Talk:Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism/Archive 6

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X,Y(,) and Z as a title format

Since my request has been ignored above, I will repropose it in a section exclusively focused on this issue. I think it fair to ask that this be addressed, because editors have responded exhaustively to all proposals premised on the perceived need for an alternative title, but so far there has been zero consideration of the obverse. The question is:-

• X,Y and Z is a normative title format in academic studies and books. What are the objections to adopting it here. (Note this is not about the contents of X,Y,Z, but simply the formal properties of such a thematic listing:)

Nishidani (talk) 10:25, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I have answered your question above and this hardly needs a separate section. Selfstudier (talk) 11:16, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

My apologies. I did not see your late reply when I posted this section, which is needed because the earlier thread was getting jammed up with conversations.

Let me be clearer, all your objections/answers to the current proposition just seem to lend credence to the coatrack argument put forth elsewhere. I didn't have a problem with the title originally and I still don't but I also don't have a problem with the current proposition

Let me put that in logical terms.

• The coatrack argument was mentioned at the outset, in the AfD. It was demolished by showing that the intertwined triad announced in the title reflected a modern scholarly focus that conjoins all three. No coatrack. That was two months ago.
• My objections to the current title 'Zionist views on Jewish origins' revive suspicions the article is a coatrack. What that means is totally obscure, at least to me.
• (a)You don't find the title 'Zionism, race and genetics' problematical.
• (b)You don't find the alternative 'Zionist views on Jewish origins' problematical.

So, it is a fair inference that you agree with me on (a) and you agree with several editors that (b) which arose out of complaints that (a) was deeply tendentious or given to misinterpretation, is also acceptable. You disagree with me about the frailties of (b) and you disagree with the alternative school that (a) is problematical.

What you find most problematical is my criticism of (b), which tends to orientate you towards preferring that? Nishidani (talk) 12:32, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm in compromise mode atm, I don't feel the need to defend the existing title, nor do I find your (and other) argumentation persuasive in that regard (I have a different view on what "thematically intertwined" (how?) or "intersection" (where?) means), I won't die on that particular hill. If there is a compromise to be found, it would be good to find it. If, ultimately, no such compromise exists, then I will in all likelihood defend the existing title. Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't meet any of the five criteria for a good article title. It's a title i would expect to see in a specialist encyclopedia rather than a general introductory one. But regardless it's good and necessary content. I'm pretty much alone in thinking this should be a more general introductory "Issues in Jewish genetics" article. Thinking of the scope in that way it has something of the flavor of a "Criticism of..." article, taking a too narrow a perspective. There is a small discussion of modern medical genetics advantages in the "Impact" section currently. Is that confusing distraction for the reader, stating that is somehow an impact of "Zionist thinking"? fiveby(zero) 11:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

five criteria for a good article title lists four that do not appear to cause problems for the existing title I.e.

• Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.

•Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.

•Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.

•Concision – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. Nishidani (talk) 12:32, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I think it's clear from the volume of negative responses in the first AfD and up the talk page that many editors find the title un-recognisable, un-natural, and un-precise. I certainly do. It's also not very concise, although nor are proposed alternatives, and it's hard to see it as consistent but perhaps assess its consistency because it's hard to see what to compare it with. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC) ^{[edited my text BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:57, 14 September 2023 (UTC)]}

X,Y and Z is a natural form of English prose and idiom, and only here have I encountered opinions that it is obscure or confusing. The first AfD is of no value here because that responded to a totally different text, whereas the article has been since rewritten and completed to correspond precisely to the thematic implications evident in this title.Nishidani (talk) 11:41, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I concur with Bob Andre🚐 15:16, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I've given my overall view below, but I'll just say for the record that I agree with Bob and Andre in the sense that I think a lot of the hostility directed at this page comes from editors finding the title unrecognizable; for me, that is in the sense of finding it incongruous to combine "race and genetics", with their association, when paired, with scientific racism, along with Zionism, which is something that one expects to be contrary to stuff like scientific racism. It can be a jarring pagename to read for the first time. As I said below, I realize that quite a few editors disagree with me about that, but I hope that can give some editors some insight into where the hostility to the page has come from. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Bob, it's the most concise title we have. Many editors objected to it at the AfD (which was looking, mind you, at another article, not this) , while others found it more than adequate). It's no more 'unnatural' to write 'Zionism, race and genetics' than to write 'Capitalism, race and economics'. The three terms are, again, instantly recognizable.Nishidani (talk) 15:25, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

"X, Y, and Z" is, IMO, the best way to title articles that are about the intersection of three things. Articles could be written about "capitalism, race, and genetics" or "democracy, race, and genetics" (Google Scholar lists plenty of works about those X-Y-Zs) and so forth. This article title scheme is, of course, concise -- in fact, it is the most concise title possible, like you literally cannot remove any words from "X, Y, and Z" -- that's the minimum possible words. It's also very natural... I mean, "X and Y" and "X, Y, and Z" are how we naturally talk. I think "X, Y, and Z" is recognizable so long as X, Y, and Z are each recognizable. "Democracy, race, and genetics" is recognizable because people know what democracy, race, and genetics are. Same with "Zionism, race, and genetics."

So the only real qualm is precision. Now, "X, Y, and Z" isn't the most precise title possible... but I think it's precise enough to identify the article subject, and moreover, any further precision would violate NPOV. For example, "Israel and apartheid" is less precise than "Israel's apartheid policies," but the latter is less neutral, as it suggests that at least some of Israel's policies are "apartheid policies". "Israel and the policy of apartheid" is in between those two, but still, IMO, less neutral than just "Israel and apartheid." So, for me, "X, Y, and Z" is precise enough and any more precision risks neutrality. This is true for "Zionism, race, and genetics" where if we get more precise in any way (e.g., something like "Race and genetics in Zionist advocacy") we will be non-neutrally presenting the topic. Levivich (talk) 15:45, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what the article has to do with genetics. It's definitely about Zionism and race. The genetics part seems to be pretty secondary. Andre🚐 15:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, think about it this way, the article was created because content wasn't allowed in genetic studies on Jews. This Oxford Bibliography entry on "Jewish Genetics" is a pretty good match to the scope of this article, raising the same issues and pointing to mostly the same core sources. fiveby(zero) 15:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, think about it this way, the article was created because content wasn't allowed in genetic studies on Jews Not entirely, there was a discussion at the Zionism article which was also relevant to article creation.

The Oxford link is merely guilty of the same thing we have been discussing, being somewhat selective about what bits of what works we include in support of what thing and while it does say from a genetics standpoint "Zionist and anti-Zionist politics significantly inform historical and contemporary Jewish genetics literatures, at times explicitly and more often implicitly in the questions that scholars ask, such as the extent to which Jews constitute a biological community, and the extent to which Jews throughout the world can trace their ancestry to the Middle East.", missing is the Zionism + race connection to any of that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, missed the Zionism discussion if it was brought up in the Afd. Abu El-Haj presents an overview of the intersection between Zionism and eugenics as concurrent social movements..., it's just bibliography, only guilty if not a good enough job telling us where to go to find the Zionism + race connection. fiveby(zero) 18:01, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Zionist and anti-Zionist politics significantly inform historical and contemporary Jewish genetics literatures

I've always been troubled by that. It's in two sources, I think, certainly in Falk, and I don't know what he is alluding to. It's something that requires further research. It's there because fidelity to a strong source must trump any personal sense that this is odd. I thought it 'undue' but was aware that any elision of the obscure 'anti-Zionist' use of genetics would, with some reason, be read as POV-suppression. As to the rest, every article has one reading books or 20-30 page articles from which one 'selects' 'bits', Not cherrypicking. That is the way all scholarly endeavour operates. If you have a topic, covering its specificities means that you isolate anything in a much larger discursive literature which bears on those specificities. The first paper I wrote was on 'Dreams in Herodotus'. I read a dozen books on Herodotus, and excerpted those parts of general works which touched on the function, import or rhetorical nature of dream material he cites. This is what all content editors do here, with the difference is that we mustn't spin the stuff in any personal way, we mustn't create a topical nexus not attested in sources, but simply give the gist of what the topic scholarship states on the theme. If they connected things, we paraphrase it. Nishidani (talk) 16:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

It's bibliographic narrative, meant for further research and not really intended to be used as a source, so i'm not sure fidelity is required. Do the comments on Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People help clarify his meaning? fiveby(zero) 17:31, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

One of the article's sources that keeps being brought up by myself and others is Baker's "Zionism's New Jew and the Birth of the Genomic Jew." The word "genomic" is in the title of the source. Other sources have "eugenics" in the title. Another, "Zionism and the Biology of Jews." I don't understand how anyone could possibly not understand what that these have to do with genetics. The sources for the article "Zionism, race, and genetics" are about Zionism, race, and genetics. Levivich (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Eugenics, and genomics, and genetics, are related, but are not equivalent. Genomics is a subset of genetics, so let's put that aside. Additionally, the historical dimension of time is involved. There's a genetic field now, studying whether the folk genealogy has any merit in reality. Zionism is a political and cultural national movement. Race is a concept, a pseudoscientific and discredited one, but also a field of political analysis and historiography and historical analysis. So "Zionism and race" makes sense to me - that's kind of this article. "Zionism and genetics" is a much narrower article. "Zionism and eugenics" could be the same article, I think, as this one, because eugenics is the term we use to describe discredited racist racial theory. "Genetics" is actually a modern field. Yes, I can, and I have, pay 23andme, a "personal genetics" firm, to get me which SNPs I have and yes, I can find my real-life cousins on such a system. But we're actually talking about the relationship between Zionism and race/eugenics, modern genetics didn't even really exist in the same timeframe. Andre🚐 18:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

