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Karaim kids movie clip

Karaim children of Trakai declaiming

They are declaiming a descent modern scholarship challenges. I don't think the article should contain a version of history which the history of the article says is a myth, and would remove this. Suggestions? Nishidani (talk) 10:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

IF there are no policy-based objections in the next two days, I'll remove it. I've been thinking that this article might need forking, retaining a summary style approach to the Conversion and Ashkenazi controversies, while the bulk of that material could be plunked into a secondary page with the provisory title 'Khazars: Conversion to Judaism and controversies'? That would give us a 80,000 general page and 40-50,000 subpage, and solve the optimal size issue. I think this because the Khazar-Judaism problem which gets huge attention, should not dominate here. If so, then Andrew's sketch of the short coverage of the genetic issues could go on the main page, and my longer version on the subpage, for example.Nishidani (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
The reasoning sounds correct to me. The article does not absolutely need to be split yet, but it is still growing and I personally think anything over 100,000 is worth trying to split if it can be done well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:43, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
One further reason for a fork is that the Byzantium and Arab sections concern only the beginnings in the 7th-8th centuries, and therefore need notable expansion to cover the period that follows, probably in a narrative that weaves together the two in terms of the geopolitical situation.
I'd take the Rus' section down to the sacking of Atil, still not done.
I think the conversion could be summed up in a para, and put in the 'religion section higher up' as an adjunct to that (Not religious origins). Really all we need note is that disputes single out 3/4 key dates 740,800, 830-40 (this needs highlighting) and 860 (Constantine's visit).
I've got a backup page Khazars in controversy: conversion to Judaism and theories of Ashkenazi origins that contains (a) a short intro. (b) the whole of our conversion section (c) the Ashkenazi theory (d) antisemitic theory (d) genetics (in my draft proposal). If they are snipped out, all one need do is replace them with brief passages (collapsing in one para the history of the Ashkenazi theory, its antisemitic aspects, and the genetics where I would propose your brief version come into play), so that the mainpage concentrates on the history, the rise and fall of the Khazars. This enables us also to take out over a dozen sources from our main page which are used only in that section. The more I look into this, the more I am put off by the way Khazars =Ashkenazi/Judaism meme dominates discourse. These Eurasian steppe statelets and their tribal worlds 200-1,000 are fascinating in their own right, though you'd never guess it from reading the many wikipedia articles on them
Really, we are obliged to give the history of the country without according that,admittedly fascinating speculation, undue weight. Even the subpage will require expansion, because there's still room there to expand, esp. the antisemitism section, and more detail on the historical contexts for the theory's various vicissitudes). I'm a bit pooped at the moment, weatherwise, workwise, but hope that I can get through the Rus bit, supply a skeletal narrative, and wrap up the dispersion, diaspora bit within a few days. I'd expect it to grow back to 150,000 and we can then be in a position to discuss whether to keep one page, or make a simple 'excision' of the type suggested above, a 80,000/70,000 divide. Cheers. Nishidani (talk) 12:02, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

About the Map.

I am not trolling here!! I can't make that more abundantly clear! I just wanted to know how you guys made that map!? It's incredible! I saw that you guys made it with these: The map has been created with the Generic Mapping Tools: http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/ using one or more of these public domain datasets for the relief:

I was planning on making my own map of the Sasanian Empire as well as an English version of this map I.E. translating the city names and the legend on the map with those Generic Mapping Tools and I just wanted to know how it's done exactly. Also, I have clicked all of the links and I haven't found a section there that I can download whatever program that uses to tools to create a map like this one anywhere. Can anyone please help me with that? It would be greatly appreciated! Regards! Keeby101 (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Draft proposal. The long version. Comments welcomed

Ashkenazi-Khazar theories

Use in anti-Semitic polemics

Since the consensus is apparently to keep this part (that I think is superfluous and sneaky), wouldn't it be fair to say that before zionism, those who had faith in the Khazars/Ashkenazi hypothesis often offered it to fight anti-semitism? MVictorP (talk) 13:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

One writes what sources say, whether it is fair or not, the only other considerations being whether the source is of high quality and the point made congruent with WP:Due. Your suggestion is a generalization that requires a source (before Zionism means before the1880s when this theory was virtually unknown). Koestler certainly, from his biographies and books had this in mind. That can be noted but arguably when (if consensus allows) we fork this material on conversion and controversies to a separate page. On such a page one could also expand the section to note that Koestler identifies his interest in the theory to hearing from a French orientalist that the topic was taboo due to Zionist anxieties,etc. This page is already dense with material, and we need to break it into two, so that ancillary matters and detail expansion can proceed without overloading either.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Arthur Koestler wrote "The Thirteenth Tribe" (1976) with the self-stated aim to eliminate "the racial basis of European anti-semitism". And also as regards the most recent work of Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik [1] some of the "critics" of his paper have included prominent white supremacists like David Duke. In fact an article from the American Jewish "Forward" magazine (in May of this year) discussing Dr. Elhaik's work noted Duke's "response" to Dr. Elhaik's study.

"David Duke, for example, is disturbed by the assertion that Jews are not a race. 'The disruptive and conflict-ridden behavior which has marked out Jewish Supremacist activities through the millennia strongly suggests that Jews have remained more or less genetically uniform and have… developed a group evolutionary survival strategy based on a common biological unity — something which strongly militates against the Khazar theory,' wrote the former Ku Klux Klansman and former Louisiana state assemblyman on his blog in February."

This definitely should be mentioned before claiming that supposedly it is white supremacists and other racialists who allegedly "promote" the Khazarian hypothesis; which is an obvious attempt by those who don't like the hypothesis to link it to groups such as these in an attempt to "discredit" it via that said, supposed linkage. When in reality respected scholars from Abraham Polak/Poliak, Dinur, Koestler, Kevin Alan Brook, Shlomo Sand, Dr. Eran Elhaik, etc. have voiced strong support for the Khazarian hypothesis.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 06:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

What you get wrong.
  • The Khazaria.com link is (a)not specific (b) possible promotion of a privately run-website which, whatever its merits (and it has many) cannot be used as a source, certainly for articles that cleave to the stricter standards of wiki article creation.
  • Fringe lunatic, dopey, or rambling rants by the minor frothers of modern racism, though undulating with tsunami power through the web, are not notable, unless, as we have done in the proper section, covered by academic secondary sources. What the likes of David Duke says about brilliant young geneticists like Elhaik is yawningly tedious and, who, other than web-scouts, reads it?
  • Per WP:LEDE, the lead summarizes the article. The statement you cancelled is amply explored with detailed academic references in the lowest part of the page, and is summed up, as per the rule, in the final line of the lead. Leads do not single out WP:fringe people. They do not showcase one of several scholars who hold a minority view (Elhaik here)
  • The Forward article, like many newspaper articles responding to the controversy, is best referred to in a page, which I hope will be created shortly, on Eran Elhaik, or in a fork which develops the snippety section here on the theory's history. Put that in the lead, and you will have dozens of articles pleading for similar treatment. It is too specific. I have designed this article in a way that extricates a fascinating historical topic, with a very large academic literature that is not disturbed by modern media frenzies, i.e., the Khazars and their kingdom, so that wikipedia's article can allow those who surf the web to actually read about the Khazars, and not lose themselves in the moronic chat of bloggers, antisemites or no, obsessing about Jews, or Judaism, which is not something historians who engage with the topic go viral over.Nishidani (talk) 09:55, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

If your going to include opinions about the scope of the conversion in the introduction you have to include both sides of the argument. Also it is flat ridiculous to claim that the Khazarian hypothesis supposedly is part of "anti-semitic polemics" when so many prominent white supremacists and other racialists of that ilk specifically reject the Khazarian hypothesis. Again like David Duke so clearly did in news story covered by the "Forward" newspaper, etc. recently. Again most white supremacists hold that Jews (rather than just being a religion) are supposedly a "race", much like certain Zionists do! Obviously with white supremacists viewing this supposed "race" as then allegedly an "inferior" and "enemy" supposed "race" (putting aside "race" is an unscientific social construct to start with).Vikingsfan8 (talk) 21:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Again you argue ex hypothesi and not according to sources. Furthermore, if you are having trouble reading English, please go and do a remedial course. You are repeating yourself after clear explanations have been given, and thus, not listening.Nishidani (talk) 06:54, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

One of the most prominent Jewish publications in the United States, the Forward magazine (May 2013), again clearly stated "David Duke, for example, is disturbed by the assertion that Jews are not a race." So we have one of the most widely known white supremacists in the world publicly "attacking" the Khazarian hypothesis, and the "source" for how the Khazarian hypothesis is allegedly a "key part" of "anti-semitic polemics" is what exactly?? Also the fact of why Arthur Koestler wrote his book on the Khazars, completely defeats the claim that the Khazarian hypothesis is supposedly "tied" to "anti-semitic polemics"; when its' most famous and widely known modern backer (unless one considers Shlomo Sand even more well known in popular culture by now) specifically wrote his book to again (in his own words) "remove the 'racial basis' of European anti-semitism".

The introduction of the article currently only has the claim that conversion was supposedly "restricted to the elites". That's not a "summary", that's one point of view being pushed.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 07:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Read WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.
(a)

Beginning in the 8th century, the Khazar royalty and notable segments of the aristocracy converted to Judaism, though the populace appears to have remained multiconfessional and polyethnic.

This means there is a scholarly consensus that the scarce available documentary evidence allows one to infer conversion occurred at the elite level (this is the pattern throughout Central Asia through to the Goths:-the king converts, nobles follow, and then, over centuries, the faith extends to the masses). A scholarly consensus does not exist on the extent of Judaism among the 28 distinct tribes (polyethnic) which, as we can see from the unique judicial system, catered for Jews, Christians, Muslims and pagans (multiconfessional). appears to means 'uncertainty prevails' over the judgement that follows, and multiconfessional includes converts to Judaism at the popular level. Your failure to read for the nuance is clear. Scholars cannot go beyond the evidence, except to make neither here-nor-there hypotheses: wikipedian editors cannot go beyond the best RS, which excludes POV-pushing and WP:OR of the kind you are indulging in. What has been written in this article in no way reflects the various personal ideas or impressions of its authors (certainly not mine). It has striven to give a fair account of an exhaustive survey of the best scholarly research available.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 24 August 2013 (UTC):
(b)

Controversy surrounds modern theories on a hypothetical Khazarian diaspora's possible impact on the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry, an argument that has lent itself occasionally also to antisemitic polemics.

You have consistently failed in your repetitive meme-like harangue to read this correctly. The ssentence fulfils WP:LEDE, which stipulates the main sections must be summarized there. What it summarizes, and therefore, how it is to be read, is in the last sections, dealing with the theory, and the minor antisemitic stuff.Occasionally also was very carefully chosen to challenge the idea, which made a mockery of wikipedia's neutrality in earlier versions, that the Khazar hypothesis is 'tied to' anti-semitism. To the contrary, just as the section on the history of the hypothesis shows, it has been developed by Jewish and Israeli thinkers and scholars and entertained seriously, if rarely supported by mainstream scholarship, and the putatively intrinsic linkage fringe POV pushers make between the hypothesis of a Khazar-Ashkenazi section and antisemitism is appropriately dismissed, by recourse to a note on Léon Poliakov 's magisterial 3 volume study, where it hardly figures.The odd thing about your beef, is that you are claiming that the new version, which set out to remove the insistant claim Khazar theory was antisemitic, remains wedded to that view. I can only surmise you don't care to read things carefully. Lastly, an incoherent fringe figure like Duke has no place, except for a few words, on a serious academic topic. I personally think all of these topics (see Ashkenazi Jews for example) on wikipedia have been totally disfigured by laughably inept POV pushing from blindly pseudo-Israelocentric and antisemitic quarters, and the only way to deal with this is to raise the citation barrier to the highest level, and keep idiot voices out, except where their fringe-lunatic influence is fingered by scholars as problematical. Nishidani (talk) 10:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Kevin Alan Brook is widely considered the main historian focused on the historical topic of the Khazars today (which kind of explains his well known website, the fact Elhaik quotes extensively from him, Sand does as well, etc. etc.) And Kevin Alan Brook is very clear that the evidence suggests the conversion was very widespread throughout Khazar society and not merely supposedly "restricted to the elites and nobles". What you are trying to push in the introduction is quite clearly the opposite opinion (an opinion that Brook challenges quite strongly and with many evidences) that again holds that it was supposedly "only the elites" who converted. The introduction should mention both scholarly opinions, or neither and simply say it is debated (the article itself does a fairly decent job showing the mixture of opinions among scholars on the topic). The issue is highlighting one of them in the introduction which, no matter what you claim, is clearly what is being done with the current introduction you are "favoring".

