without either of these qualifications
Incidentally, I have a problem with our use of Jew as "ethnic" group, rather than cultural or national group. The soc.culture.jewish FAQ has a really good description that I put out there for people's consideration, although I certainly do not feel a need to push this point (nor do I agree with all of it):
"Judaism can be thought of as being simultaneously a religion, a nationality and a culture.
Throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century, most of the European world agreed that Jews constituted a distinct nation. This concept of nation does not require that a nation have either a territory nor a government, but rather, it identifies, as a nation any distinct group of people with a common language and culture. Only in the 19th century did it become common to assume that each nation should have its own distinct government; this is the political philosophy of nationalism. In fact, Jews had a remarkable degree of self-government until the 19th century. So long as Jews lived in their ghettos, they were allowed to collect their own taxes, run their own courts, and otherwise behave as citizens of a landless and distinctly second-class Jewish nation.
Of course, Judaism is a religion, and it is this religion that forms the central element of the Jewish culture that binds Jews together as a nation. It is the religion that defines foods as being kosher and non-kosher, and this underlies Jewish cuisine. It is the religion that sets the calendar of Jewish feast and fast days, and it is the religion that has preserved the Hebrew language.
Is Judaism an ethnicity? In short, not any more. Although Judaism arose out of a single ethnicity in the Middle East, there have always been conversions into and out of the religion. Thus, there are those who may have been ethnically part of the original group who are no longer part of Judaism, and those of other ethnic groups who have converted into Judaism.
If you are referring to a nation in the sense of race, Judaism is not a nation. People are free to convert into Judaism; once converted, they are considered the same as if they were born Jewish. This is not true for a race" -- Goodoldpolonius2 21:23, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, good points, that as with any nationality - you are either born into it, or you naturalize into it (conversion). Before I saw your suggested sentence, I came up with the following: Ethnic Jews include people who identify themselves as Jews due to ancestral heritage, religion, or culture. It should be noted that not all people who identify as Jews are accepted as Jews under Jewish law, or by the larger Jewish community. For further discussion of this, see "Who is a Jew". Something that mentions the larger group of people who self-identify as Jews, but yet addresses the fact that not everyone who says they're Jewish is considered Jewish by all. -- MPerel 22:17, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
Well I think both terms 'national jew' and 'ethinic jew' are some what 'vessel terms'. But to write a practical encyclopedic article we have to use it. I didn't disagreed with any content of the article. I only asked that more explanation should be offered to avoid potential confusion. Only disagreement was that there is not even slight confusion (except for me of course) worth more explanation.
So here is a practical solution. If we use the term 'ethinic jew', we should make an article Who is ethnic Jew? and give it as a link here. If 'national jew' is chosen we should make an article titled Who is national jew?. So we will get rid of need of explanations in this article.
These reference articles will be very helpful. And if we ever get in dispute again that whether Jesus, merry or paul should be mentioned here. The decision will be very easy. And all that dispute will go in those articles not here.
A personal note: Although I am not anti-jew. I don't believe in hate due to religion or race. But problem is that I am pro-Palestinian. This makes me at odd with others here, on regular basis. Now mostly my interest in this article, is due to my current interest in 'Arab-Israeli conflict'. Ironically my interest 'Arab Israel conflict' developed due to my interest in this article, when I was very new to wikipedia. And just by the way my interest in wikipedia was due to my interest in open source. Now the interest is almost exclusively due to articles with high difference of opinions.
Zain 21:02, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
-- Goodoldpolonius2 21:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Any way although irrelevant to original discussion but these have to be answered. I had no intention to make a 'bridge'. That's why I never asked any of them to be mentioned here. The post which is not even on this page (Although I can have an idea that how that information of that post got into this article), On that 'unrelated' post I mentioned that I am not sure whether it is 'correct' or 'incorrect'. My obvious choice to find relevant information just for sake of encyclopedic context was this article. This article although looked to be most relevant by title, but had nil information about the subject. That was fully acceptable because descent is not accepted as mainstream definition especially among those who are converted to other religions. The other part was that, this article never clear that this article excludes such information. So it gave me the impression that probably this doesn't exist. And my perceived possibility is incorrect. So for sake of curiosity I posted that why they are not mentioned. But alas the answer was not very objective. All answers were very subjective (with few exceptions).
As an encyclopedia, it is for information. The information was not there. And explanation why it is not there was also very clear. But any how if you see my entire posts carefully. I have said repeatedly that I don't want any change in this article. Basically such believes (if exist) are of minor opinion.
Now about the term I misspelled it. It is Weasel word
Let me put some quotes from the article
Wikipedia policy say to avoid such words. So does the 'ethnic jew' term helps reader to decide whether Jesus, Paul, or marry , or all Israelites are 'ethnic jew'. Whether Albright is 'ethnic jew'. Where to draw the line?
The wording should be such that reader should be very clear that which people this article discusses. And which people this article excludes. If such distinction is not very easy. Just make a separate article of Who is ethnic jew?. And the problem will be exported from this article at least for now. And in this article we will be more comfortable to tell that which person is excluded and which is included and why?