That just ignores the whole Ostrer, El-Haj, Falk etcetera genetics thing, can't do that. I agree it is narrower but the reasons for that have been discussed, the principal discussions are recent, it was ignored/buried for a while and Zionism involvement in that is now in the sources so restricting the timeframe makes no sense.Selfstudier (talk) 18:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

As the opening paragraph of our FA article on the subject explains, genetics is a field of biology that has been around since Mendel's beans in 1866 -- it existed before Zionism. While genetics studies individual genes, genomics studies all of an organism's genes (which is called the organism's genome). Eugenics was the attempt to use genetics to make "better" humans. Genomics is a scientific subfield or offshoot of genetics; eugenics was a pseudoscientific subfield or offshoot. Some of the sources for the article "Zionism, race, and genetics" are about Zionism, race, and genetics (e.g., Kirsh 2003); others about Zionism, race, and genomics (Baker 2017); others about Zionism, race, and eugenics (Falk 2006); others cover more than one of the above (Abu El-Haj 2012, Falk 2017). Genes, genetics, genomics, and eugenics, are all covered by the word "genetics" in this article title, which is why I think it's the right title for an article about Zionism, race, and genetics/genomics/eugenics/etc. Levivich (talk) 19:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Obviously, while I'm being a bit imprecise here, I am referring to molecular genetics and the postwar study of the human genome. Eugenics was the prevailing view in the 1930s and earlier. As to which existed first, that is irrelevant. The point is that until the study of DNA enabled us to actually trace historical genetic populations in a meaningful way, that was not something to do. I think as written and in your message there is a bit of overweight on Falk. Andre🚐 20:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

The article isn't called "Zionism, race, and molecular genetics," although that would also be a notable topic, as there are multiple sources about Zionism, race, and molecular genetics, such as McGonigle 2021, Ostrer 2012, and, you guessed it, multiple works of Falk. Levivich (talk) 20:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess the point is that genetics is related to eugenics, or racial theory, or scientific racism - in the same way that astronomy is related to astrology, or chemistry to alchemy. But this article isn't about contemporary Zionist views of science. In some cases, there is scholarship that has looked at historical views on race, identity, and what passed for genetics at the time, namely eugenics or the discredited 1930s view that human stock was something that could be improved through unnatural selection. We've been given the examples such as Ruppin who were essentially operating in this realm. Are there any examples of Zionists or Zionism interacting with actual genetic science and genetics? Also, I think a lot of contemporary readers would be thinking more of molecular genetics. Pre-molecular genetics such as Mendelian genetics never really interacted with Zionism, did it? I guess my point is, when Falk or others talk about genetics, they don't really mean the scientific field of genetics. They mean actual genotypes of humans. Right? Andre🚐 21:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Mendelian genetics never really interacted with Zionism, did it?

No, it did. See Hart 1999, to cite but one source.Nishidani (talk) 22:48, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I've started reading it, and I see where it has Mendelianism and Lamarckism and the conflict by Jewish social scientists on the topic of assimilation, and then it later gets into the racism volkish stuff that is in the article,and of course a mention of our favorite friends, the Khazars. It doesn't seem to say that Zionism or Zionists had a view on Mendelian genetics, is there a specific page I should look at? Andre🚐 22:59, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Here is my take on the question, as it was asked. Personally, I have no objection to page names in this format, so that's not the problem with the current title, for me. It's not some sort of general problem with titles set up as X, Y, and Z, but instead it's a problem with this specific title, which just so happens to be one that is X, Y, and Z. My problem is with the way in which it places "race and genetics" together, and how that has echoes of scientific racism. I've said that before, and I know that there are other editors who disagree with me about that, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to change everyone's mind about it. That's OK, that's how things go sometimes, but I just want to make it clear that my concerns cannot be framed as a matter of X, Y, and Z. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Not sure this is a productive suggestion, but one way to avoid the list-as-title aspect is to turn it around. Such as "Genetics and race in Zionist ideology". As to putting "race" and "genetics" together in a title, I think it is not only reasonable but essential if the historical evolution of ideas is to be covered properly. Zero^talk 07:00, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Ethiopian Jews

Re: [1], The Ethiopian Jews are mentioned in the article already. They are mentioned in the context of the racism against them preventing their immigration to Israel. In 1991, Operation Solomon airlifted 1000s of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. This fact is clearly related to Zionism and race, and should be mentioned here. Andre🚐 14:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps a footnote is the solution here. Under the reference to Ruppin’s ‘nigger’ dismissal in 1934, one could specify that Israel formally recognized them as Jews in 1973, and subsequently mass immigration was admitted both to them, and to their converted African slaves.A similar note could be added re the blocking of Yemeni Jews in WW1.Nishidani (talk) 15:04, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

That is agreeable to me as an acceptable solution if others agree. Andre🚐 15:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Let's wait a few days then. If there are no objections, I'll craft the footnote, and format some sources and post it here for inclusion, since I'm not editing articles any more.Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

There appear to be no objections, so here's the edit, formatted according to the page's conventions.

Under ‘converted by the sword in 2,600 BCE. sfn|Bloom|2011|p=104  :::: add {{ with the following text

efn|Israel formally recognized them as Jews in 1973. Subsequently, in 1984 and 1991 Operation Moses and Operation Solomon respectively airlifted Ethiopian Jews to Israel, officially permitting mass immigration both for them and their converted African slaves.(Salamon 2003, pp. 3-32 closing the cite with)}}

and to the bibliography add

• Salamon, Hagar (January–April 2003). "Blackness in Transition: Decoding Racial Constructs throughStories of Ethiopian Jews". Journal of Folklore Research. 40 (1): 3–32. JSTOR 3814642.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)

• It's fine by me. If nobody objects. Andre🚐 13:50, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

  If the resolution to this is a note then so be it, though I still don't really get the thrust of the issue here. If the perceived issue here is some sort of imbalance by virtue of mentioning earlier events directly relevant to the undercurrents of racial thought in Zionism, but not mentioning Israel's later backpedalling from such positions (albeit 57 years later), well ... ok, but the latter is still veering a bit off-topic, as Israel (state) ≠ Zionism (ideology). And why stop the segue there? If we want to truly reflect the entire saga of Ethiopian Jews in Israel (as a proxy for Zionism), then this is hardly the end of the story, since racism in Israel towards Ethiopian Jews persists in the present. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

  Indeed, we will have to draw the line somewhere, but the current title is "Zionism, race and genetics," and I do think the final acceptance of the Ethiopian Jews into Israel belongs here, if only in a footnote, if you are OK with that resolution, then I am. Because without that, I am left with simply the information that the Ethiopian Jews weren't accepted, and this seems like a pretty important event to Zionism and race. A blow to those who believe that "Ashkenazi Jews are the true Jews" or that Israel should be a white country (if indeed, such beliefs were more common back in the 20th century). I think we need to show a change over time here. Not that racism is over and done with, of course. We have a lot of racism in the USA, too. Not to mention antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-trans, anti-gay, etc. These things tend to run together. I think the story of Zionism, as with other Western institutions post 1970s, has been to attempt some reform on issues of free speech, gender, race, etc. With varying success you may say, but one of those successes, is, in my view, this footnote. Not that the article needs to trumpet that or brag of course. The Ethiopian Jews are more than a footnote, but at least as pertaining to Zionism and race, I think we owe it to that story to follow it to the next chapter that was a bit less bleak for them. Andre🚐 14:15, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

  Somewhat like Iskandar323, I'm having trouble seeing the relation to the page subject. I get that the Ethiopian Jews are racially distinct from various other Jews, but I'm having trouble drawing a straight line from this to Zionist views of race. It sounds like: here's a case of what happened when some Jews of a different race came along, but without how what happened relates to the various theorists cited on the page. I'm not saying that it's wrong to include this, but I think there needs to be a bit of explanatory text giving some context. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, the text of the article already included this prior to my edit, which was reverted, although I added the footnote as written by Nishidani above. The test, which is unmodified by me, For Ruppin, what Zionism required was to weed out inferior, [....] As early as 1934 he successfully thwarted the implementation of a proposal by Yaakov Faitlovitch to bring Ethiopian Jews to Palestine on the grounds that they were “niggers” converted by the sword in 2,600 BCE. It ascribes to Ruppin directly what is really according to Bloom, as cited in Falk. We could choose to exclude the Ethiopian Jews altogether, but if the story is that they were excluded in the 1930s, we should also note that they were accepted in the 1990s. Similar awful atrocities and transgressions took place in the 1930s in many countries including the United States, but things changed a lot from the 60s onward. So if the article really claims to be a comprehensive treatment of Zionism and race, I think this is a part of that story. The campaign and the airlift was a major event and was widely publicized, and represents a sea change in the Ethiopian Jews' relationship to Israel, which seems fairly critical to Zionism and race in my view. Andre🚐 00:57, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

  It ascribes to Ruppin directly what is really according to Bloom, as cited in Falk.