And there is also no need (and also very noticeably no attached source at all currently) for the claim added in a throwaway sentence in this same introduction about the claims of "anti-semitic polemics". Why is this "needed" in the introduction at all? Especially when there is a significant discussion of it in the body of the article. And if for some reason it is mentioned in the introduction, it should be also noted in the introduction (for fairness and accuracy) that many racialists (aka racists) themselves have openly rejected the Khazarian hypothesis.

Of course with the most recent example from this year and included in arguably the most well-known Jewish publication in the United States; being that of David Duke once again. Someone who happens to be one of the most well-known white supremacists in the world today. Just in the American context the SPLC notes David Duke as "the most recognizable figure on the American far right".Vikingsfan8 (talk) 01:12, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I have a good deal of respect for what Kevin Brook has done, but he is not 'widely considered the main historian focused on the historical topic of the Khazars.' He is an amateur (and I used that word positively) researcher who has none of the historical training or linguistic mastery necessary to make authoritative interpretations at an academic level. He essentially popularizes a subject that is more or less overwhelmed with intricate problems, historiographical, archeological, linguistic, sociological and genetic. Since the same sources he uses can be used by wikipedians, it is neither necessary nor unproblematical to have recourse to his synthesis. I myself think Shlomo Sand and Elhaik are far more important - they are bold, creative scholars who challenge a powerful, but flimsy consensus which survives by virtue of conformity to a political myth - but their reliance on tertiary sources like Brook weakens their specific arguments at times. And in any case, while I know they have seen through the motherlode of loose thinking that floods these official narratives, it's not for me to be a partisan for their cause, or give them more exposure than the rules allow. They can only obtain that when secondary sources deepen their reviews of their contributions, or develop their insights further.
You again fail to read the sentence you question, and ignore my explanation. It does not take a stance. It tiptoes across a controversy without taking sides, as we are required to do.

Why is this "needed" in the introduction at all? Especially when there is a significant discussion of it in the body of the article.

I have told you twice that WP:LEDE demands that the last part of the page on the history and the antisemitic crap requires summary. You don't agree with wikipediaìs rules? Hard luck, but rules are rules. As for Duke, well, I'm not an American. I think in thirty years I only saw him mentioned once or twice in foreign newspapers all over the world. Wikipedia is global, and not hung up on the bizarre workings of the provincial polemics of the United States except when that ignorance inflects the decisions taken at the White House (which it often has). In a global perspective, perhaps Stormfront and scholars of racism focus on that crap, but he doesn't figure in Khazarian studies. One of the reasons I put in Aum Shinrikyo is for a global purpose. Hundreds of millions of Asians would be more familiar with that bunch of maniacs than with Duke. Nishidani (talk) 07:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This article itself mentions the debate among the scholars about the extend of the conversion, it is thus absurd and clearly pushing of one view to again include the "limited to elites" position only in the introduction. And it is also completely ridiculous to include supposed "anti-semitic polemics" (both in the introduction and more generally in this article itself) when there is a large body of evidence of racists completely opposing the Khazarian hypothesis. One would think that "little" fact would merit some form of mention next to the libelous claims of alleged "anti-semitic polemics".Vikingsfan8 (talk) 20:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

You are repeating yourself, throwing around adjectives like 'absurd,' 'ridiculous', 'libelous' etc., and making personal assertions. If you have good academic sources that provide the material you suggest is lacking, please notify us here, and the material will be examined and, if spot on, included. For your information, since you appear not to understand it, the phrase 'antisemitic polemics' refers both to accusations by antisemites that Jews, putatively being Khazars, are not from the ME, and to polemics that argue that the Khazar theory is antisemitic in nature. It does not, as you wrongly construe it, refer only to racists. It includes people abhorred by racism and antisemitism. I've slightly adjusted to make this crystal clear. Nishidani (talk) 21:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

The article itself already makes clear the debate among the scholars about the scope of the conversion. The whole issue is again you wanting the introduction to emphasis one POV as it currently does i.e. the "conversion limited to elites" opinion (which isn't the only opinion, and you thinking it is apparently the "right opinion" is just you pushing the POV you agree with). The introduction should not take a side, and should merely note that the exact scale of the conversion is still debated till today (you know like this article's own body itself makes quite clear!). Kevin Alan Brook is the main modern historian associated with the topic of the Khazars (again kind of explaining him having the titular website [2] and a well known scholarly book on this topic. One of the only ones purely on this topic, of the kingdom of Khazaria, around), and he has even come on to this website to personally correct individuals here who have made certain statements similar to yours. As for alleged "anti-semitic polemics" you know full well what the intent of those claims/"charges" are, no matter how much you try to dance around it.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 19:18, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Learn to read. So far you have shown zero competence in construing clear English, in the text, and from an interlocutor like myself. You misread everything, and read into remarks stuff that just ain't there. You prefer to drone on, harp, repeat yourself, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT: organ-grinding, in short. Your fantasy of what you think I think would be entertaining were it not so excruciatinhly tedious and indeed unimaginative. So stop prodding me to violate WP:AGF. Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

You are indeed a rude and absurd individual. "though the populace appears to have remained multiconfessional and polyethnic" that is called a point of view by certain scholars; with other scholars strongly challenging that and saying the complete opposite (such as Brook's evidence, in his scholarly work, that the conversion was widespread throughout all of Khazarian society). That "little" fact must be acknowledged in the introduction. Your only "response" to this has again been your ridiculous insult attempts and pointless blabbering. Next to your claims that one of the leading authorities in Khazar studies Kevin Alan Brook [3] supposedly "isn't a scholar". And also your complete refusal to admit the clear reality of what smear attempts of supposed "anti-semitic polemics" means. Next to your own opinions that supposedly one of the world's most widely known white supremacists, coming out and trying to himself attack the Khazarian hypothesis supposedly "isn't relevant" to the issue for some unknown reason. Wasn't it something with you saying "I'm not an American so I don't really care about David Duke". Nice "scholarly analysis" there.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 23:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I am an American, and I can say with confidence that nobody cares about David Duke other than racist mouth-breathers, and no scholarly analysis would associate itself with him without undermining its credibility. Would it be relevant if Alex Jones conjured up some baseless conspiracy touching on the topic? If Glenn Beck trotted out some absurd theory touching on the subject, would that be relevant as well? What other demented freak shows become relevant here by spouting uninformed opinions? Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Vikingsfan8 has a point here; If David Duke, one of the most visible tenor of racial segregation, is in opposition to the Khazarian hypothesis, it puts a serious dent on the (let's admit it) contested article part in question. David Duke's opinion is neither better nor worse than any other individual descibed as "antisemitic", but if one does not care about what he or his ilk thinks, then why putting in a part that akwardly attempts to describe how antisemites feel? Besides, why would an antisemite (in the contemporary sense) adopt the Khazarian hypothesis? In my miserable opinion, it would be more of a tool for antizionists by logic - and we all know that the later isn't always the earlier. Please delete the damn part already, Nishidani. It's irrelevant anyway. MVictorP (talk) 22:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Unbelievable really, and I'm beginning to realize why a lot of intelligent people drop out from the wiki project. This is an article on a fascinating historical topic, not on some provincial mouth-frothing twit's take on it. The theory of relativity has an extensive minor literature on the antisemitism that hailed it as proof of the insidiousness of Jews, but there's absolutely no reason why we should mar that article with crap from the fringe, or even by annotations about what the likes of Johannes Stark thought of it late in his career, and he was a more important figure that this David Duke. In fact that page doesn't mention antisemitism, though some POV pusher could try to disfigure it by wedging in a subsection.
The Khazar-antisemitism angle is already given its due, minor place on the page, and the fucking lead sums it up. Most of the jerks we mention in that section for their use of the antisemitic angle have been scrapped up from the barrel of fringe movements and are so insignificant we can't even link them to a wiki-bio. Technically their being named here is WP:Undue, since they are provincial nobodies, whose only claim to fame was their antisemitism and racism. We've bent over backwards to accommodate this trivia for those who can't read an article without wanting to know the profile of the subject in antisemitism. I'm always fascinated by the way editors who have no record of actually being useful page builders appear to relish nitpicking for months over one word on a page, to have their moment in history. Viking is pissed off that Brook is not given prominence, that's all. David Duke has zilch relevance to the Khazars. Trying to get the antisemitic meme onto every page where Judaism is mentioned is already a blight on this encyclopedia and trying to push that angle just means that some editors can't see beyond the excruciatingly tedious spin of tabloid scandal-mongering, even when the topic is abstract. Nishidani (talk) 08:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay - you confused me here. Was this adressed to me? And more importantly, what do we do with that redundant, useless and messy little part that is so (and rightly so) disputed? IMO this part begun as a pro-zionist attempt to link Khazarian hypothesis believers to racists and intolerant people, and then it was consistantly change to render it more PC - but it's the same as trying to dress a turd of shit; in the end, no matter how well it was taken care of, it's still shit. I don't care the number of "relevant references" therein, or vague rules - IMO It just has to go. Cheers. MVictorP (talk) 11:14, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Many editors watch this page. No one has objected except a person protesting at the global preeminence of Brook as an expert on the Khazars, and on the importance of what David Duke thinks. It took two months of deep reading to get this as it is, and a twit is whingeing about . , , fuck all, based on a misreading of simple English and wiki rules governing the lead. Got that?Nishidani (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


What I "got", is that you're either pissed or there's politics at work here, that somehow prevent the article from being clean, objective and relevant. If you are weary of some political retaliation here on Wiki (you seem invested in this), do you want me to do it myself? I care little about politics. I don't mind being soooo big in here. I'm just a self-scholared guy who regularly uses Wikipedia, who think that such parts as the one discussed makes the article messy and sub-standard, which is sad given how some other parts are well-written. Cheer up mate! MVictorP (talk) 11:44, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
In English 'self-scholared' is 'autodidact'. This has nothing to do with politics. It has very much to do with keeping politically obsessions, which in whilom times dominated and wrecked the article, out of it. I happen to disagree with much of what is written in some sections, but I wrote them, against my own personal opinions, according to what the relevant scholarship says. Doing that is what becoming a wikipedian editor entails- That you think a half sentence in a very long article 'makes the article messy and sub-standard' tells me everything I need to know about the 'quality' of judgement behind these objections. It's like, to make a hyperbolic analogy or two, saying the slight perspectival flaw in Goya's El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid, or the virtuous woman showing a flash of sexy leg in Giorgione's Giuditta con la testa di Oloferne, make the compositions either 'messy and substandard'. Nishidani (talk) 12:17, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

First, sorry for my bad english, which is a secondary language to me (je parle principalement francais, ou le terme est également "autodidacte" mais cette petite réthorique n'est pas mon point). That may also explain why I am not so gung-ho about changing an article in English myself, and some other mistakes I will certainly make.