'Who is jew' article is not the solution. It tells about different definitions. While in this article we are sticking with only one definition. (Which is understandable to avoid disputes). Now if we are taking one of the many definitions present. The 'ethnic jew' definition is most difficult to draw the line (At least theoratically). But is the broadest to give a national sense. (which is the most used sense of the term). As this is an objective an factual article. (history, statistics, famous people). It needs a very sharpened definition because many sections in this article require clear distinction between 'ethnic jew' or 'non-ethnic jew'.
Zain 23:32, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zain, I am getting a bit depressed here. I have written maybe 30 replies to you, rationally and with great consideration, answering every point you have ever brought up. You almost never directly reply to these challenges. Additionally, I have edited the begining of this article in response to your point and Jmabel edited Who is a Jew? similarly. Yet you keep inventing new objections -- most recently the distinction between ethnic and non-ethnic Jews. There is no such thing as ethnic and non-ethnic Jews - there are simply Jews. This article discusses Jews, and leaves the tasks of defining Jews to the Who is a Jew? article, which includes information on the elements that might make someone Jewish under various definitions such as ethnicity, religion, nationhood, etc. For example, the article describes how Mary and Jesus would be considered Jews, and describes the objections of who might disagree with that view. It specifically talks about Albright. Yet you keep raising these issues again and again, without any outside support for your assertions.
The nature of the cases you feel are not covered in the article are not clear. I have asked you a dozen times to provide sources indicating that the Who is a Jew? article is not inclusive enough of the definition of Jew. Yet you keep quoting wiki rules that don't apply without ever stating exactly what changes you would like to make to the article, and what your outside support for those changes are. Please do this now, provide sources outside Wikipedia, or there is no reason to keep considering your objections. Regretfully, -- Goodoldpolonius2 01:46, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In what sense is "ethnic Jew" a weasel term? It is used because "Jew" is a word with several different definitions (as discussed in the lead of this article). It is a term that emphasizes inclusion of people who may not practice Judaism. To draw an analogy: the word "Romanian" can mean either a citizen of Romania, regardless of ethnicity, or an ethnic Romanian -- a person of a particular heritage -- regardless of citizenship. Is the latter category perfectly defined? No. Is it clear enough in most cases to be useful? Yes.
There are other topics where imprecision is inherent. For example, we have articles on Left-wing politics, Right-wing politics, Liberalism, Conservatism etc. It's not always easy to say whether each particular individual or even political viewpoint clearly fits one of these categories, but that doesn't mean that they are not useful in talking about politics. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Found an intersting tidbit on identification as a nationality (or not). According to Michael Riff, The Face of Survival: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Past and Present, Valentine Mitchell, London, 1992, ISBN 0853032203, page 87–88, the Polish national census in 1931 asked separate questions about religion and nationality. Of about 3.1 million Jews (by religion) in Poland at that time, about three quarters also identified it as their nationality. The remainder, explains Riff, were "either assimilated Jews or ultra-Orthodox and Chassidic Jews who opposed the concept of Jewish nationality for religious reasons." Not sure if there's somewhere this belongs in an article, but it is one of the few statistics I've ever seen polling a large number of Jews on whether they consider Jewishness a "nationality". -- Jmabel | Talk 05:18, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I cut the following recently added paragraph.
Inclusion of this would give more space to discussion in this article of Jews of color in the United States than we give to Ashkenazim or Sephardim. This may well belong somewhere in Wikipedia (although I'd sure like to see a citation), but not here. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
Why does the link 'Britain' under Jewish populations lead to the article History of the Jews in England. Unless this was done for a good reason, the link text should be changed to England, or the article be changed to cover all of Britain.
My (genuinely) ignorant question: I don't speak Hebrew. I gather that with reference to Jews as citizens in Israel there is an important distinction that is expressed by two Hebrew words, roughly ezrahut and leom. Is this true, if so what is the distinction, and is there some article that should mention this? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
Goodoldpolonius2 reverted my edit. His/her revert implies it's a fact that Jews are ethnic group when it's not. Marcus2 21:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Because I believe Jews are members of a religious sect and I don't think they can have two ethnicities. They are Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, German, etc. Marcus2 21:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Marucs2, it might be worth rereading the discussions with Zain above. In any case, I think that there is a fundamental problem here with the way that you are defining ethnicity, as equivalent to the standard concept of "race." People can be of more than one ethnicity, since it is an affiliative grouping, while, in the old conception of race, they could only be "white" or "black," or some other race, part of why the concept is so bad. This overlapping concept of ethnicity depends on level of analysis -- an ethnic Swede could also be considered an "ethnic European" as well, depending on their affiliation, despite your claim that people only have one ethnic group. Generally, ethnicity is a fuzzy term, but "Jewishness" would almost always be considered to meet the standards of ethnic group, both historically and today. -- Goodoldpolonius2 02:15, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)