Actually, not so. This is a direct quote from a remark Ruppin made and which is conserved in a 'Protocol of the Zionist executive meeting' held on 14 November 1934 (N. 20210). Nishidani (talk) 06:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure the sentence "As early as 1934 [Ruppin] successfully..." adds much to the article. We currently have three long (interesting) paragraphs about Ruppin, far more than any other character in our story. Clearly, as a key figure in the history of both social science and Zionism, he is important and deserves a lot of space, but does he deserve so much space? So much more than Nordau, for example, or Herzl? We don't even mention Zollschan at the moment, and have quite a bit that should be added to this section to make it more comprehensive, for which we might want to trim Ruppin to make room. So maybe we should just delete the sentence, and the question of whether it needs the note is removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobfrombrockley (talk • contribs) 11:03, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I would be amenable to trimming the whole thing as well. I'm also not sure we really need to elaborate this much on Ruppin. It's already amply established that he was a racial theorist, and at some point the examples of this just begin to become a bit redundant. The sentence could be shortened to "Ruppin also treated Ethiopian Jews with prejudice and thwarted plans to bring them to Palestine" – attributed clearly to Ruppin personally. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm amenable to those proposed trims, no objection on my side. Andre🚐 14:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I understand much better now. (I think I got confused by the one-sentence paragraph that had briefly been on the page.) In my opinion, it's actually OK to include the extended content on Ruppin. He's a disturbing character by modern-day standards, but I think he fits with the subject matter of the page. (I have no objection to adding more about the other figures mentioned here.) But I won't impede the trims, if that's the consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I concur with Tryptofish. Ruppin gets extra coverage because, to put it in the words of his major biographer,

Ruppin was, as the preceptor of the labor movement Berl Katznelson describes, the central “colonizer” of the new Zionist community. Between 1908 and 1942 there was hardly any large scale national undertaking in Palestine – economic, juridical, diplomatic or educational – in which Ruppin was not involved at the highest level of planning and direction. From the start, he worked to implement his vision and plan of creating a Modern Hebrew social field, in a model state.' Bloom 2011 p.2

Of course one could add more on other major figures such as Aron Sandler 1904; Elias Auerbach 1907; Ignaz Zollschan (1909) and Felix Theilhaber (1914) etc. but, unless you read German, there is precious little work on this in wikipedia. Zollschan was certainly an influence on Ruppin, but there is no need to think that we must trim Ruppin because Zollschan is not mentioned. Ruppin is the most most thoroughly documented so far, and, unlike Zollschan, had a major practical impact on policy.

I'm not 100% sure the sentence "As early as 1934 [Ruppin] successfully..." adds much to the article

I am convinced, to the contrary, that it does. It introduces just one practical example of how this concept could affect the implementation of Zionist policies in Palestine. As a drafting editor, I left out quite a lot of stuff as uncomforting, if not more, discomforting than that single remark because the aim was to give an outline of the concepts, not lapse into the usual POV I/P scandalmongering/downplaying edit-warring.Nishidani (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

My point was, that if we care about Zionist policy in Palestine, why does that policy only get discussed pre-1948? Is it not still Zionist policy when we're talking about Israeli government and Jewish agency activities in the 1990s? Andre🚐 17:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Depends on who is running the shop. The government at any point in time is not necessarily "Zionist" but as has been said, there are different flavors. Here we are only concerned with policies seen as Zionist (ie ideological rather than a function of variable government policy) in the context of race and genetics. Selfstudier (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, a fair point and I always welcome the reminder of factions and not to paint with too broad a brush. But we can still do the research and find out what the nationalist faction was doing at the time. Andre🚐 18:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

2 easy fixes required

• Presner in the bibliography lacks a (*) before it.
• The quote 'These irreconcilable, inexplicable antitheses make it seem as though at some dark moment in our history some inferior human material (eine niedrigere Volksmasse) got into our unfortunate people and blended with it.". should be in the footnotes, not among the citations (to be efn-harv-ed)

Nishidani (talk) 17:08, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Nishidani, I'm sure whatever topic ban or self-imposed restraint you are under, would not prohibit such minor edits. If not, I suggest a modification thereof to allow such things. Andre🚐 17:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm under no topic ban. I'm not going to edit anymore. I'm here just to help resolve the one outstanding issue on the last article I wrote. People can ignore these suggestions. I'm just noting something that needs fixing. Then I'm out. Nishidani (talk) 19:08, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I have done this. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Once. Nishidani (talk) 20:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 3 September 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: There is no consensus for the requested move. Although I opened this RM, I am taking the liberty of closing it on this basis. Should there be some objection please undo this close. Selfstudier (talk) 22:03, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

---

Zionism, race and genetics → Zionist views on Jewish origins – A #Title discussion arrived at some measure of agreement for the proposed title. Selfstudier (talk) 17:44, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: as overly vague relative to the current scope. "Jewish origins" seems like an imprecise match for race and genetics. Origins could be talking about 6th century BCE theology on divine covenants. And "Zionist views" is a format that implies to a certain degree that the topic is only about the expressly stated views of ideological adherents, rather than a broader analysis of underlying trends, which is the current direction of the content. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

  These are compelling concerns Iskandar323. Would a formulation like "Zionist views on the origins of the Jewish people" address them? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:49, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm more inclined along the lines of the recombinations attempted below. I'm not keen on "views on"-type titles for the reasons mentioned above, although "thought on" might be ok. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:55, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  "Zionist views" sounds like the article is cherrypicking soundbites, and anyway is wrong per Zero below (…these are not specifically Zionist views but rather traditional Jewish beliefs that Zionis[m] adopted into its ideology.)

  Then addressing Iskandar's point above that Origins could be talking about 6th century BCE theology, Jewish origins would need to say "ancestral origins of modern Jews".

  This would convert Selfstudier's version into "Zionism and the ancestral origins of modern Jews".

  Onceinawhile (talk) 22:22, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support - per the discussion above (the "Title" talk page section). It is "views on Jewish origins", so it is particularly the thought and beliefs about origins rather than the (theological or otherwise) thought of the time of Jewish origin. Also, it is in the nature of titles that they describe a primary topic that does not preclude that there might be secondary topics that could be described by them, and that is not a reason to oppose a clear description of the primary topic. This title clearly, on the face of it, describes modern views (i.e. from the birth of Zionism onwards) on the subject of Jewish Origins. The page subject and content thus falls within that primary topic, and this is a good title. I note that it does not itself preclude the page discussion looking at those views in the round. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:46, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support, on the principle of not letting the perfect become the enemy of at least some improvement. Strictly speaking, the choice here is between the current pagename and the proposed new one, not between those two and some unspecified perfect pagename. And I'm supporting the requested move in the interests of consensus, and because it represents what I think is a significant improvement over the status quo. The existing name, pairing race with genetics, does to some extent reflect what the page covers, but it also asserts a hot-button and dubious contention in Wikipedia's voice. I'm not wild about "origins", but I'm going along with it as a compromise with other editors on this talk page who pretty much oppose anything that they didn't propose first. Personally, I think the page is more about identity (racial identity or Jewish racial identity) than about origins, but I can live with this compromise. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

  This wall-of-text RM is about to reach the 7-day possible closing point, and I want to elaborate a bit on my original comment. When I referred to the current pagename asserting a hot-button and dubious contention, what I mean is that it makes it sound like there are genetic differences between races, that races are different from one another, and that there is a genetic basis for that. Of course, that's not what is intended, but some readers and some editors get that impression from the page title. For me, that makes the binary choice between the current pagename and the imperfect new proposal a reason to support the change. It looks to me like editors are divided between those that think the proposed new title is better than the existing one, and those that think the existing one is better than the proposed new one. That's not a consensus that the existing one cannot be improved upon, and shouldn't be framed as such. Going forward, I think Zionist thought on Jewish racial identity is worth looking at next. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Tryptofish, as I explained below on conjunctions, when you write:

  When I referred to the current pagename asserting a hot-button and dubious contention, what I mean is that it makes it sound like there are genetic differences between races, that races are different from one another, and that there is a genetic basis for that. Of course, that's not what is intended, but some readers and some editors get that impression from the page title.