Now with that out of the way, I am not attacking a single sentence: I am attacking the whole "Use in anti-Semitic polemics" section for the following reasons (in order of importance):

- It is Irrelevant. Maybe it would be relevant in an article about zionism/semitism and all that wonderful jazz, but this one is about Khazars, and the theories about them, covered by the extensive genetic section. Why would political opinions matter in genetics? And if they do, why not write a heavily-referenced section about what the Chinese government think about Khazar theories?

- It is a mess. In spite of all the thick layers of sources and corrections (almost the entire section is highlightable), it does not succeed in making sense. Antisemites and anti-zionists are thrown together in a clusterfuck of not-so cutted-out opinions that may or may not be true. What the hell is Aum Shinrikyō, anyway? David Duke has IMO a lot more recognition and relevance as a contemporary avatar or antisemitism.

- It is absurd. Those who are likely to espouse the Khazar hypothesis to their ends would be anti-zionists; Antisemites, with the Khazarian hypothesis, see much of their racial segregation arguments about Jews not making genetic sense.

- It make the article, which need I repeat, has many excellent sections, substandard for the aforementionned reasons.

- It is offensive. It associate those who, in all good will, believe in one hypothesis or another concerning Khazars.

My solution? Delete it - not attempting to salvage it some more, stretching it some more at the expense of the article subject or throw some more perfume on it - just delete it. Or, give me a rational argument to keep it, beside being heavily referenced and having a lot of spotlight. I know you're pissed but please try and stay on topic - I am not this other guy you keep referring to. MVictorP (talk) 12:59, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Since there is no problem, there is no solution. Autodidact brings to mind Roquentin, in La Nausée, and that's what all this blague reminds me of. It's required by policy. Your opinions are not grounded in policy. Period. No need to apologize for your language. But you should understand that the way the sentence is being misinterpreted to mean what it is phrased not to mean in order to object to it, shows either ignorance of the niceties of English, or a certain illiteracy in that language. I'm not 'pissed' (drunk) but pissed off at having to waste time talking of trivia to people who don't read much, by the looks of it, but know a lot about David Duke. No one I've consulted in Italy or Japan, or several other countries, knows of him. Everyone in the Orient knows about Aum Shinrikyo. To rerpeat, provincial crap from America has no place on a global encyclopedia dealing with a recondite topic of Eurasian and Caucasian medieval history Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Duke is a prominent figure in a country that happens to be the only one whose support is vital to zionism. And anyway, I'm the one wanting his exclusion, along with his ilk and usual opponents, out of the article, remember?
There is a policy that forces the article to include an "antisemite" section? On what basis? This is either absurd or cynical. Please precise. MVictorP (talk) 13:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Oh for fuck's sake. The literature on the Khazars notes that it is used in antisemitic polemics by the lunatic fringe, and this is a minor element. It has always been on the page. I rewrote it to give it its proper place. Not to mention something like that is to cover up an association that is stated in RS. It's called comprehensive neutral coverage of all relevant material bearing on a topic. All articles do this. Stop blathering as if this were a talkback programme. (Note to others: all forms of exasperation here are rhetorical devices nonchalantly employed to (a) stave off boredom and (b) try to wake up interlocutors who do not appear to be reading closely, and are not indications of my personal mood, which, now that my sister-in-law has phoned to say the afternoon coffee hour has been prepared, is excellent). Nishidani (talk) 13:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

It is "Autodidacticism", or "autodidactism", as in "Autodidactism brings to mind Roquentin". And, as much as I can empathize, I am not interested in your personal matters or feelings (with all due respects). I also have no desire to impress you, or anybody, with convenient litterary citations or even latin. I have discusssion boards for flashing my bling like that. I came here for the place's rational appeal. Here it is, hoping we will concentrate on these aspects rather than the "novelty" ones:

When you write that "literature on the Khazars notes that it is used in antisemitic polemics by the lunatic fringe, and this is a minor element", you sum up my problem with the section pretty well. Most, if not all theories ever made were at some point used by a lobby or another, call them what you will. And yes, it is also a minor element - insignificant, even, and furthermore, it is not so clearly cut who believes what and to which degree. The section is faulty in many manners but it is, most of all, irrelevant and harms the rest of the article. "Delendo", like Caton said. MVictorP (talk) 14:07, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Cato (nb) never said delendo. You keep repeating yourself, and refuse to cite policy. Yawn Nishidani (talk) 14:21, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
That's all? Some filmsy rethorics and dronery? Beside, I wouldn't bet that Caton never said "delendo" in the imperative mode, given that the man lived to quite an old age. I might have over-estimated some people here. MVictorP (talk) 14:36, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
'Delendo in the imperative mode'. Good grief. You give autodidacticism a bad name.Nishidani (talk) 14:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
What's this? More feeble nitpickings! What a powerful argumentation. I can't believe you kept me concerned with such pettyness. Kudos. Now, about the contested article part, do you mind if I delete it? If yes, tell me why, according to you (not Voltaire). As for me, it's "delendo", imperatively. MVictorP (talk) 15:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
I've done roughly 30,000 edit contributions to wikipedia. In four years you have done nothing, 50 edits, almost all chat, and two reverts, to this page. For those four years, the page had a huge volume of poorly constructed, false, or useless content. You did nothing, sat round, twiddled your mental thumbs, etc.. and now some of us have gone to considerable trouble to craft a wiki-adequate rewriting of that hash, you quibble on a few words. Half of your contributions now consist of a hyperactive obsession, frénétisant l'insignifiance, to uset an idiom from your native tongue, over one sentence that you have consistently failed to understand. So no, if you proceed, I'll revert you because (a) you don't have a record of meaningful engagement with wikipedia (b)waste editors' time with trivialities based on a stubborn incomprehension of what is being said (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT) (c) you have no consensus (d) you have no policy grounds (e) you don't understand elementary Latin, which is perhaps my major objection. Nishidani (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

What? "frenetisant l'insignifiance"? Ha ha ha!!! My knowledge of a dead language may be tenuous, but it beat your amusing usage of the french language, that you appear to affectionate showing off (to your disavantage). You are getting arrogant sir. I understand the "misunderstood artist" feel you may have, but all of your contributions and intellectuality isn't elevated enough for you to recognize when you're wrong, and out of argumentation. And since you can't conjure one up, instead you've desperatly went down to compare our Wiki status, like all those who were in trouble before you. That's quite pathetic, that last bastion - tends to make you look "frenetiquement insignifiant" yourself.

My beef is with the section that bears the name of this very talk page section - not just the header line, you confuse me with somebody else. I first created this topic here, you answered me and all was fine. Then the conversation evolved around the realization that a sizeable amount of antisemites are in fact opposed to the Khazarian hypothesis, such as David Duke. Since then, you have been fighting for immobility, as if your (fine) work was set in stone, and doing poorly in that sense. Get prepared - I intend to delete or severly modify the concerned section, soon. And don't worry, I'll also have plenty of bureaucratic WP expressions to justify my edit, mainly about relevance. Cheers. MVictorP (talk) 17:07, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

"frenetisant l'insignifiance"? Ha ha ha!!! My knowledge of a dead language may be tenuous, but it beat your amusing usage of the french language,

Misquoting elementary Latin, now you tell me you can't even recognize an allusion to a phrase in your own mother-tongue coined by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. I give up, yeah. Cheers. Cheese, whatever. Nishidani (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

LFC (especially around "Bagatelles") isn't my cup of tea. Besides, "Frenetiser l'indifference" is no proper french expression (in french grammar, "frenetique" is an adjective, not a verb); it is a novelty expression, designed to shake a native french reader out of his conformity, like Boris Vian did. That you consider it a french idiom just shows that you have little grasp of a language about which you make an extravagant display. However, don't delude yourself into thinking that such petty distractions will make me forget that you are evading all form of rationale discussion, and rather clumsily at that. Feel free to flaunt your intellectual dick - it's easy; I also have a bookshelf here, and I too can open one random book and take a line, throw it in your face and conclude that you are the last of the ignoramuses if you don't identify it on the spot.

But the problem stays; This section of the article is faulty, for all the reasons expressed here, for which you only had some vague reference to as vague rules, and a "misunderstood artist" hissy fit. Come to think of it, you found a way to offense about all people who posted here, in fact. Yeah, go on and re-read it; especially your first answer to Vikingsfan, who was being polite and helpful. I don't know what your problem is - are you having your periods? MVictorP (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

If you start playing rough, don't run crying to your mummy when others "play back". I don't mind it myself. I also have ample exemples of your own lack of manners, often directed towards poeple who were polite with you. Politeness didn't saved them from your oddly uncouth manners. Yeah, and plug one up your privates - that should make you less trollish, to paraphrase Shakespeare. MVictorP (talk) 14:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Gentlemen: I urge you to return to the topic. Please take the playground taunts to your user talk pages, where you will embarrass only yourselves and not everyone who visits here as well. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Laszlo, thank you for your intervention, wiuth which I agree, but can one communicate with this guy? He's hurling his own feces like his very life depended on it. At this point, any opinion, for or against me, as long as it's on-subject, would be a refresher. When he is not acting like a complete dick, he drones on vague rules about subjects that have long been answered without pertinent justifications. I mean... Just look at him go! MVictorP (talk) 16:34, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Of course. I exhaustively answered every query, I believe. I noted that we are governed by rules, which demand that the content of the page be summarized as per WP:Lede, and that, since we have a section on the history of the theory and also on the antisemitism angle, the last line challenged in the lead serves that function. This is a purely mechanical issue, therefore. I have asked for a policy-based objection, not a lengthy discussion on David Duke, which is what this challenge boils down to. I have never received an answer that is intelligible in terms of wikipedia policy. Being a wikipedian obliges one to WP:AGF, but that does not mean one has a duty to be a martyr to the harassment of newbies who consistently indulge in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.
In short, if the line is removed, WP:Lede is violated, and that requires either the restoration of that line, or something like it, or (b)the removal of the whole section of antisemitism, whose absence would then justify the cancellation of the summary last line in the lead. If that can be discussed constructively while hewing strictly to the rules, fine. If not, further discussion is pointless.Nishidani (talk) 16:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
See? Was it necessary to go through all of this acrimony to end up there? We easily could get there without it - I don't know why the hissy fits; everybody who commented on this approached you in a polite manner.
Now, to be honest, this was maybe this contributor's most relevant answer in all of the section - because he considered the removal of the "antisemitic politics" part (thanks to Laszlo's intervention - I guess he is the one who make Nishidani feel the heat, I guess); He still doesn't get that it is not a question of header, he thinks it is because of some WP rules, but in fact it would be more for more classical and widespread reporting reasons, whose more subtle rules wouldn't condone such a confused mess. I still say that antizionism, more than anti-Semitism, is concerned with the question. I don't think it would be such a mess if it simply stated that both hypothesis has been used by various actors in the Palestinian conflict, irregularly - which is pretty much saying nothing relevant - but it would justify the header that obsess so much some people. Please tell me what you think. MVictorP (talk) 16:34, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay here is an actual, minimal proposition: I propose we edit the following line "Controversy surrounds modern theories on a hypothetical Khazarian diaspora's possible impact on the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry, an argument that has lent itself occasionally also to polemics regarding Antisemitism" to "... polemics regarding Zionism'".
My reasons for this are two-folded: First, it is a less accusative tone, more positive because it is not as pejorative a term - being a Zionist, as far as I know in 2013, is no shame. Second, I sincerely believe the subject has more to do with the establishment of Israel than the treatment of Jews at large.
Of course, the section I contest would also have to change title accordingly, if accepted. Please tell me what you think. MVictorP (talk) 13:12, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies.