  Which readers and which editors? One must assume that readers and editors are familiar with English. I cannot imagine any native speaker of English making the inference from those three words that 'there are genetic differences between races, that races are different from one another, and that there is a genetic basis for that.' That is simply, grammatically, not possible. of course, someone who hasn't a reasonable command of English might hypothetically conjure up such a fantastic interpretation, but we cannot write articles keeping in mind such wild guessword at meanings English usage excludes.Nishidani (talk) 22:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Let's try to avoid a conversation, as I think I heard someone else say. Well, some editors got pretty upset at #Lead: "science provided evidence", above, when some language regrettably (and I really mean regrettably!) implied that more directly. Surely, you remember how there have been numerous attempts to delete the page. It's not an intended meaning of the title, but it's not like the current title cannot possibly be improved upon. But anyway, let's try to avoid a conversation. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:09, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  By training I am a philologist. In clarifying grammar, I am not engaging in a 'conversation'. I am correcting elementary mistakes about grammar which, unfortunately, keep cropping up and causing, because of the looseness in reading, 'conversations' that should never arise in the first place among native speakers of English.Nishidani (talk) 23:30, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Check your qualifications at the door. This is Wikipedia. Not everyone is a native speaker. Others might have neuroatypical characteristics, or intellectual disabilities: they are all welcome here, and you must be more indulgent and charitable of this. Be civil, and be tolerant. Andre🚐 23:54, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Good grief. No comment.Nishidani (talk) 00:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  You do not need to comment on that, but you must remember that nobody WP:OWNs an article and Selfstudier's proposal for a rename topic is allowed to be discussed, even in ways you might disagree with or have some critique of. You seem to like to imply that a particular misunderstanding of the discussion is beneath you and worthy of some contempt. Let's try to elevate the discussion and approach interlocutors with an open mind and kindness, especially if they are wrong or misled. Innocent mistakes in understanding are widespread. Andre🚐 00:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Please desist from making innuendos I am contemptuous of people with neurological or intellectual difficulties, that I exude hauteur, am uncharitable, intolerant and unkind. That is deeply offensive, personalizing and, frankly, intolerable. I was sanctioned for far far less, recently, and you are lucky I refuse to report this rubbish at AE, on principle.Nishidani (talk) 00:30, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  I apologize if I offended you. But you should understand how some of your statements come across. Such as your statements someone who hasn't a reasonable command of English might hypothetically conjure up such a fantastic interpretation. Andre🚐 00:36, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Since all of this, somehow, comes out of my RM comment (good grief), I'll say that I appreciate what Andrevan has said (and I kind of like the characterization of exuding hauteur – and I guess it's only a conversation if someone else started it, but then again, by training, I'm only a fish). I think it's worth noting that there was no intention to express contempt of the neurodivergant, that there was no intent to express racism when writing that science affirmed a hierarchy of races, that there was no intent to express racism when that was changed to genetic differences between races, and that there was no intent to express scientific racism when naming this page "Zionism, race and genetics". No such intention. But people, at least some of them reasonable and fluent in English, nevertheless thought they detected such intent. We should be receptive to correcting language that was written with the best of intentions, to address concerns that were raised by people who were unaware of those intentions. Because we're writing for a general readership, who have no idea what editors were thinking. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for that, Tryptofish. And to be clear I agree nobody was expressing contempt for the neurodivergent, or expressing racism. And I agree the point is that things are easily misconstrued. I do think that Nishidani's statement I am correcting elementary mistakes about grammar which, unfortunately, keep cropping up and causing, because of the looseness in reading, 'conversations' that should never arise in the first place among native speakers of English could be construed in a problematic way, and such phrasing should be avoided. But I no way feel that Nishidani meant harm by his statement. Andre🚐 01:23, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Mostly per Iskandar323. Also, these are not specifically Zionist views but rather traditional Jewish beliefs that Zionist adopted into its ideology. The proposed title does not properly represent the content of the article. Zero^talk 01:53, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Tryptofish. I'm not a fan of "X and Y"-type articles unless there is a mountain of literature on the conjunction between X and Y. But an article on "X, Y, and Z" –– barring some truly exceptional circumstance, which this does not appear to be –– is just an open invitation for WP:COATRACKing and endless debates over the scope of the article. The proposed title isn't perfect but it's a clear improvement. Generalrelative (talk) 18:13, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, as hopelessly vague, and incompatible with WP:CRITERIA. As it stands, the defined scope of the article under its present name is evidently less than clear, but with the new title it could be almost anything. One could probably write an article on 'Zionist views on Jewish origins' that made no mention of 'race' or genetics at all, if one desired, thereby erasing the existing content, along with all the convoluted discussions, entirely if one desired to do so. Per WP:AGF, I'm going to assume that isn't the intent here, but it could very well be the consequence: deletion by renaming and erasure. I have always been sceptical about the ability of Wikipedia to adequately cover this distinctly tricky subject matter, and accordingly advocated deletion at the AfD. If there is another AfD, I might do the same. I do not however consider backdoor deletion (intentional or otherwise) through a complete change of scope to be appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: Would moving to Jewishness as a racial identity, or something along those lines, be a better alternative? My reading of this discussion is that people don't prefer the current title in its "X, Y, and Z" format (and I agree, it's very poorly defined and coatrack-y), and nobody has really argued for it as much as against the proposed new title. Meanwhile, even the new title's supporters seem to agree with its opponents that "Zionist views on Jewish origins" is also an imperfect fit that doesn't really represent the actual topic (which I would also agree with). I think we might want to consider an Option C, because I don't really see a consensus in favor of either the current title or the proposed one. 3 kids in a trenchcoat (talk) 01:53, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
• Comment An alternative might be to take Falk's title Zionism and the Biology of the Jews together with Weitzman's book section Biological Approaches to the Origin of the Jews (Ch8, p280) and blend the two together, Zionist approaches to the biological origins of the Jews say.Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  It would be long-winded, but it would remain precise while putting an end to the X, Y and Z format that has proven so unpopular. Falk's title alone is probably the best formula, but it's taken, so... Iskandar323 (talk) 14:12, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  I would support this as well Drsmoo (talk) 15:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Given that it appears unlikely that this RM proposal will get consensus, and given that I'm willing to compromise a lot in the interests of consensus, I agree that we should start looking at alternatives (and will need a new RM if we can settle on one), and I'm willing to go along with the possibilities above. I'll offer the following observations and suggestions. It might be best to omit anything about "origins", given the generally negative reaction it's gotten here, so that would be an argument against "biological origins of the Jews", although, on the other hand, specifying "biological" might address that concern. Instead of "approaches to", it might be better to say "thought on" or "views about". I agree with the criticism that it would be long-winded, but I'm willing to accept long-windedness if it gets consensus. I'll also repeat some options that got some interest in earlier discussions: Zionist thinking on racial identity, Zionist thinking on Jewish racial identity, Zionist views about racial identity, or Zionist views about Jewish racial identity. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  The term “race” is anachronistic and discredited. It can be used for old research that used that term, but modern research (very) rarely uses it. The standard terms used nowadays would be “ethnicity” or “ancestry”. Drsmoo (talk) 19:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  How about Zionist views about Jewish ethnic identity or Zionist views about Jewish genetic identity? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  "about genetic identity" has the inverse problem to "about racial identity" - the earlier writers weren't using the concept of genetics just as the later writers don't use the concept of race, so it would exclude any of the classic Zionist writers. We need a term that encompasses both. "about ethnic identity" might do that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:57, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  or "about the origins and identity of the Jewish people", which avoids any limiting technical terms, but is very wordy. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:58, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  It's never good to use "ethnic" to imply race (or genetics) - this is already much overly abused: ethnicity is as much about culture as anything else. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  The Oxford definition of ethnicity is “the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent.” which applies. Ancestry can be used as well. Drsmoo (talk) 09:09, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Both ethnicity and 'ancestry' are viewed as problematic terms within the field of genetics. See the two papers cited below from Nasem and from Birney, Inouye et al., ('The language commonly used in human genetics can inadvertently pose problems for multiple reasons. Terms like ‘ancestry’, ‘ethnicity’, and other ways of grouping people can have complex, often poorly understood, or multiple meanings within the various fields of genetics, between different domains of biological sciences and medicine, and between scientists and the general public.'Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, I linked to the paper you quoted from earlier in this discussion. Here it is again: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.10041.pdf

  From that source:

  ‘Race’ is particularly problematic, and its historical and political connotations, along with the fact that it is not a meaningful descriptor of genetic variation, have led many human geneticists to avoid it altogether. Indeed, in usage outside the United States, ‘race’ is less consistently understood and ‘ethnicity’ is often viewed as a less contentious way of referring collectively to those elements of an individual’s identity and biology that are inherited through ancestry and culture.

  It then notes how ethnicity has a different meaning within the United States:

  By contrast, in the United States, and within anthropological genetics (a subfield of biological anthropology), race and ethnicity have separate and distinct meanings; the former is a socially constructed category that takes into account physical characteristics, and the latter is a explicitly category of cultural self-identification. This usage (which has itself changed considerably over the years since the United States government began collecting census information) reflects a complex history of colonialism, politics and attitudes to race.

  It then advocates for the broader usage of ethnicity due to "race" being "particularly liable to misinterpretation in a genetic context":

  Since we are primarily addressing colleagues in genetics, and because we feel that ‘race’ is particularly liable to misinterpretation in a genetic context, we have leaned towards a broader meaning of ethnicity. But the variable meanings of these words must be considered when communicating genetic research, even when these ideas themselves are not its focus, because they are central to how people interpret differences between human groups and individuals.

  I'm not sure why you responded to a suggestion to use ethnicity instead of race with a source that describes race as "particularly problematic" and "particularly liable to misinterpretation", but completely avoided that section and only posted the criticism of the usage of "ethnicity" and "ancestry".

  https://www.genome.gov/news/news-release/language-used-by-researchers-to-describe-human-populations-has-evolved-over-the-last-70-years

  The study’s results show that the term “race” appeared in 22% of articles between 1949-58, and declined to 5% between 2009-18; however, in recent years, the term shows up more often when used along with “ethnicity.” Conversely, the overall use of “ethnicity” and “ancestry” has increased over time.

  Drsmoo (talk) 17:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  I would support that Drsmoo (talk) 09:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  That is to confuse 'race' as a descriptor (now discredited), with race as a concept that played an important role historically, not only in Zionism. We don't rewrite history by substituting the actual terms and concepts used by historical actors in the past with politically correct terms. The article is not about Jews, their 'ethnicity' or 'ancestry'. It is about the use of the concept of race in Zionist discourse over several decades and the residual influence of that heritage in modern genetic research. Nishidani (talk) 19:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  This seems to be the crux of the dispute to me; namely, that "race," an outmoded pseudoscientific concept, in modern parlance, actually refers to the study of or analysis of pseudogenetic prejudices and separations in human affairs. So when you write a phrase such as "Zionism and race" the question is implied: is it that Zionist attitudes considered Jews a separate race, or that there were several separate races within Judaism? Additionally, you have alluded to the fact that some German-Jewish-eugenicists were among the fathers of Zionism. Then, perhaps, the title of the article should be, Zionism and eugenics? Andre🚐 20:35, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  That is the problem with the article. You are arguing that the article is using race only in a historical sense. That is of course in no way clear from this title. In fact this title essentially gives readers leeway to edit into the title anything that relates to any conception of Zionism, race, or genetics. Drsmoo (talk) 23:52, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Adding: I agree with Nishidani below, that "race"/"racial" is not an inappropriate word to consider in the pagename. I can sympathize with the idea that present-day thinking can find the term offensive when it is used in a racist manner, but as a neutral description of the various lines of thinking covered by this page, I don't regard it as problematic (cf race relations). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:29, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Nishidani claims that "ancestry" and "ethnicity" are imprecise terms. This argument is irrelevant. Wikipedia does not have to use to consistent definitions. Wikipedia should contextually contrast all the possible meanings of terminology in proportion to their weight and prominence. If most high quality research describes the Jewish genetic heritage that can be followed from various historical viewpoints, we can use any and all of the terms that are used in different context and sense. Nishidani claims that "race" is accurate while "ethnicity" and "ancestry" are imprecise. That is a specious argument. All 3 terms are contextual, and any term may be used as appropriately sourced in the source material - again, we're putting the finger on the scale here in favor of a particular interpretation or non-interpretation. The more contemporary term "ethnicity" may be scientifically imprecise. That doesn't change the fact that it's a term used by many actors such as governments and politicians, or historical thinkers. We cover what the expert analysis is of what they said and what it may have meant, but we shouldn't police language or be prescriptive about language along these lines, namely, that something lacks a precise definition. Except for highly specific terms of art and science, most terms have several definitions of varying precision. To wit: what is the problem with thinking about "ancestry" and "ethnicity" when we charitably interpret what is meant by those terms? Or if you prefer to say "Jewish genetic lineage," the fact remains there is a blurry-lined and multiethnic polity of Jews, and this article isn't purely about only one thing. No article is constrained to such narrow scope as the original thinking of its original author. Andre🚐 20:41, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Andrevan: to address one topic in your points above – "ethnicity" is irrelevant as an option here, because it is a broad / open term which can be defined as just a shared language or religion, and which can be believed into existence by a group. Thus "Zionism and Jewish ethnicity" is a non-topic, because there is no question of whether Jews are an ethnic group. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:10, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  I don't claim things like ' "ancestry" and "ethnicity" are imprecise terms.' That is what the sources cited below, by geneticists, state. Please don't attribute to me views which I paraphrase from sources, personalizing them as though I were the source. As for the rest, 'race' was for several decades the default term, and it is the one privileged by the historical sources the article draws on. Editors are not at liberty to mess with history by euphemizing it.Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Zionist thought on Jewish racial identity might be ok. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier: Are there any existing pages that you can think of that use an "approaches to"-type formula, or would we be going off-piste with this? Not necessarily an issue but wondering ... Iskandar323 (talk) 11:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - entirely agree with Zero, that is a different topic entirely. nableezy - 15:04, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Sirfurboy and Tryptofish, and in agreement with perfect being the enemy of the good. Would also support Selfstudier’s other proposal. Drsmoo (talk) 18:28, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iskander and Zero. There is no such thing as a 'Zionist' view of Jewish Origins, so the proposed title is meaningless. It was also claimed simplistically above that 'the term 'race' is anachronistic and discredited,'etc. That is not what dozens of high-quality RS sources have argued in the last decade. The 'term' may be discredited, the concept, per sources, is not. To name but a few:-

Race and Contemporary Medicine is concerned with the reappearance of ‘race’ as a category of scientific analysis within the world of medicine.’ Sander L. Gilman, 'Introduction: race and contemporary medicine,’ in Sander Gilman, ‘Race in Contemporary Medicine,’ ISBN 978-1-136-76455-4 Taylor & Francis 2013 p.viii.

Gilman is the foremost world authority on the '(pseudo-)scientization' of the Jewish body throughout modern history.

Troy Duster, ‘A post-genomic surprise. The molecular reinscription of race in science, law and medicine,' British Journal of Sociology Volume 66, Issue 1 March 2015 pp.1-27 18 March 2015 Nishidani (talk) 20:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• Comment There is no such thing as a 'Zionist' view of Jewish Origins This seems to overstate the case, Cynthia Baker's "new Jew" seems exactly about a Zionist view of Jewish origins as well as other things, p91, section Zionism’s Conflicted Claims on Jew, part Zionism’s New Jew and the Birth of the Genomic Jew excerpt p99 "As noted in the discussion of yidn, above, Zionist narratives of ethnic identity and homeland appropriate and derogate Jew by turns, but all in service to building and sustaining a “Jewish nation-state” grounded, geographically and demographically, on claims of ancestral belonging."Selfstudier (talk) 15:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with that. I agreed above with the comment that "race" remains a credible term, but I disagree with the hyperbole that there is no such thing as views on origins. One can credibly make a case that there is less discussion of it in sources, and that sources are more focused on "identity" than on "origins", but to argue that it doesn't even exist is hyperbole. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:46, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  In the normative construal of English grammar, the use of the adjective 'Zionist' in'Zionist views on Jewish origins' means that there is something particular to Zionist thinking, as opposed to Jewish tradition or broader (at the time) contemporary Jewish thinking about Jewish origins, which sets Zionism off from Jewish traditional belief about their historic origins. There is, from your quote, nothing in Baker that makes this distinction. Zionist views on Jewish origins are identical to those maintained by a millenial Jewish tradition, so the adjective, unless proven otherwise, is supererogatory, and the title meaningless. Zionism's projected 'new Jew' has nothing to do with this. Furthermore, this specific item of the 'new Jew' is covered briefly in the article, which however covers a far larger thematic focus, as the sources demand. One cannot invent a title for a complex article by making it represent perhaps 2-3% of the text, while ignoring the overwhelming content of the article.Nishidani (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  But what then is the purpose of all the race and genetic high jinks? One supposes they were/are not doing it just for the fun of it.Selfstudier (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  And there is also a difference between "Zionist views" and "the Zionist view". The page is very much about differing views, one group of people taking one position, and another group of people taking issue with it. The existence of multiple views, presented with NPOV and balance, does not in any way imply that there is one particular kind of view. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  Let's try to avoid a 'conversation'. I asked, as the suggested title demands, what is specifically 'Zionist' about asserting Jews originated in Israel? I asked what are the distinctive Zionist views about Jewish origins? This - because it is an extraordinary claim- requires multiple sourcing, not conversation.Nishidani (talk) 20:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  It seems to me that there is a distinction between some number of diaspora Jews pining for Palestine and an organized effort to construct an ethnicity or nationalist narrative, because without the common descent factor, where is the nation/ethnicity/people/nationality, however one chooses to phrase that? I see this in the sources but you apparently see something else, the 96/7% of the article, presumably. If what you are suggesting is that the article be edited to show that, well I expect that can be done. Selfstudier (talk) 21:24, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, Self, but that is the kind of assumption that would require an extensive excursus to analyse, and I am only back here to help clarify the confusion over this title. Common descent was a generalized assumption throughout Jewish communities, not Zionist. Zionism's innovation was to assert Jews were a 'race', not a community of believers. The notion of 'nation' did not at that time require a return to Palestine/Israel. See Territorialists and Bundism. Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  The race thing is a (more "scientific" as was thought at the time) means of asserting a common descent (ie Jewish origins). As is the genetic hoopla (science again), the aim is the same, establish a common descent -> polity/nation/people/blah. I only mentioned Palestine to highlight the difference between the Zionist approach and the "diaspora" approach, which was what you asked me about. Selfstudier (talk) 14:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  My problem is that these notions of the past, caught up in generalizations, if pursued in depth, look simplistic. Doron argued in 1980 that 'race' was seized on as a trump card by Zionism precisely because, while they asserted the Jews were a nation, the claim was counterfactual in the language of that time, since the notion of a nation assumed a common language, territory and state, none of which the Jews had. Since the founding fathers were also secular or atheists, often contemptuous of the putative religious incredulity and superstitiousness of Ostjuden, 'race' was a powerful ersatz for the religious identity of Jews which they repudiated. It is notable that almost none of the Zionist elite for decades ever imagined renouncing their European identities to stake a new life in Palestine. They were as 'diasporic' of their assimilationist adversaries. These concepts were 'instrumental', often a means of resolving, as our article remarks, the pressure of migrating Eastern Jews on Western societies and their Jewish communities. Had I permitted myself a larger rewriting by dwelling on such elements as they emerge in studies on Zionist history (as opposed to the restricted thematics of race and genetics) this would be much clearer. But the remit was to stick to the three themes. One should remember that Zionism was very much a minority voice until way into the thirties, among the Ashkenazi and the Mizrachi. Nishidani (talk) 16:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  The term "Zionist views" in the plural does not in any way imply that there is one single "a Zionist view". This objection doesn't make sense to me. On the other hand, if Zionist views can't be separated from Jewish views (I'd strongly disagree with that claim) then isn't our current article title (and all other article titles with Zionism in them?) also meaningless? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  Viewpoints within Zionism are as varied as they are with Judaism. What we do here is not opinionize, but, I insist, act as amanuenses for what reliable scholarship states, and reliable scholarship, it has been shown exhaustively, takes the three themes of 'Zionism, race and genetics' as thematically intertwined. This article analyses in historical review those aspects of Zionism which engaged in first race and then, if implicitly, in genetic developments. We can talk around, over, under or through any number of feelings or thoughts we may entertain about this and that, but such conversational impressions lack textual cogency.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  thematically intertwined I have agreed with this all along, but intertwined in what way, exactly? What is the unifying theme? Selfstudier (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  There is no single unifying theme independent of the constituent parts (and to think so is to second guess the article and its sources), anymore than a triangle has a unifying theme that privileges a quartum quid to which the defining properties of three vertices and lines are subordinate. That would be a case of what Gilbert Ryle called a ghost category.Nishidani (talk) 16:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  I understand that, but for me, I see a unifying theme and I can see it in sources, it is Zionist (ideological) pursuit of a common descent, as it says at Zionism#Ethnic unity and descent from Biblical Jews (accepting that WP is not a source but it links out to this article as main)