The following controversyis what the last line of the lead must therefore summarize.

Maurice Fishberg and Roland B Dixon’s works were later exploited in racist and religious polemical literature in both Britain, in British Israelism, and the United States. Particularly after the publication of Burton J. Hendrick ‘s The Jews in America (1923), it began to enjoy a vogue among advocates of immigration restriction in the 1920s; racial theorists like Lothrop Stoddard; anti-Semitic conspiracy-theorists like the Ku Klux Klan’s Hiram Wesley Evans; anti-communist polemicists like John O. Beaty and Wilmot Robertson, whose views influenced David Duke. According to Yehoshafat Harkabi (1968) and others, it played a role in Arab anti-Zionist polemics, and took on an anti-semitic edge. Bernard Lewis, noting in 1987 that Arab scholars had dropped it, remarked that it only occasionally emerged in Arab political discourse. It also played some role in Slavic Eurasian historiography, particularly in the works of scholars like Lev Gumilev. Although the Khazar hypothesis never played any major role in anti-semitism, and though the existence of a Jewish kingdom north of the Caucasus had formerly long been denied by Christian religious commentators, it came to be exploited by the White supremicist Christian movement and even by terroristic esoteric cults like Aum Shinrikyō.

Your proposal is that we write against the majority of sources, by replacing 'antisemitism' with 'Anti-Zionism' (which is often, if incorrectly, regarded as a euphemism for antisemitism). It consists, in short of replacing one word in the lead, and repressing the attested fact that many of the people named there were antisemitic (against Jews in America, not against them going elsewhere). That means, rather than 'summarize' the content', you counsel that it be misrepresented. It wouldn't be misrepresented if we added more sources describing the Khazars/Jews and anti-Zionism (see below).
Therefore, as I understand WP:Lede policy, your suggestion can lead to the modification 'antisemitism and/or anti-zionist polemics'. That is, an addition of the other term, not the suppression of the one we have. There is support for adding 'anti-zionist' in our sources, cf. here and here (Victor A. Shnirelman, 'The Story of a Euphemism:The Khazars in Russian Nationalist Literature ' in Golden, Ben-Shammai, Andras Rona-Tas 2007 pp.353-372). Nishidani (talk) 15:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Well, although I cannot agree more about the distinction between contemporary anti-Semites and anti-Zionists, force is to recognize that often they are thrown in the same bag by their opponents, hence my desire to underline the distinction.
Taking a wider angle on the subject, I see that opinions on the matter are shifting, according to recent finds and contemporary politics, on all sides of the Zionist/semitic debate. If I am sure we can find particular opinions by so-called movement leaders, I don't think there is any unanimity within their own movements' membership about these opinions. For these reasons, I would prefer a section that would be a quick snapshot on what appears to boil, rather than an attempt at a cleaned-cut classification.
Now that being said, with my proposition I think I demonstrated that I am ready to water my w(h)ine a bit, and accept the section, that certainly could have been a lot worse. For my part I would settle for your last proposition - at least until things change again. MVictorP (talk) 03:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

The fact many racialists reject the Khazarian hypothesis (for their own clearly stated reasons, refutation of these "reasons" was also the clearly stated motivate Arthur Koestler gave for writing the "The Thirteen Tribe") should be noted in sections mentioning any level of use of the Khazarian hypothesis in "anti-semitic polemics" once again. Internationally known white supremacist David Duke would again be the most prominent and most recent example of racists vocally opposing the Khazarian hypothesis; as The Forward newspaper recently covered. Quoting from them "David Duke, for example, is disturbed by the assertion that Jews are not a race."

And then as for the other point; a fair introduction would be simply to note that the scope of conversion beyond the elites, nobles, and aristocracy is still a debated point. Currently this introduction inexplicably highlights the limited conversion thesis versus the broad conversion thesis. That is again taking one side in the debate and claiming it is supposedly correct. Which is something even the body of the article does not do; as it quite fairly discusses the different views. A corrected introduction would both be fairer and improve this article.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 23:35, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

For my part I would settle for your last proposition.

Okay. That's resolved. I will add 'and anti-Zionists', while downcasing 'antisemitism' in the lead.

Beginning in the 8th century, the Khazar royalty and notable segments of the aristocracy converted to Judaism, though the populace appears to have remained multiconfessional and polyethnic

As it is, contemporary Arab and Christian sources stress that large numbers of Christians and Moslems existed there, while shamanic style paganism remained. The legal system of the Jewish state specifically recognized 4 religions, not one, and this datum is why most cautious scholars ignore arguments like Brooks' opinion that all were converted, which contradicts everything we know about high-faith diffusion in primitive polities.
'The religion of the remainder is similar to that of the Turks,' wrote Ibn Rusta.' András Róna-Tas, Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History, Central European University Press, 1999 p.232
If you have RS, meaning works or article by specialist scholars of the Khazars who assert things allowing for a broader statement, by all means produce them. I could twig it of course:'the extent of conversion to Judaism in the general populace is unknown', but that would be to give WP:Undue weight to just one of the four faiths in the lead. Any Muslim or Christian editor could rightly intervene and ask for due lead consideration of the attested fact that large conversions to their respective faiths occurred, destabilizing the brief synthetic overview. That's the essential problem with your suggestion.Nishidani (talk) 07:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

The scope of the conversion is still debated, this article itself notes that. The introduction should simply note that as well, not merely promote one side. At least you've made it clear that according to your view (and those you follow) the limited conversion thesis is supposedly "correct"!Vikingsfan8 (talk) 08:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I've add an unnecessary parenthetical gloss on 'multiconfessional to go halfway. All this is totally speculative: a POV pusher could use Muslim sources to argue for an Islamic majority, a Christian exploit Byzantine sources to argue for a major Christian presence, a Jewish acolyte could press for the idea that the conversion of the elite must have imposed a conversion among the majority of Khazars, a pagan might just note that a million people don't drop millenial old nomadic animist beliefs overnight, or in a decade or two, to embrace an obscure imported theology. Mr Brook is entitled to his view, but it is based on nothing resembling hard evidence, and the same goes for those who think Khazars must be Jews, because the Ashkenazi 'demographic miracle' requires some latent Judaic core which must (?) have come from some conversion earlier, like that reported of the Khazars. Nishidani (talk) 10:54, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I have a problem with the second part of Nishidani's argument "The legal system of the Jewish state specifically recognized 4 religions, not one, and this datum is why most cautious scholars ignore arguments like Brooks' opinion that all were converted".
Stop distorting my opinions, Nishidani. I never said all peoples of Khazaria converted to Judaism. True, the law courts in Atil had non-Jewish judges for Slavs, Arabs, and other non-Jews living in the country, most of whom stayed pagan, Christian, or Muslim. Those who converted to Judaism were most of the Khazars and Alans. My book makes the distinction between residents of Khazaria and ethnic members of the Khazar tribe but that distinction passed over your nonspecialist pseudonymic head. State your real name and your list of publications on the subjects you discuss. My name is Kevin Brook and I have published articles about Khazar Judaism in peer-reviewed academic journals and encyclopedias. I'm currently using a shared IP address run by Microsoft but happy to identify myself.
Nishidani also argued "Mr Brook is entitled to his view, but it is based on nothing resembling hard evidence"
Yes it is. Sources like Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Ibn al-Faqih, Christian of Stavelot say all Khazars converted to Judaism. I thought you claimed you read my book but if so you'd know that I didn't just make stuff up. I quoted Ibn Fadlan, I cited the evidence for non-Jewish judges in Khazaria, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.22.27.64 (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
'Those who converted to Judaism were most of the Khazars and Alans.'
What is your RS for that? (you don't appear to understand that editors here are not allowed to write history from their personal interpretations of primary sources, which in this field, is certainly to be avoided because the primary sources you cite are all, in the serious scholarly literature, subject to contentious interpretations, and do not state 'facts'. See WP:RS. And, please do read, WP:COI. You have a conflict of interest in wishing to promote your book and its conclusions here. Nishidani (talk) 08:09, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Again this article itself makes it quite explicit that the scale of the conversion is still debated among scholars. Whether or not one specifically agrees with Mr. Brook's historical analysis or not [4]. The main current problem with this article is that the introduction once again currently promotes the "limited conversion" thesis (and doesn't even bother mentioning the other scholarly views). Promoting just this thesis in the introduction is the very definition of POV. The introduction should simply say "the scope of the conversion is still debated by scholars" and refer the reader to the body of the article where some of the information on the debate among the scholars is clearly presented!

And also it still needs to be added that there are well known racists who have once again come forward to specifically attack the Khazarian hypothesis! Specifically David Duke.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 06:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Repetition is a rhetorical strategy that has its uses in manipulating crowd sentiment. It has no weight in wikipedia or the scholarly community that produces the reliable sources on which we ground our work. Everything you keep repeating has been exhaustively answered. Some measure of compromise has been made. If you cannot produce new RS from quality academic presses, move on, or elsewhere. One is not obliged to engage in, or respond to, a theatrical rehearsal of hackneyed stichomythia.Nishidani (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

You again give your own ridiculous commentary, while you very noticeably refuse to even respond to the issue at hand at all (even with Brook himself posting here). The current problematic introduction merely pushes the limited conversion thesis (as supposedly "fact"). Instead of this it should be neutral and simply say the scope of the conversions is debated. Do you have any "response" to this simple point?? Are you asserting that the limited conversion thesis is supposedly "correct" and the broad conversion thesis is allegedly "incorrect"? The article makes the debate clear and doesn't attempt to "crown a winner" in the argument; as you (fighting for the current introduction) appear to be doing.Vikingsfan8 (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, no one reads beyond the lead these days. Or everyone who edits wants to shove whatever he particularly wants people to read, into the lead, which, per WP:LEDE, must be succint, and not get distracted by details.

Both the date of the conversion, and the extent of its influence beyond the elite,[109] often minimized in scholarship,[110] are a matter of dispute,[111] but

That is in the detailed section on conversion. Note 'often minimized in scholarship' says two things: (a) generally Khazar scholarship regards the extent of the conversion limited (b) 'minimize' suggests that scholarship may be underrating the extent. This is what my sources say. If you have up-do-gate broad review articles on conversion that can finesse this, showing that some ranking Khazarian specialists today defend the idea that the conversion was extensive, then by all means notify this page.Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Tritomex: latest edit

In September 2013 at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting, most of the geneticist who led previous genetic studies on Ashkenazi Jews, including M. Metspalu1, D. M. Behar, Y. Baran Rosset N. Kopelman, B. Yunusbayev, A. Gladstein, M. F. Hammer, S. Tzur, E. Halperin, K. Skorecki and R. Villems presented a new genetic study specifically aimed to explore genetic relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and Khazars. The study assembled the largest sample set available to date for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins, containing genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism data in 1,774 samples from 107 Jewish and non-Jewish populations and and 15 populations from the region historically associated with the Khazar kingdom at its peak. The study titled "No indication of Khazar genetic ancestry among Ashkenazi Jews" found that " Ashkenazi Jewish samples share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East, and that they have no particular signal of genetic sharing with populations from the Caucasus. Thus, analysis of the most comprehensive set of Jewish and other Middle Eastern and European populations together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar kingdom does not support the hypothesis of a significant contribution of the elusive Khazars into the gene pool of the Ashkenazi Jews."[1]

  • (a) I wrote an extremely synthetic section where no source from Behar to Elhaik was given more than a few words. You splurge 1,5 kb on the exposition of results from
  • (b) an unpublished paper citing its abstract
  • (c) that being unpublished (as of September) fails all criteria for RS. It cannot be accessed apparently apart from the link to that brief abstract.
  • (d) As with Elhaik, whose preliminary paper was not RS, and one had to wait until December, so too with this paper delivered this month at a symposium, it cannot be sourced until published in a journal.
  • (e) It does not change the earlier picture, and is just one more provisory confirmation that most geneticists dismiss the Khazar hypothesis. Therefore that one paper, even in the future, doesn't change the estimation I made of the earlier series of papers which said, a Khazar element, even if present, is relatively negligible. You are using a megaphone to deliver 'the new truth' when it follows in a long line of studies we have already summarized.
  • (f) The one novelty is the inclusion of 15 populations from the region historically associated with the Khazar kingdom at its peak. This is noteworthy of course, as opposed to the other studies, even Elhaik's but
  • (g) We don't have the paper, the rules don't allow us to include it yet, and impatience is not a wiki virtue. Yet
  • (h) I have broken the rules to give the notice a placemaker 'insignificant'.
  • (i) This is just to suggest a rule-bending compromise, but technically any wikipedian editor can reject it, along with your own full edit, simply because there is no ground for permitting any mention of this stuff until we have a peer-approved version from the appropriate journal to link to.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
American Society of Human Genetics website is WP:RS for any genetic study. Not to mention that the study involves the most prominent genetic scientists in this question.--Tritomex (talk) 20:11, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
Please answer the points above.
Please supply the names of the authors, the journal the paper appears in, the date of publication, and the link to the peer-reviewed article. Unless you can do this, the link has no value. Nishidani (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
  • (a)Can be shorten, although Elhaik is mentioned all over the article.
  • (b,c) The study is presented by American Society of Human Genetics website which is WP:RS, in fact the most prominent entity in human genetics.
  • Elahik paper was not published and presented by American Society of Human Genetics or by any relevant genetic institution before it was published by OJ, although I never objected his inclusion on that base.
  • Its not insignificant, you added someone who is not geneticists, whose work was not published in any relevant genetic journal or by any relevant genetic institution.
  • Again, American Society of Human Genetics is WP:RS for all genetic studies, for those which are published at other genetic institutions or journals and for those which are not.--Tritomex (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Are you claiming that American Society of Human Genetics is not reliable source for human genetic studies???
  • Why you changed my text this talk page? It is against Wikipedia rules.
The American Society of Human Genetics is not a source for anything except society business. The reliability of the (presumably) forthcoming paper will rest on the authors and the editorial process of whatever journal it appears in. Zerotalk 01:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
As the most prominent institution of Human population genetics on earth, The American Society of Human Genetics is a source for any genetic study and its results. Concerning reliability, the most prominent scientist in the field of population genetics are reliable sources for population genetics even if they are quoted for example from newspapers. However we have here the highest institution of Human population genetics presenting their findings. --Tritomex (talk) 09:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
5 outside experts, all thoroughly familiar with the rules, say you are wrong. Please don't repeat yourself. Unless that obvious consensus changes (improbably: this is a simple technical call) please don't (and this goes for Galassi also) edit war to revert your preferred view. As it stands, I have already overstepped the mark in conceding a mention of the new data, though it cannot yet be properly sourced. I or someone else will revert Galassi's edit presently, and if you persist, it becomes a blatant behavioural problem of POV pushing in defiance of tertiary input and the rules.Nishidani (talk) 10:05, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
[5] I just found out that the material was already under per review "All accepted abstracts will be published in the ASHG 2013 Meeting Program and cannot be withdrawn from publication after June 6 (even at the request of the author and/or principal investigator). Abstracts not withdrawn by June 6 will be reviewed and programmed by members of the Program Committee. Abstract Publication Abstracts selected for presentation will be available on the 2013 meeting Web site in late August and are published online." Also see "How to Cite Abstracts" --Tritomex (talk) 12:09, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
All abstracts are reviewed by at least one 2013 Program Committee member and two ad hoc reviewers. The reviewing process is strictly confidential. The Program Committee reviews all abstracts submitted for presentation and determines whether an abstract is suitable for platform or poster presentation. The Program Committee reserves the right to decline a presentation to any submitted abstracts that lack scientific content or merit, or merely announce the availability of a resource or service...Abstract Publication Abstracts selected for presentation will be available on the 2013 meeting Web site in late August and are published online. " [6] --Tritomex (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
Please review the RSN discussion, do your sums, and, once done, accept the consensus there. In a few months, this will be included.Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard ‎ (→‎Is an abstract of an unpubished paper referring to a conference delivery a reliable source? Subject Khazars and genetics)

There is currently a debate at RS noticeboard, regarding the genetic study presented by American Society of Human genetics ins September 2013 and made by some of the most prominent geneticists. This genetic study can be red in this article as well. Please participate in the debate.--Tritomex (talk) 09:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

We are looking for outside input from editors who have not edited this page. This is not a vote-stacking game, Tritomex.Nishidani (talk) 10:08, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Tritomex

The genetics section can be forked to give all the pros and cons. As written it is highly synthetic.

That is a dubious source, in the first place, which breaks the consistently strict standards for RS employed in this article.
It also is a terribly poor article. Look at the following excerpts:-
  • The young Jewish researcher challenged the so-called “Rhineland hypothesis”—the broadly accepted genetic and historic evidence that about 80 percent of Jewish Ashkenazi males trace their ancestry to a core population of approximately 20,000 Eastern European Jews who originated in the Middle East.
There is no historic or genetic evidence that the Ashkenazi 20,000 core European Jews 'originated in the Middle East'. In fact, as phrased, (carelessly) it suggests 20,000 EEJ's emigrated to Europe from the Middle East. Entine clearly doesn't know what he is talking about.
  • He’s just wrong,” said Marcus Feldman of Stanford University, a leading researcher in Jewish genetics. “If you take all of the careful genetic population analysis that has been done over the last 15 years… there’s no doubt about the common Middle Eastern origin,” he said. He added that Elhaik’s paper “is sort of a one-off.”
Well that is not a fact. It is a rough scholarly consensus now under challenge (Oct 8 2013)
  • Discover’s Razib Khan did a textured critique in his Gene Expression blog, noting the study’s historical fuzziness and its selective use of data to come up with what seems like a pre-cooked conclusion. As Razib writes, it’s hardly surprising that we would find a small but sizable Khazarian contribution to the “Jewish gene pool”. In fact the male line of my own family traces to the Caucuses (sic), suggesting I’m one of the 20 percent or so of Jews whose lineage traces to converted royal Khazarians. But that view is widely acknowledged by Ostrer, Hammer, Feldman, Michael Thomas and every major researcher in this area—as summarized in my book.
I.e. against your selective use of Feldman's put-down, the same article's editor says 20% of Jews traces to converted royal Khazarians, that Ostrer, Hammer, Feldman himself etc, concur in this view.

So what you did was to introduce a poor source, by a science writer who gets all of his facts and history upside down, in order to quote Feldman against Elhaik, while ignoring that the writer then endorses one version of the Khazar theory. For this and other reasons, again, you will have to be reverted on this. Nishidani (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I might add that the page has been designed to compress controversies like this, because it already has problems of length. The option available for those who wish to develop the genetic theories is to fork out a page dealing precisely with all of this material in greater detail. Much that I might have easily included, like

And findings by genetic researchers of significant Near Eastern ancestry among Ashkenazic Jews put to rest the notion that this population originated with or is predominantly descended from the Khazars.Be that as it may, there is one odd and tantalizing feature of Ashkenazic Jewish Y chromosomes that may lead us back to Khazaria. Like kohanim, the Levites, the larger tribe of priestly helpers, pass on their identity from father to son. Yet unlike the kohanim, the Y chromosomes of Levites do not show homogeneity across geographically dispersed populations. There is no Y chromosome link that unites Ashkenazic and Sephardic Levites. Among the Ashkenazic Levites, however, there is a particularly common Y chromosome type that is not often found in other Jewish groups. But it is found among people who now live where the Khazars once did. While the overall genetic makeup of Ashkenazic Jews provides little support for Koestler’s theory, the Ashkenazic Y chromosome may be testimony to the entry of some of the Khazar population into Ashkenazic Jewry. Could it be that members of the Khazar elite, after converting to Judaism, assumed the identity of Levites?'David B. Goldstein In Jewish Genetic History, the Known Unknowns in The Forward, August 28, 2009.

Was left out of this article precisely to ensure that the historical side would not be overwhelmed by edit-warring over such details. Feel free to open up such a page. But partisan details cherrypicked to challenge a theory one dislikes only sets a precedent for people who might disagree with you to join in with their favorite tidbits in defence of the same order of theories, and such an expansion is wholly inappropriate for the way the article has been designed.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Reconstruction

I did a significant reconstruction of this article trying to group relevant history, linguistics, religion and Khazar state issues. I think however the article is getting too big and we have a couple of topics we can easily split into separate articles. First of all, we may split an article on Khazarian Kingdom, as a political entity (there are 3-4 subsections for it already). Thoughts?Greyshark09 (talk) 20:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Fully agree. The current status of this article is very poor. Prominent scholars are omitted, the main core of this article is based on views of controversial and fringe sources. There many questionable claims, huge portion of well sourced academic material was taken out. Claims based on views of this controversial sources are presented as historic facts. Mainstream opinion on core issues have been marginalized or removed. There are many additional problems as well. --Tritomex (talk) 18:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
This is a work page. Complaints should be specific, and not generic opinionizing.
(a)*The current state of this article is very poor.
And, of course, it was a brilliant example of wiki editing previously.
(b)*Prominent scholars are missing.
Name them.
(c)*The main core of this article is based on views of controversial and fringe sources.
(i.'main core' is a tautological reduplication. ii.' views of controversial and fringe sources': sources do not have 'views' - their authors have them=
This, again, is an assertion, ungrounded in any evidence
(d)*'huge portion of well sourced material was taken out'. I asked Greyshark, an editor I trust, to put whatever new material he had on this talk page, so we can discuss how to use it. The material is not 'huge' .
(e)*Claims based on views of this controversial sources are presented as historic facts'
Examples? No one has ever noted on this page any source I used as 'controversial'. In fact the RS criteria adopted are extremely strict.
(f) *'Mainstream opinion on core issues have been marginalized or removed'.
That is a stylistic complement or rhetorical version of (c), assertive and undocumented.
In other words, you are just complaining per WP:IDONTLIKEIT and adding support without having examined the many instances of problematical reediting in Greyshark's revision. Here's another example.
The text read:-

The Khazar state was the only Jewish state to rise between the Fall of the Second Temple (67-70 CE) and the establishment of Israel (1948),Oppenheim, p. 310.

Greyshark rewrote this, clearly without consulting the source, as follows:

The Khazar state was the only Jewish-dominated state to rise between the Fall of the Second Temple (67-70 CE) and the establishment of Israel (1948)

That is not what the source says. p.310 of Oppenheim reads:-

‘the medieval Jewish Khazar state was the only Jewish state in the world between the fall of the Second Temple in 67 A.D. and the formation of Israel in 1948.’