  "Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent". This "racialisation of Jewish identity in the rhetoric of the founders of Zionism" was originally a reaction to European antisemitism. According to Raphael Falk, as early as the 1870s, contrary to largely cultural perspectives among integrated and assimilated Jewish communities in the Age of Enlightenment and Age of Romanticism, "the Zionists-to-be stressed that Jews were not merely members of a cultural or a religious entity, but were an integral biological entity". This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the "volk" of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping." Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, I overlooked this, and feel obliged to reply. The problem is, very little of the scholarship on Zionism is present in wiki articles, and the point you raise would open up a different can of worms. There were extensive debates and disagreements among Zionists about 'common descent', i.e which communities were 'pure' and which miscegenated (implying not common descent). Sephardis could be claimed to be 'Bedouin', the Mizrachi 'Arabs' etc.etc.etc. Koestler thought the Ashkenazi were of Khazar origins, lacking common descent from Hebrews/Israelites, and that theory once played a role in Zionist thinking. Neither Falk nor Weitzman are particularly good on this particular aspect. I touched on this in the section on Ruppin. This article is a general overview of the three entangled topics. The theme 'Jewish origins' is far, far more complex among Zionist thinkers for the first half-century at least, and would require a separate article. Even our sources often make generalizations that simplify these complexities. Those who want a different focus of the type you suggest are at complete liberty, if they have the time, to read widely over a few months, and then write such an article. What this article has, is a mass of information interlinking the dominant motifs and changing research models and methodologies, - the assumptions driving different approaches- and can hardly be expected to bear the added burden of another 50 books and articles going into those kinds of (for this text) subsidiary details.Nishidani (talk) 23:48, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Several questions - the first, I think, is that the practical question of 50 books or articles needed to do a topic justice isn't a reason to narrow the article scope, necessarily. "Jewish origins" versus "Jewish genetics" is largely a point of semantics I think, since origins is kind of a polite way of saying one's heritage, but is also inclusive of a slightly broader view such as that of history, which we certainly do want to cover in the article. I'm not sure what you mean about the Sephardic being Bedouin, the Mizrahi being Arabs - can you substantiate that (I assume, that is Zionists speaking?) with a more specific cite or source? I am pretty familiar with a different kind of Zionist thinking of a broad tent, type of Jewishness, which would certainly consider the Sephardic Jews to be some very authentically Jewish people indeed, many of whom were forebears of later Ashkenazis Jews as we now know, or Jews in Anatolia and Eastern Europe more generally. If anything, my interpretation is that the known authentic forerunners of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews were European Jews, and I don't think this is new scholarship, but information such as someone being descended from Rashi or Judah Halevi, was thought to be the case by the early Zionists, was it not? Not that this article must be about folk genealogy but in terms of Zionists, which Zionists would think that Ashkenazi Jews are the "pure ones" and why? If anything, isn't there just a modern-day Israeli influx of Eastern European Jewish Orthodox sects, quite distinct from the Israeli Old Yishuv which was in large part Sephardic/Ottoman? And wasn't this known to the Zionist writers? And the Khazars again - really? Can't that be left out? Andre🚐 00:33, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, but didn't you read the article? I wrote, alluding to this article:

  Sephardis could be claimed to be 'Bedouin', the Mizrachi 'Arabs' etc.etc.etc. Koestler thought the Ashkenazi were of Khazar origins, lacking common descent from Hebrews/Israelites, and that theory once played a role in Zionist thinking. Neither Falk nor Weitzman are particularly good on this particular aspect. I touched on this in the section on Ruppin.

  I.e. the article already states these things, albeit briefly. You reply:

  I'm not sure what you mean about the Sephardic being Bedouin, the Mizrahi being Arabs - can you substantiate that (I assume, that is Zionists speaking?) with a more specific cite or source?

  I.e. you ask me to substantiate what passages in the article, duly sourced, already state, and in my note to Selfstudier I directed sceptics to the specific section (Ruppin) where these points were made. If one fails to check, and simply responds to the talk page, we only get more reiteration. Of course, I can begin to fish out tons of further material to corroborate what I have already sourced. E.g.

  The radical decrease in the number of Sephardim is explained by Ruppin as being the result of certain deficiencies in their biological structure. As the most Semitic component of the Jewish race, they came to represent, in his analysis, a degenerate strain in the Jewish Volk. According to Ruppin, not only had the (Ashkenazi) Jews preserved their racial characteristics, they had also succeeded in improving them through a long process of selection which promoted the fittest among them: rich Jews married their daughters to the most brilliant students, thus ensuring the mental development of the race. The Sephardic- Oriental (Mizrachi) Jews, Ruppin concluded, were lacking this urge for self-selection, a fact that certainly damaged their “vital force.” Another factor which differentiated the Oriental Jews, according to Ruppin’s assertion, was that most of them were actually Arabs and Moslems who had converted over the generations.' Etan Bloom, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Pre-Israeli Culture, 2011 p.98.

  But I am retired also because it is exasperating to keep arguing on talk pages points that anyone can access by simply reading widely in the scholarship. I frequently get the impression editors have not taken much trouble to read the articles as constituted let alone all the given sources, as opposed to reading and responding to personal opinions or general comments in the talk page threads. I am diffident of 'conversation' that suggests the relevant scholarship has not been studied. If one has an argument, it should be astringently backed, even on talk pages, by specific documented evidence. That is the only efficient way to avoid the drift into conversational opinionizing.Nishidani (talk) 07:15, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  I think it's a bit of an overstatement of what they're quoting to Ruppin there. He doesn't say that the Sephardic are Bedouin. In fact in this 1907 text, as I stated earlier, he is aware of the preexistence of Sephardic Jews in Israel[2]. the few thousand Sephardic Jews who were already to be found there a century ago. The Jewish population of Palestine consists of three distinct strata. The first is made up of those Sephardic Jews who have lived in the country for centuries, have become closely assimilated, in mores and in the general mode of life, to the local Arabs and who, side by side with Spaniolo, speak Arabic too. A good picture of the life of these Jews is furnished by the town of Saida (the ancient Sidon) where 2000 Jews -- all of them Sephardic -- may be found. They receive no 'Halukkah, earn a difficult and pitiful living as small merchants and artisans, are poorly educated and of a not particularly high moral standing. The Jews of Morocco, Persia and the Yemen, who have come into Palestine of recent years, may be lumped together with this group. You can say I'm splitting hairs but it's an important distinction. He does indeed have a German-race-science tinged view of Ashkenazi superiority, as you said, but it's an oversimplification to claim he thinks Sephardic Jews are Bedouin or equivalent to Bedouin. Nor does it say that Ruppin believed Sephardic Jews lacked Jewish descent. Andre🚐 17:31, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  So you wish to contest the view Arthur Ruppin endorsed in his Soziologie der Juden (Berlin 1930, vol.1, p.19). I.e. do you really believe that you understand Ruppin better than he himself did or scholarly specialists on his life and writings do?

  I cited a 2011 scholarly biography of Ruppin. It's 400 pages long, and covers Ruppin's writings down to 1941. You cite a primary source reproducing one speech made by Ruppin in 1908 as though that were more authoritative, as you interpret it. Editors must not impose their own interpretations on primary sources, in this case cherrypicked, to oppose what high quality secondary sources write summing up dozens of Ruppin's writings over decades. As I have noted repeatedly, this kind of response is 'conversation', in this case arising from a perusal of a single primary source to draw inferences that serious scholarship dismisses. That is not within our remit as editors.Nishidani (talk) 19:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not saying that a single primary source in the author's own words trumps all the scholarship about him. But the source you provided does not say that Ruppin equated Sephardic Jews with Bedouin. Do you have a source for that statement? It's a nuanced point. He clearly, and I am not contesting, had a dim view of Sephardim and believed them to be inferior to Ashkenazi Jews, but he still considered Sephardim Jewish, despite their inferior status. Do you have a source for the contrary? Andre🚐 20:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  You appear to be trying to draw me into a 'conversation' when the answer to all of your imprecisions is readily available if you take the trouble to read the sources listed under Ruppin on the article bibliography.