‘Jewish-dominated’ is furthermore a particularly ugly phrase, since to readers the words ‘Jewish-dominated’ suggests Protocols-of-Zion like innuendoes I, for one, find particularly distasteful. Greyshark didn't mean to imply that, of course.One must not revise or rewrite a text without closely examining the source for it, and the language, on which the previous editor drew. To do so is to rewrite a text according to preconceptions.Nishidani (talk) 08:04, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
(a)It was at least much more objective and much less POV driven.
(b)*Prominent scholars are missing.Anita Shapira ( beside this claim which has nothing to do with Khazars although it is presented as such "Modern scholars generally see the conversion as a slow process through three stages, which accords with Richard Eaton's model of syncretic inclusion, gradual identification and, finally, displacement of the older tradition", Israel Barthal, Moshe Gil, Simon Sachma to name just some are out while Kostler and Sand are used as reference for historic claims. All of this Despite the fact that the first is unreliable and the second is highly controversial. Hebrew was placed as in first place of introduction although no Khazarian document in Hebrew language exist (there are numerous Arabic documents, byzantine documents and Persian documents. The Kievian letters was as shown by Erdal and others written by non Khazar Jews to the Jews of Kiev (who were as presented by Erdal likely not Khazar converts but Khazar Jews) Sources regarding Russian professors and archeologists who claimed that Khazars assimilated in neighboring people were taken out. Ibn Fadlan was as you used to say "cherry picked", his references regarding the scope of Islam in Khazaria were erased.Other Arab historians and there are about 15 of them who did not supported the Khazar-Jewish narrative were left out (See my edit based on Moshe Gil) some contemporary Arab historians who claimed that Khazars were predominantly non Jewish (see my edit of Moshe Gil) were left out. A claim made by Al Hajj replaced dozens of genetic studies. Moshe Gil analysis of contemporary Jewish literature was also erased. The criticism of Shlom Sand narrative was also left out. The serious doubts about the authenticity of Khazarian correspondence was left out see History of the Byzantine Jews: History of the Byzantine Jews: A Microcosmos in the Thousand Year Empire By Elli Kohen P:253, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and ... By Devin DeWeese , Even the source (although not WP:RS for this) which you used many times question its authenticity: The Origin of Ashkenazi Jewry: The Controversy Unraveled

By Jits van Straten P:8 so on....

e)The claim that Khazaria was Jewish country is not supported by numerous sources although it is presented as a fact.--Tritomex (talk) 22:12, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

By claiming "the Khazar conversion to Judaism, though unusual, was not unique" you are implying that all Khazars converted to Judaism which is original research. Wexler cant be a source for historic claims regarding Iranian Jews which is btw not supported by any historian.--Tritomex (talk) 22:45, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Tritomex, just on e), how does that wording imply "all Khazars"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:38, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
The sentence " the Khazar conversion to Judaism, though unusual, was not unique" define the Khazars as people, not their nobility and royalty. However most of historic sources do support only the conversion of aristocratic class which is omitted form the text.--Tritomex (talk) 08:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Here is what professor Michael Berkowitz from University College London wrrote on this issue in his criticism of Sand. [7] "The shining example of a counter-narrative, which Sand sees as decisive, is the 'Khazar' theory, asserting that European Jewry was largely the consequence of a mass conversion in the 8th century. As much as some aspects of this episode have been substantiated, the scale of conversion suggested by its proponents is highly questionable" --Tritomex (talk) 09:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

It is evident (a) that you have not read the page (b) that you are unfamiliar with the sources used to document that page, i.e. you know nothing of the scholarship on the Khazars. (c) that you cite lots of names without knowing who they are (d) that you do not understand how wikipedia works because you are proposing we stuff the Khazar page with details from the page on Shlomo Sand and The Invention of the Jewish People. I call that POV-blob pushing from page to page just to ensure readers will get what you want them to see on every page, instead of trusting them to follow the ample links on this page to the articles where the views critics of one or two people mentioned here are mentioned.
  • 'Kostler (=Koestler) and Sand are used as reference for historic claims'.
Untrue. Koestler is used for citations of historians (Hugo von Kutschera ), or translations of original sources (Pol(y)ak), or for a citation of what Salo Wittmayer Baron wrote about the Khazars, with confirmatory citations from specialists.Shlomo Sand is cited here not for information on the Khazars, but for either Pol(i)ak's book on the Khazars, and the citation is backed by a second source, or for the status of his book as one of those arguing the Ashkenazi-Khazar theory, which is a minor historical topic that has nothing to do with the core of the page.
Anita Shapira, Israel Barthal (=Bartal), Moshe Gil, Simon Sachma (!!!=Schama),Michael Berkowitz, have nothing to do with Khazar studies, and are all, bar one (Moshe Gil, who fails per the obscure journal he wrote his polemic in, RS, as often noted), modern historians of Jewry with no competence in Khazar studies. They criticized Sand. Their opinions on Sand's book are available on the relevant Sand pages. This is a silly move per WP:Undue. None of these historians has the slightest technical background in Khazar studies. The page is about Khazars, it is not about Shlomo Sand's views on the Khazars. He is not used here to document the Khazars. He is sparsely used for Pol(y)ak's views in his untranslated Hebrew book on the Khazars.
You repeatedly argued elsewhere that Jits van Straten is not RS. You like one opinion in his book, so you now cite him here. This is called 'the instrumental' use of sources to prove a point, and is unacceptable.
  • 'The serious doubts about the authenticity of Khazarian correspondence was left out.' The Khazarian correspondence is now regarded as 'authentic'. When you say 'Kievan letters' (plural) you are so out of touch that you bundle up into one correspondence set two distinct documents (the Kievan letter) and the Schechter letter.
  • 'By claiming "the Khazar conversion to Judaism, though unusual, was not unique" you are implying..'
For God's sake, read the bloody text. It is not what I write or imply. It is what the source I am paraphrasing says (Golden)
  • De Weese.
The controversy over the authenticity (a very complex term) is an historical one over the details of who and where such letters were composed, discrepancies between versions, whether interpolations exist etc. De Weese writes:'In any case what is important for our concerns is these accounts' preservation, however abbreviated or altered, of originally oral narratives that in all probability originated among those directly affected by the Khazar adoption of Judaism.' p.305
In short, de Weese alludes to the controversy, but regards it as irrelevant because whatever the hypotheses about the originals' composition, the material originated among Khazar Jews, or Jewish converts, and that is all, from his perspective, that counts ('much of the debate loes significance'). We have several pages where the details concerning the various hypotheses can be expounded. By all means feel free to add the details there.
  • 'Sources regarding Russian professors and archeologists who claimed that Khazars assimilated in neighboring people were taken out.
I took out a sentence asserting something like this, unsourced and ungrammatical.
  • 'Wexler cant be a source for historic claims regarding Iranian Jews which is btw not supported by any historian.'
What are you talking about? This?'A tradition of the Iranian Judeo-Tats claims that their ancestors were responsible for the Khazar conversion.[108]'. Unless you specify which quote from Wexler you are challenging, I cannot reply.
  • 'The Kievian letters was as shown by Erdal and others written by non Khazar Jews to the Jews of Kiev (who were as presented by Erdal likely not Khazar converts but Khazar Jews)'
If you are having trouble reading Erdal, get back me. Erdal 'showed' no such thing. He made an hypothesis that the letter 'may have been sent from a place where the language spoken was not Khazar' and that the signatories were not Khazar converts, but Jews, perhaps Slavs, who adopted non-Jewish names. This is Erdal's view. It is, like so much else, an hypothesis, not a proof of anything. There is very little in the article about Kiev because the scholarly literature on Khazars there is all hypothetical, inference, guessing, and the article cannot lose its way in such recondite academic controversies.

Hebrew was placed as in first place of introduction although no Khazarian document in Hebrew language exist

You don't know what you are talking about, or rather, you are taking as 'proven' the old view that the Khazar correspondence was faked or inauthentic. Google 'the "Khazar Correspondence" of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut and King Joseph.' Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
As I have no time right now to comment on all issues I will reflect just on Nishidani claim regarding the Kievian letters (this document was used to justify the placing of Hebrew in articles lead)

On page 96 Erdal explains that the Kievan Letter does not bear the names of Khazar converts to Judaism, but the name of Jews who adopted local names. Referring to Torpusman comprehensive work in Khazar linguistics Erdal states "In his opinion the Non Jewish names of this document are likely to be Slavic and not Turkic; "This would again make Khazars vanish from the latter." Orjol 1997 has indeed shown that one of the names, if not two is Slavic" Finally Golden/Erdal states "The conclusion would be that the document signatories (or their fathers mentioned by their patronyms) who have non Jewish names would not be Khazars who converted to Judasism but Jews who adopted non Jewish names." The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives, Part 8, Volume 17 P:96--Tritomex (talk) 15:04, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I've read Erdal. Your problem here, as all over wikipedia, is that you ignore details (you cited Kohen, who mispells 'than' as then, cite him for 'phantasmagory', not understanding that this is an invented gallicism, inappropriate to wikipedia's narrative voice, that in English would be phantasmagoria', and showcase one theory among dozens over the centuries in order to suggest it is a fanciful and inauthentic fiction in the view of 'some scholars'. Fourth, Kohen gets stuff wrong, as in writing Boxdorf for Buxtorf, and is not a Khazar scholar.

I noted that you refer to Kievan letters as if the Correspondence consisted of that: it does not. You used Erdal's hypothesis as if it were a proof, which it is not. You don't understand what a scholar means when he uses 'may' 'appear' or 'would' in English, which are syntactic markers not of proof but of probability, or possibility. All this you ignored and distorted. Now you cite the very page I used to respond to you, as if I hadn't read it. What's the point? You're wasting my time, and I suggest, your own, by talking past the problems those who read your edits raise. Now I'll have to fix the mess you introduced.Nishidani (talk) 15:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Do anyone knows who is Samuel Oppenheim and what are his credentials regarding Khazar history?? --Tritomex (talk) 05:03, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Professor Emeritus of History at California State University, Stanislaus, specializing on Russian and modern European History. Got his doctorate at Harvard 1972. Nishidani (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Bit-by-bit

@Nishidani, the info about Ashkenazi Jewish genetics and their alleged connections or non-connections to ethnic Khazars belongs to theories. It is custom to put a genetic section on the people themselves (Khazars), but since studies on the latter do not exist, putting a section on alleged genetic links with some modern peoples (and the Jews are not the only ones argued for Khazar heritage), one falls into misleading the reader. The Khazar theory of Ashkenazi Jewish origins is a theory and it belongs to a proper section.GreyShark (dibra) 13:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

We have three sections here, after the overall history.
  • (a)Ashkenazi-Khazar theories
  • (b)Use in anti-Semitic polemics
  • (c)Genetic studies on Ashkenazi Jews (and the Khazars)
(a) Is a chronological account of the A-K theory in serious historical studies.
(b) Is a survey, on historical lines, of the use of the theory by antisemites.
(c) deals what the science of genetics says about the Ashkenazi-Khazar connection
On the face of it, there might seem to be a natural link between the historical and the scientific. Analytically, they are, as I have often said in here, in conflict. Most of the scientific studies get their historical facts wrong, or use poor or outdated sources. It's not something they show any expertise in Ostrer et al, frequently use ideological memes or historical clichés to confirm their interpretations; Elhaik gets some key historical data wrong, etc. Historians don't pretend to use genetics to resolve their mysteries. But more congruently, I don't think we need make an exception of the Khazars here, as you apparently wish to do. History and genetics in articles with peoples who are mentioned in this article or exist(ed) in that area are dealt with in distinct sections, and are not confused (see below). This is wise, seeing that genetics deals with a wholly different order than historiography, and is still a new science with wildly contrasting results. They are two distinct orders of discourse, and historical theories remain forever interpretative, whereas scientific 'theories' assume a process of incremental verification. In short, they have a different epistemologial status. Some sources say that theories like the Khazar-Ashkenazi connection cannot be proved or disproved by genetics (a point made in note 273: El-Haj 2012, pp. 1–2,28–9,120–123, 133:'if the genome does not prove Sand wrong, neither can it prove him right. It is the wrong kind of evidence and the wrong style of reasoning for the task at hand.'(p.28):'They (researchers) will never be able to prove descent from Khazars: there are no "verification" samples.'(p.133).'
Please bring a single example on "genetics" section in article about extinct peoples (i couldn't find any example).GreyShark (dibra) 18:10, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
No.You said 'It is custom to put a genetic section on the people themselves (Khazars).' I complied by examples. Now you add 'extinct'. This is WP:Wikilawyering. Of course we have Xiaohe people(xiǎohé:小河): Xiōngnú people (匈奴) etc.etc. But this is hairsplitting, and I am bald.Nishidani (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