  You completely misconstrue the cite from p.98. It elaborates on what Bloom wrote earlier, for example on pp.88, 96. Ruppin thought Ashkenazis were descended from an original Jewish type of Indo-European origin: they were a Nordic race. A part of this type was debilitated by growing semitic influences which produced the Beduinentypus, the 'semitic Jew' among which he classified the Sephardim. I can't keep coming back here to do your work for you if you refuse to read the core sources. If one wishes to comment on Ruppin, the absolute minimum is to read and master the contents of the secondary literature beforehand. Otherwise, we end up with chat that has no functional value.Nishidani (talk) 21:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  What I'm not disputing is that Ruppin believed that the original Jews were European and that the Semitic influence was secondary, which I guess is almost exactly backwards. However, I think this still suggests that "Jewish origins" is a good title for the article. I also don't agree that Falk or Bloom say that Ruppin was saying that Sephardim weren't Jewish. Sephardic Jews were simply made inferior, but he does not say that they lacked a common origin. According to Falk 2017, Bloom (2008, p. 13) insists that Ruppin thought of himself as a culture planner, and as such was a loyal supporter of the theories of the cultural superiority of the nations of Central Europe and of the significance of eugenic measures for the preservation of their achievements. Since the ‘original’ Semitic race was considered akin to the inferior Bedouin type, Ruppin segregated the Ashkenazi Jews from the main Semitic stock. Referring to von Luschan’s analyses of the multiracial origins of the ancient Jews, Ruppin endeavored to distance Semitism from the image of the ‘original jew’ and to bring him closer to the Indo-Germanic races. Bloom contends that Ruppin’s universal humanism was directed at the Ashkenazim, whom Ruppin identified as the definitive Jewish type in modern times. “As far as he was concerned, the original and healthy Jews, who are responsible for the virtues of Jewish culture, belong racially mainly to the Indo-Germanics.” Furthermore, Bloom claims that according to Ruppin “modern race research proved that the Semitic element in the Jewish race is degenerating, and the Zionist process of national resurrection […], being eugenic in nature, gradually dismisses the Semites racial and cultural elements” (Bloom 2008, pp. 104–109) .... According to Bloom, the answer may be formulated as follows: The reason for the deterioration of the original Jews (the Urjuden) was the introduction of the racial Semitic element among the Jewish people, primarily the Bedouin or Middle Eastern type. For Ruppin, the original Jews, those who were farmers and lived prior to the destruction of the First Temple, were non-Semitic tribes. Again, this is very wrong and backwards and discredited eugenic thought but it never says that Ruppin said Sephardim weren't Jewish, lacked Jewish origin or weren't legitimate claimants to Jewish heritage or descent. Andre🚐 21:28, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  I also don't agree that Falk or Bloom say that Ruppin was saying that Sephardim weren't Jewish. Sephardic Jews were simply made inferior, but he does not say that they lacked a common origin

  Sorry, but that's a strawman. Where did I ever state that Bloom and or Falk construe Ruppin as saying the Sephardim weren't Jewish? (In 1918 ben-Gurion stated that in all probability the Palestinians were of Jewish origin). I said Ruppin thought the authentic heirs of the ancient Jews were the Ashkenazi who putatively maintained like their 'nordic' forefathers their Indo-European racial characteristics, as opposed to Bedouin-type Jews who were contaminated by interbreeding with Semitic peoples. Ruppin's race theories played a significant role in blocking further 2nd aliyah Yemenite immigration, as they did in denying Ethiopian Jews, 'niggers' to perform aliyah. Eliding the concept of 'race' from early Zionism and replacing it with some generic quest for Jewish origins (academic speculations with no pragmatic value in that period's Zionism) simply obscures one of the driving forces in population selection operative for decades. Surely Onceinawhile and myself are not the only content editors who are capable of writing an article, with ample access to much wider materials, on Zionist views on Jewish origins. That is not what this article was designed for.Nishidani (talk) 22:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, the article scope should continue to be "Jewish genetics", or "Issues in Jewish genetics" or "The content which couldn't be added to genetic studies on Jews because that is a scientific article". Should drop 'Zionism' and 'race' from the title rather than 'genetics'. That does not require excluding any of the current content, which is necessary for the reader, but maybe some expansion of the scope. fiveby(zero) 13:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  Given the impasse, perhaps we should review briefly the major staging points in our discussions over the past two months, to try to sort this out. I'd be willing to give my version of this history, if editors think it might help.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support fundamentally a reasonable improvement. Andre🚐 21:30, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - current title is fine. The scope of the article is the intersection between Zionism, race, and genetics, and the sources for this scope are cited in the article, e.g. Baker, Efrim, Falk, etc. This title is the most concise/precise/consistent/etc (WP:AT) title for that scope that I can think of. The proposed title--like all the proposed titles I've seen on this page--is a title for a different article. "Zionist views on X" would be an article that covers all Zionists' various views of X. That is not the same thing as an article about the intersection of Zionism, race, and genetics -- that's one view held by some Zionists -- a notable view, studied by scholars, but not the full range of views of Zionists on Jewish origins. Someone could write an article about Zionists' various views on Jewish origins, of course, but it'd be a different article about a related but different topic. Levivich (talk) 14:34, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  I think this is a good argument but I think the "and" is ambiguous, in the title. You mention the "interaction" between these 3 things but it is vague. Zionism, race, and genetics aren't all 3 celestial bodies orbiting abstractly around a narrative solar system. Isn't there a better way we can frame those 3 nouns with something descriptive and not just a loose linkage? Andre🚐 20:43, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Just on this technical issue in grammar. I should have clarified this before because it was raised earlier (and I didn't think it important at the time) 'And' here is just a coordinating conjunction between two substantives, the last two of three, and allows no margin for ambiguity or misunderstanding (cp.fathers and sons, War and Peace, or better still, Bill Miller's recent book, Politics, Economics and Religion: Socialism, Fascism, Capitalism and Religion. (2018). There is no equivocation, or implication of possible semantic confusion, in what is a normal idiomatic listing of distinct elements in a series.Nishidani (talk) 21:28, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  It's not a technical issue, it's a narrative issue. The article is entitled, Zionism, race and genetics. Aside from the entire ambiguity of the lack of Oxford comma, which is not worth discussion. The point is: Zionism, race, and genetics: what about it? That's not a construction that is WP:COMMONNAME of anything I know of. Therefore, may be synthetic, or original. It is indeed vague: how does Zionism, relate to race, and how does it related to genetics, and how do those two relate? Your examples such as War and Peace borrow a construction from the title of a preexisting work. Is there an extant source of the construction relating these 3 topics? Note that I am not making a grammatical argument on the technicalities of usage, or of semantics. I am simply asking if there is an extant, non-Wikipedia topic that frames those 3 topics together in that particular way. Andre🚐 23:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  That is essentially the same question I have, I see those three things as related in a certain way in the sources (other people might see the relationship differently) but Nishidani has it that they are related ("thematically intertwined") in some other ill-defined fashion ("There is no single unifying theme independent of the constituent parts"). Selfstudier (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  I answered you below. The simple answer is, I like many others, see 3 words in a title, and understand immediately what the article is about, because the title formula used is standard in scholarly books and articles which announce their subject matter in that succinct way. The 'how' of their 'relationship' is what the reader discovers in reading any book or article with a three-word title. Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  But where is the scholarly book for this case? The nearest I see is Falk's Zionism and the Biology of Jews (or perhaps Baker's Zionism's New Jew and the Birth of the Genomic Jew). Selfstudier (talk) 17:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  in this case? That, dear Self, misses the point. I am not talking about content, but the formal structure of titles. The terms used to fill the sequences of substantives deployed in a X,Y and Z title will vary depending on thematic focus. Love, life and death, Capitalism, communism and fascism, Husbands, wives and children, ad infinitum. All that is required to justify a version like Zionism, race(,) and genetics is that evidence be given that the three are treated extensively as a thematic ensemble in scholarship. There is a huge amount of 'conversation' here that lacks analytical rigour, so one way out is to recast the whole contention in logical form and evidential precedent, which eliminates subjective opinionizing. Nishidani (talk) 10:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose but remain open-minded, based on the discussion so far:

1) Noone has argued that the article’s scope or content should be changed. Opposition to the proposed rename has focused on the fact that the new title would meaningfully change the scope, and supporters of a change are yet to fully address this concern.

2) The core argument for a rename appears to be that a triple-conjunction is unusual on Wikipedia – I am sympathetic to that. Other related arguments about the term race, or race and genetics, are not convincing to me given the thorough treatment at race and genetics, and the wide sourcing in this article.

3) I wrote above of "Zionism and the ancestral origins of modern Jews”; the rest of the discussion has highlighted the additional core concept of the reformulation of Jewishness in terms of racial and genetic identity. So a title with the same scope would be more along the lines of "Zionism and the racial-genetic origin-based identity of modern Jews".

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:42, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

To me, the article title "Zionism and the racial-genetic origin-based identity of modern Jews" implies there is a racial-genetic origin-based identity of modern Jews, whereas the title "Zionism, race, and genetics" does not imply anything about those three subjects or their intersection (which is a good thing). (Maybe though we can all agree to add the oxford comma.) Levivich (talk) 01:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Looking at it cold, I agree. It's like "Israel and the apartheid regime" vs "Israel and apartheid" — I can’t quite explain grammatically why, but the first formulation seems to imply something where the second does not. Onceinawhile (talk) 05:31, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

'the' in 'the apartheid regime' is the culprit. There are apartheid-like regimes, each differing in details from the primary model (South Africa). I.e., the title begs a question (what or which regime?), which 'Israel and apartheid' doesn't, since it simply states that the article will deal with the literature that treats the two as having some links, or similarities or dissimilarities. Substantives in a series tell you nothing of what to expect other than that the article or book will deal with the items together. As in logic, minimalism excludes discursive equivocation. Both Andrevan and Levivich's point on the comma are well-taken. I already looked into that and found both threesome titles with or without the Oxford comma (damned impertinence. Is (the) Cambridge (University Press) to be mocked as linguistically unsubtle?) in relatively equal distribution. So its introduction or absence is not problematical.Nishidani (talk) 10:53, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd also support adding the comma, if nothing else can be agreed to. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

OK, so a neutral version might be: "Zionism and racial-genetic origin in the identity of modern Jews". Onceinawhile (talk) 10:59, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