"Disputed" tag (factual accuracy)

I note that the article currently has the above tag at the top. Of course such tags are meant to be temporary. Looking at this talkpage though I can not see any clear definition of a fact debate. I suggest removing the tag, or can someone give a simple clear definition a fact dispute pertaining to the article as a whole? (I can see disputes on this talkpage concerning due weight etc, but it is hard to pin actual clear claims about false information as such.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It should be removed. There has been no serious effort to justify it. Nishidani (talk) 16:30, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Nishidani

  • I did not cited Entine scientific views because he is not geneticist. I cited two leading genetic experts whose views and comments are unarguably attributed to them, unarguably per WP:NPOV related to the subject and to the context and are unarguably relevant as you added Elhaik papers in 3 different places of this article. That means that the criticism of experts has to be added too . I did not cited Rhazib Khan as he was removed many times by you, although I have nothing against adding him to the article-

Your comments are like WP:OWN , of this article deciding what can go in, what goes out, what should be shorten..etc. You are claiming that my edition is coming from "tertiary source" Maybe it does, however contrary to your sourcing of Polyak and other historians through controversial and unreliable book of Arthur Koestler and tertiary sources you have used from another controversial scholar Shlomo Sand (who has been accused by Israel Barthal of falsifying exactly those same sources), no one challenges the attribution of this views to Prof Behar and Prof Feldman. The claimof Prof Feldman is not presented as universal fact but it is properly attributed. --Tritomex (talk) 05:28, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

You miss the point. You have interfered with a neutral succinct summary of the scholarly positions by selectively introducing one critical expansion of one aspect of one geneticist. You have not understood that summary style here does not allow for such unilateral expansions, and people like yourself who wish to do this unbalance the neutrality by showcasing a single viewpoint. You didn't even have the courtesy to format that source. The source citing Feldman is so poorly written it is nonsensical and contradicts itself. If you allow that as a source for Feldman, the rest of the article (by a science writer) could be justifiably harvested for claims diametrically opposed to Feldman's, creating chaos. It is an open invitation to counter the introduced POV with balancing POVs, which I refuse to do. Feldman's point is challengeable. Why him and not any one or several of dozens of pro and contra references to the scholarly debate? Because he says what you wish to believe. That is not our remit. I have no WP:OWN interests here. I do have a desire to ensure that the established quality of the article is not incrementally collapsed by thoughtless POV one-point drum-beating.Nishidani (talk) 09:34, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
Since you don't appear to understand the point I am making, let me show you what your edit would generate in NPOV terms. You wrote:

However, Geneticist Michael Hammer from the University of Arizona called Elhaik work "an unrealistic premise" while Marcus Feldman of Stanford University, claimed it "wrong". Regarding the origin of Ashkenazi Jews, Feldman wrrote "If you take all of the careful genetic population analysis that has been done over the last 15 years… there’s no doubt about the common Middle Eastern origin," (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/05/16/israeli-researcher-challenges-jewish-dna-links-to-israel-calls-those-who-disagree-nazi-sympathizers

I.e. you showcased two scholars's critical reactions. Per NPOV one would then have to balance this by, for example, adding:

(Hammer, who also co-wrote the first paper that showed modern-day Kohanim are descended from a single male ancestor, calls Elhaik and other Khazarian Hypothesis proponents “outlier folks… who have a minority view that’s not supported scientifically. I think the arguments they make are pretty weak and stretching what we know.”Feldman, director of Stanford’s Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies, echoes Hammer. “If you take all of the careful genetic population analysis that has been done over the last 15 years… there’s no doubt about the common Middle Eastern origin,” he said. He added that Elhaik’s paper “is sort of a one-off.” Elhaik’s statistical analysis would not pass muster with most contemporary scholars, Feldman said: “He appears to be applying the statistics in a way that gives him different results from what everybody else has obtained from essentially similar data.”)

'Elhaik . . shrugs off such criticism. “That’s a circular argument,” he said of the notion that Jews’ and Armenians’ genetic similarities stem from common ancestors in the Middle East and not from Khazaria, the area where the Armenians live. If you believe that, he says, then other non-Jewish populations, such as Georgian, that are genetically similar to Armenians should be considered genetically related to Jews, too, “and so on and so forth.” Dan Graur, Elhaik’s doctoral supervisor at U.H. and a member of the editorial board of the journal that published his paper, calls his former student “very ambitious, very independent. That’s what I like.” Graur, a Romanian-born Jew who served on the faculty of Tel Aviv University for 22 years before moving 10 years ago to the Houston school, said Elhaik “writes more provocatively than may be needed, but it’s his style.” Graur calls Elhaik’s conclusion that Ashkenazi Jews originated to the east of Germany “a very honest estimate.”' Rita Rubin 'Jews a Race' Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert,' at The Forward, May 7, 2013

I don't add comments like Dan Graur's, you shouldn't add Hammer and Feldman. This article is not fundamentally about genetics, or theories on the Khazars and Jews, which are a minor element of a very interesting historical kingdom. If you wish to develop the brief section we have, write a page fork 'Genetics and the Khazar-Ashkenazim theory'. There is abundant room for the expansion you are wedging in here, on such a page, exploiting all of the sources and further literature, which we only refer in passing to here.Nishidani (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

You are distorting sources and adding unrelated claims to this article. It was you who took out one genetic study whose results apparently pleased you and inserted it above all other genetic studies, without any secondary reflection in 5 articles and at least 3 sections of this article. In such case per WP:NPOV you cant censor scientific criticism from highly specialized experts. The view of Elhaik’s doctoral supervisor about Elhaik work at the university has nothing to do with the criticism of his genetic analysis which you try to censor. Behar and Feldman are well known genetic experts in the field of population genetics, especially Jewish population genetics. It was you who first argued that the views of geneticists should not be added to the articles if they are not written in per-reviewed journals, later when you found views which were in line with your point of view, you have edited them in the Genetic Studies on Jews, contrary to your previously self proclaimed rule. Here however, you are trying to censor views which are critical to your POV. Your claim that this article is not about Khazar-Ashkenazim theory, it wasn't until you added dozens of references from controversial, unreliable and unverifiable sources, replacing huge sections of well written article. Finally, I will wait for non involved editors opinion before reverting the WP:OWN you have established here again. Its not upon you individually to determine how long each sections should be, what can go in and what goes out and what you will allow in to the article and what you will forbid. Also, stop censoring my editions on talk page as it is against Wikipedia rule.Tritomex (talk) 20:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, let third parties comment. Nothing of what you assert above is, as far as I understand it, true. You think I am POV pushing. Where? I rewrote the article to reduce the raging debate over the Ashkenazi and Khazars to a brief section, where the number of sources I adduce against that connection far exceeds the number of sources that argue for that connection. Why? Because that is the way scholarship sees it. You have consistently throughout numerous articles pushed a distinct and recognizable theory as 'the truth', and, as recently, at Ophel inscription, you were quite prepared to write an article privileging the absurd fantasies of a creationist with no ranking in semitic philology over the work of one of the foremost scholars of north-Semitic languages, in flagrant defiance of WP:Fringe.
I haven't the foggiest idea of the truth in this regard. To me, all we have is the hypotheses of historians, and geneticists, and they disagree as often as not. Therefore the only thing a responsible editor can do is cite the various opinions according to the weight that is their due. In this case, the consensus of both scholarship and genetics is against the connection, and that is how I have represented the issue. If you can show me any specific passage where I betray a preference for the Khazar-Ashkenazi theory, indicate it. Do not make vague accusations. I happen to have a long-standing research interest in Central Asia history, and in returning to the subject after decades, got far more interested in the historical intricacies of the Khazars, than in the current controversies over the possible Khazar diaspora, which is so thoroughly speculative that it should not distract readers from the Khazars themselves. It is a polemical episode, not the centre piece of the article.
As to WP:OWN, when someone spends several months reading a large amount of academic literature, and sums it up as best as she can, with an eye to encyclopedic neutrality, she is certainly not infallible, but works before peers, who can correct, rewrite, challenge and elaborate according to their lights, and in concord with the rules. I am rather confident that I managed to set a high bar for quality here. I also trust in the collective wisdom of those editors who have accompanied me through those months, to make independent calls on the merits, defects of the page as it stands. Your accusation that this was a well-written article is vagrant. Your suggestion that I have altered it by adducing 'dozens of references from controversial, unreliable and unverifiable sources' is an outstanding case of malicious representation. If you believe that, name one source on the page that fits the description, and ask third parties to underwrite the assertion.Nishidani (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I might add that adding the dispute template which says the whole article's factual accuracy is disputed, when in fact at the moment Tritomex is challenging my removal of one quote from a poor source in a small section, strikes me as simply a provocation. That kind of tag is justified when an editor can make a substantive list on the talk page of issues he or she thinks are inaccurate. No such list has been given. Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I already listed dozens of specific reasons why the factual accuracy, neutrality and selection of sources do not reflect scholarly opinion on this subject and I cant repeat myself. Everything is in archives of this talk page. Generally and in short;

a) Most of leading Jewish historian opinion on this subject was left out. Almost nothing can be found from Dubin, Dunlop, Ben Sasson, Barthal, Shapira, Lewis, Sachma, Gil, just to name some
Nonsense. Almost all of those scholars are not Khazar specialists ('on this subject'). Firstly you aren't familiar with the scholars (Sachma =Simon Schama, Barthal = Israel Bartal). Moshe Gil has one article on this, written in his late 80s in an obscure journal, and is, on this WP:Fringe). Douglas Morton Dunlop is mentioned 18 times on the page; Bernard Lewis is mentioned twice, on the area where he is competent; you'd better specify who 'Dubin' is; Anita Shapira, Israel Bartal, and Simon Schama are mentioned by you only because they reviewed Shlomo Sand. This is not the Shlomo Sand page.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
b) Marginal controversial and therefore unreliable sources (Sand, Wexler) are used as sources for different historic claims, totally unreliable authors like Arthur Koestler are used as well
Shlomo Sand has a minor place in the article 181 (used for the date of the Mongol invasion, with additional source); 190 (used for Petachiah of Ratisbon, uncontroversial);237 (used for the date of Pol(y)ak's book, with further source); 239 (used for citing Salo Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur); 242 (used to note the cliché that Koestler popularized the Khazar theory); 249 (used to note that he published his book on the subject). His book, like it or not, dealt with the Khazars and all the literature mentions it, and he has not been used for anything regarding the details of Khazar history. Paul Wexler is one of the foremost experts on the history of yiddish, whose origins are linked by him to the Khazar theories, and his books have never been challenged for their summaries of vast amounts of scholarship on ethnic and linguistic issues in the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe. He is used to refer to that scholarship when it bears on Khazar issues. He is RS for Peter Golden,the doyen of Khazar studies, but not for you. Koestler wrote a book on the subject. This is duly noted and he is used with extreme parsimony: 66 (tribute tribe numbers, uncontroversial); 102 (quoting J. B. Bury, together with Golden); 148 (citation from the full text of the letter which coincides with Leviant, and is thus independently confirmed); 206 (for a citation of Salo Wittmayer Baron;226 for the date of Hugo von Kutschera's Die Chasaren; historische Studie(totally uncontroversial, except that two distinct dates 1909 and 1910 are variously given in sources).Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
c) Jewish historians are sourced through Sand, despite the fact that prominent Jewish historians accused Sand of misinterpreting them.
Answered above. No evidence is supplied that Sand misquoted Salon Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur. Further, the precision of the quotes has been independently confirmed, see note 239.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
d) Special selections of sources were made, for example Ibn Fadlan references about the scope of Islam was wiped out from the article, while his claims bout Judaism were overemphasized.
You misunderstand historical method. Ibn Fadlan was often quoted as a primary source and undue weight given to his view. His opinion is alluded to via secondary sources like Golden.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
e) Ten of Arab historians who claimed that Khazars were not Jews were left out.
You are copying, while misrepresenting, Moshe Gil's fringethesis. Khazar specialists ignore it. You have already mentioned this point above.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
f) Unverifiable claims, regarding Khazar-Jewish relationship like those of Ryan Szpiech (probably Romance Languages and Literature expert, not historian) were inserted
What on earth are you drivelling on about? Ryan Szpiech is eminently RS on this. He is an expert on Muslim, Christian and Hebrew interactions in medieval Spain, commands a knowledge of medieval Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish and Latin, works on Sephardic culture (in which the Khazar correspondence is grounded) and on the function of the Bible in medieval Iberian sephardic culture. He provides aa close reading of the Hebrew text pertinent to that section, with direct citations in Hebrew. Are you hinting he forged the Hebrew text he cites? Really, Tritomex.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
g) Opinions of Russian historians and archeologists were taken out
Yes, and replaced by Peter Golden et al.'s synthesis of their various positions, which are very complex and contradictory.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
h)The Letter of King Joseph as a non disputed original 10th century document, which it is not.
You don't know what you are talking about.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I) Claims like " Modern scholars generally[127] see the conversion as a slow process through three stages, which accords with Richard Eaton's model of syncretic inclusion, gradual identification and, finally, displacement of the older tradition" were constructed through synthesis of unrelated views and implied as a historically proven scenario of Khazar conversion.
That is not a claim. That is what de Weese and Golden report of Eaton's model as applied to possible theories of the Khazar conversion. What on earth are you doing here?Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
j) The "Schechter Letter" is presented as undisputed authentic paper and its outdated interpretation is inserted.
You are ignoring note 99.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
k) Joseph Jacobs Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Maksymilian Ernest Gumplowicz, Samuel Weissenberg are all sourced with inaccessible tertiary sources while Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi who claimed relationship between Krymchaks, Karaims and Khazars was presented as the originator of Khazar theory, although another source added by you claim it was Samuel Weissenberg
They are all cited through excellent secondary sources, Rossman, Barkun, Singerman, Polonsky, Basista and Link-Lenczowski, and you have confused the fact that the original book titles ('inaccessible tertiary sources') are as given in those scholars' books. This is normal citational procedure, in wiki and in academia.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
l) Polyak, Salo Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur are sourced solely through Sand, the additional source added(Golden) is unrelated to the subject
Replied to above, untrue by the way. I have provided the original works in both cases, as you once requested. You are repeating yourself and pretending I hadn't complied with your earlier request for the originals.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
m) Raphael Patai who simply described one racial anthropologists who claimed Khazar-Jewish conction is presented as a supporter of this theory (which he was not)
Please learn to construe English: 'registered some support for the idea Khazar remnants had played some role in the growth of East European Jewish communities' is not tantamount to him being a 'supporter of this theory'. See n.244. If you had read Patai, you would have noted that he then writes: 'During the period of both Khazaria's heyday and its decline, Khazar Jews driftedf westward and settled in Slavonic lands, contributing to thye foundation of a Jewish community together with Jews whom they met there and who had come from German lands and the Balkans.'Patai & Patai p.272 (Note again. You simply do not read sources)Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
n)Koesteler is used as a tertiary reliable source for Kutchera and a racist book from 1883 is also used as a reference.
This is the third time you mention Koestler. You really believe Koestler got the date wrong for Kutschera's book. Google it. The date is correct. You are repeating yourselfNishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
o) The Antisemitc repercution of this theory are systematically played down
Crap. They are given per due weight. Actually most of the antisemites mentioned in detail are so marginal they hardly merit mentioning. But I mention them.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
p) The controversial and marginal claims of Wexler, Sand and Elhaik were titled as the most updated scholarly finding on their fields-whith a term "recently"
Elhaik published recently. Antisemitic uses are also 'marginal', but you want more of the antisemitic innuendo claims highlighted, while desiring less of the '(pseudo-)marginal' scholarship that is not antisemitic sidelined. You can't have it both ways.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
r) Elhaik controversial genetic analysis was taken out from dozens of other analysis, the criticism of it as well as other much more prominent views were censored
No. Elhaik specifically addressed the Khazar hypothesis. The other papers just mentioned it en passant. He is singled out because he specifically directed his DNA research to the Khazars.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
s) All genetic studies were wiped out, beyond Elhaik
Untrue. They are all analysed on the talk page, where I showed you had systematically suppressed the fact that all the genetics papers regarded the Khazar input, as minor, but possibly there. Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
t) A Palestinian anthropologists without any expertise from Jewish population genetic was inserted instead of population geneticists who were taken out.
Who? Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
u)Huge portion of historic, archeological and other material was removed.
No. Blobs of poorly sourced material spread over numerous unnconnected sections were removed and replaced by what reliable acadedmic Khazar specialists say of the assertions. Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
v)All references to the connection of this theory and Antisemitism in Arab countries were taken out.
Untrue. Look again.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
w The artickle is full of claims of this type "The word Khazar, as an ethnonym, was last used in the 13th century of a people in the North Caucasus believed to practice Judaism"
You're being bloody-minded and stupid. Read note 214. That is sourced to Wexler who has a total command of the relevant literature and is a linguist, documenting a linguistic claim.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
z) Nowhere, it is presented that this theory is considered by almost all historian and almost all geneticist as marginal.
False, flying in the face of the textual evidence.E.g.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

(a)'A modern theory, that the core of Ashkenazi Jewry emerged from a hypothetical Khazarian Jewish diaspora, is generally treated with scepticism.'Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

(b)'Several scholars have suggested that the Khazars did not disappear after the dissolution of their Empire, but migrated West to eventually form part of the core of the later Ashkenazi Jewish population of Europe. This hypothesis is greeted with scepticism or caution by most scholars.[218][219]Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

(c)The general conclusion is that, if traces of descent from Khazars exist in the Ashkenazi gene pool, the contribution would be quite minor,[266][267][268][269][270] or insignificant.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course this is just partial and superficial recapitulation of all the problems with this POV pushed article. For details see talk page archives.--Tritomex (talk) 08:58, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
If you examine this list, it is a fudged jerryrigged potemnkin village attempt to make three points extend to the whole alphabet, such is its recursive repetitiveness. I can see no merit in any of these vague expostulations. You have, furthermore, falsified most of your assertions, since careful reading shows your remarks do not correspond to what the text has. If any of your points had merit earlier, they would have gained support from independent editors. So far they haven't. This is just a WP:IDONTLIKEIT waffle, used to smear the page with a specious claim there are problems with the text, problems which, so far, only you see. Nishidani (talk) 12:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Please immediately revert changes you have made to my text on this talk page, as it is violation of Wikipedia guidelines. I can only answer your allegations when you remove the text you have inserted in my my text or I will have to take action to protect Wikipedia guidelines otherwise. --Tritomex (talk) 20:00, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Uh? I am unaware of having altered your text. I did have an edit conflict when I was posting my replies, since in the meantime you had altered (f) on Ryan Szpiech. I added your revision to that item. I've wasted half a day trying scrupulously to reply to each of your 'points', and if some oversight has distorted something in your original framework, my apologies. If you only object to my replying to each point made underneath each item, well, no. It would be inhuman to expect other editors to try and follow each assertion and rebuttal by scrolling back and forth. We are here in dialogue, and dialogue consists of stichomythia, not people talking past each other in different parts of a page.Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I've just signed all of my replies, so the distinction, apart from the indentation, should be pellucid.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
To call Moshe Gil, a leading Jewish historian, and an expert of Arabic medieval text fringe ( most of what is non about Khazars is written by Arab historians (is WP:OR). Concerning historians of The Jewish people their opinion on the status of Khazr-Jewish relationship is not mentioned,nothing substantial from them is in the article and as in the case of Shapira they are used to construct a claim which non of them actually said regarding this subject. (WP;SYNTH)
Shlomo Sand is all over this article, concerning your claim that "No evidence is supplied that Sand misquoted (Jewish historians) " Well a loot of evidence was supplied.

Israel Bartal writes : "Sand repeats the method he employs vis-a-vis the place of the Khazars in Jewish historiography in connection with other topics as well, presenting readers with partial citations and edited passages from the writings of various scholars. Several times, Sand declares what his ideological position is. ( Salon Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur, Polyak,.) I asked you repeatedly to provide direct quotes from this authors or to remove this quotes.

"Paul Wexler is one of the foremost experts on the history of yiddish, whose origins are linked by him to the Khazar theories, and his books have never been challenged for their summaries of vast amounts of scholarship on ethnic and linguistic issues in the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe."

Paul Wexler is not one of the "the foremost experts on the history of yiddish" he is a marginal scholar with a fringe linguistic theory and regarding his basic claim (that AJ are Khazar converts and Yiddish is a Slavic languge originating from Sorbs) the leading expert on this subject Heinz-Schuster-Sewc of the University of Leipzig, wrote "Such theory never existed and is a pure product of Mr. Wexler’s imagination." while the leading expert on Yiddish Paul Glasser said Mr. Wexler's logic “ is not supported by the evidence.”

"This is the third time you mention Koestler. You really believe Koestler got the date wrong for Kutschera's book. Google it."
I do not need to google anything but you need a credible source for your edits.
"No. Elhaik specifically addressed the Khazar hypothesis. The other papers just mentioned it en passant. He is singled out because he specifically directed his DNA research to the Khazars."

In fact all genetic studies on Jews indirectly address the Khazarian theory, and at least 5 of them directly.

Khazar correspondence:: I already showed Erdal and other scholars who proved that this letter was not written by Khazars and was not sent to KLhazar converts.
Who? Nadia Abu El Haj
For the rest I will come back when I will have free time.--Tritomex (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
You wrote:'A Palestinian anthropologists without any expertise from Jewish population genetic was inserted instead of population geneticists who were taken out.'
Have you some problem with Palestinians? Abu El Haj is an American anthropologist of part Palestinian descent, whose work, cited here, is published by the University of Chicago Press, and is an historical, sociological and conceptual analysis, not of genetics, but on the political and cultural reflexes of three moments in the history of the 'science' of attempts to create a concept of race or kinship, from 1900, through the 1950s, to the 1990s, i.e. from cranial and phenotypic measurements, through serology to genetics. She is not quoted on genetics, but on the methodological distinction between genetic and historical approaches to these issues.
As to Paul Wexler. The source you googled dealt with the spectrum of responses (and is in turn derivative) and you cited the extreme negative ones. Any one can see that the responses went from open endorsement through moderate intrigue to outright dismissal. As to his status, you really should read Neil Jacob's Linguistic Introduction to Yiddish, or at least the Acknowledgements' page.
The rest of your comebacks ignore or talk past my original replies. I've removed your tag because nothing you have written above refers to any 'factual' errors or to ostensibly unreliable sources.Nishidani (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.ashg.org/2013meeting/abstracts/fulltext/f130123130.htm
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