That might work, "Zionism and racial-genetic origin(s) in Jewish identity" is sufficient, perhaps. Selfstudier (talk) 11:06, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I could go along with "Zionism and racial-genetic origins in Jewish identity", if that would lead to consensus, although I find it a bit wordy. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

At this point I'm embarrassed. I've nothing against adjusting titles, I just want to see 'rational' motivations for it, which means a cogent logical reason for opposing what exists. As to this discursive title: I've spend almost 2 decades trying to insist on disentangling 'Jewish/Jews'/Israel/Zionism from some intrinsic implication of identity or interchangeability. Judaism forms one of the great civilizations proven over millennia in hundreds of distinctive traditions drawing inspiration from its foundational beliefs. Zionism is a very recent blip (so far), an extraordinary experiment driven by a teleological vision that it is the logical culmination of Judaism. Whatever the merits, Jews in all of their multifarious communal and individual identities can't be straightjacketed into any political or stereotypical identity: when they are, usually by outsiders, damage has been inflicted on Judaism and Jews and disaster has frequently been in the wings. I have no idea what an 'ethnic identity' is other than political or geographical shorthand, and I just feel viscerally uneasy about, in particular, any language which pins a collectivist 'identity' on Jews, or which strengthens some reflex mental association between being Jewish and genetics or a specific state. Sorry for this foruming but 'Zionism, race and genetics' steps outside of the resonances of always classifying 'Jews' trying to pin them down, like Eliot's Prufock:

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

I can't bring myself to use the word with personal acquaintances for that reason, imagining the sense of fastidium it must tendentially conjure up in a friend. That is my bias, of course.Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe so but it seems to me that is exactly what Zionism is/has been trying to do and the hell with whoever disagrees, diaspora included. I agree that the issues are a bit of a tangle but a Wikipedia title here or there isn't going to make much of a difference. The issue is whether, within the bounds of WP policies, there is editorial consensus on the title and it seems pretty obvious that there isn't yet. That usually means we keep looking. Selfstudier (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

There are a lot of Zionists, some of my acquaintance, who are convinced that Zionism's foundation of a state for Jews was an historical necessity and yet who are repelled by racism, within Israel or elsdewhere, precisely because Jews were its prime victims, and they take this as a particular lesson illustrating a universal principle. Whatever Zionism's tragic thrust, we should avoid strengthening the biases already contaminating public discourse. It is part of the hasbara remit of Zionism to insist the two categories imbricate.Nishidani (talk) 12:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I read Post-Zionism and some of the other flavors of Zionism and just confused myself. Selfstudier (talk) 12:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

have no idea what an 'ethnic identity' is other than political or geographical shorthand, and I just feel viscerally uneasy about, in particular, any language which pins a collectivist 'identity' on Jews thanks for admitting that, but this is problematic. You may feel this way, but we can't insert that feeling into the article. Jews indeed do have a collective identity. Actually, a multitude of identities as you point out, but there are absolutely well-defined community lines, and you can't deny their existence in article mainspace text. The reason why these must exist is that they do in the source material. I do not seek to shame you or sanction you, merely to point out that you are incorrect on this point. There absolutely is, unequivocally, at least several major Jewish identities, and through their analysis we may meaningfully deduce that, yes, there's something shared among the Jewish heritage that manifests itself in all of the major Jewish groups. It's a bit hard to pin down, yes, but it exists - what we mean when we refer to the "ethnic identity" of Jewish people. It's no more real or less real than the national or ethnic identity of any other group. We have a mandate on Wikipedia, that it doesn't matter whether you are uncomfortable with the term "ethnic identity." All that matters is what the expert academics mean when they say that. I do not at all believe it is the case that there aren't social scientists and anthropologists and ethnologists and scholars of historical and religious studies that use this term in a rigorous, and not at all a shorthand way. Andre🚐 18:33, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

My own views are totally absent from this article. I would write something completely different were I to interpret the sources, and other primary sources, with the liberty of a scholar. Here I am a wikipedian. In real life, I was a specialist in ethnic ideology, esp. in analysing the flaws in what experts describe as a given identity that is putatively valid for all members of the named ethnic group. Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

With full respect to your contributions to Wikipedia and your much good writing and research, I am guessing that this makes the topic very close to you. As many people do. The important thing is to reflect the scenario that we find playing out in a dispassionate way. Without accusation of any bad faith intent, I find it problematic that you believe it's a well-established and defensible view that "ethnicity" kind of isn't a real thing. It's true that labels are imprecise and that in some cases, there are exceptions that are hard to categorize. But by and large, if you slice a cross-section of say, all of the Jews who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement and the former Russian Empire (or Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, etc) to UK, USA, Canada, Argentina, and whatever other statistically significant locales Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to, you'd find a shared religious heritage, shared cuisine, shared language (Yiddish), songs, expressions, names, and yeah, a ton of shared DNA and yes, physical traits. A melting pot, with plenty of cultural diffusion to be sure. And they're also going to share a lot of things with a Sephardic Jewish converso or crypto-Jew. Does that mean any given person is going to check all the boxes? No. But there are absolutely real ethnic groups. No different than someone from Ghana or Uzbekistan. Frankly, it's slightly surprising that someone in 2023 could be arguing that ethnic groups are essentially arbitrary and there is no such thing as a Jewish national group. Jews all over the world are connected by shared heritage that is indeed a real thing, even though many Jews have different levels of observance or particular interpretations or adherences. Not all Jews are Zionist or Israeli, but "the invention of the Jewish people" is just a book title. We can't make the entirety of Wikipedia reflect that perspective because that is not what the literature reflects, as a whole. Andre🚐 22:18, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Read up on identity formation and theory under nationalism. There's a vast literature from at least the 1980s, familiarity with which would show the frailty, or superficialty (I say that in the specific geometrical sense, and no other) of the truisms above.Nishidani (talk) 22:41, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

And in your view, are the Serbs, the Kurds, the Arabs, the Zulu, also brainwashed by the propaganda and imagining their people to have a shared culture? Andre🚐 23:01, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@Andrevan: I suggest you start by reading popular books like Imagined Communities and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Roughly the world was a spectrum of overlapping and gradually-diffused language sprachbunds, religious and cultural practices. Most people lived in rural or semi-rural areas and had no interest in who ruled some wider area they never saw, they cared only who claimed taxes from them and gave them protection. Mass media changed everything:

• The first mass media were religious books, hence some religious practices became standardized, giving the people reading those books (or listening to them being preached) an imagined connection.
• A millennium or two later, media proliferation from the printing press - particularly once the presses began printing in chosen vernaculars - we saw the standardization of "national" languages. Everyone reading the same newspapers created a new imagined connection.

The successfully self-propagating idea of "nationalism" then backfilled a romantic history for each set of "people", based either on their standardized language, religion, or - occasionally - just their political boundaries. Every "nation" built itself a story.

And here we are today. Andrevan, you and I probably have more of a shared culture than we do with random people we just passed on the street, because we both have a shared interest in building an online encyclopedia. Despite the fact we probably live in different countries, may speak different languages, and may believe different things. Perhaps we should start our own nation. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

"A nation is a group of people united by a mistaken view of their past and hostility toward their neighbors." — Karl Deutsch (h/t Buidhe) Levivich (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Many scholars would argue that all national identities are socially constructed, which is not to say they aren't any less "real" than money, which is also a social construct. (t · c) buidhe 17:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes I like that connection a lot; Yuval Noah Harari made the point very well. Money works because people believe in it. So do nations. Money can disappear when people lose belief in it, and so can ethnic identities and nations. They are both real, because people believe they are. This is the beauty of the highly flexible concept of ethnicity - it needs only to be believed to exist.

That is not the case with race and genetics, which require more than belief. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not averse to a bit of philosophizing, and I may agree with a lot of what you're saying, but this is not a given. National identities are real things and are treated as real things by the source material that the encyclopedia is based on. It really doesn't matter if you "redpilled" me to believe that everything from money to borders are meaningless. The point is that the material treats these things as real and therefore so do we. The fact that it happens to be about Jewish people makes it a bit more controversial and the stakes higher, but still nobody has answered my question in a straight way. Sure, I agree that lots of things are socially constructed. I never said that Judaism was given directly to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Nonetheless, the Jewish culture and the Jewish groups out in the world do exist, and reliable sources comment on and observe them and write about them, so we do as well. This is not the postmodern, progressive encylopedia, it's by its nature somewhat of a conservative work because we are essentially backward looking and writing about things like history. So yeah, in history there's a group of people called the Jewish people and you can follow what is said about the various blurry agglomerations like sprachbunds and all that. Telling me to read a book like Sapiens - a, we cannot put authoritative weight on such a work, which is a popular scientific work that is relatively recent and has been not met with universal acclaim nor acceptance, b, it's avoiding the issue here and skirting around the real issue. The Jewish people existed long before Zionism, and there really shouldn't be a factual dispute on that matter. Andre🚐 17:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

You are mixing up what does exist and what did exist. Your last sentence is incongruous with the rest. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:56, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Anything that existed and was significantly covered in reliable sources should be covered here. Can you elaborate on what you mean that I am mixing up? For example, most Jewish people in the US came in to places like NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, from Eastern Europe and had nothing to do with Israel or Zionism. Israeli culture and Zionism are specific offshoots of a larger umbrella of Jewish movements. But there was an active Jewish diaspora community for hundreds of years before Zionism even a consideration. Andre🚐 18:00, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Yugoslavism is a good thought experiment to help here. Would you say that the Yugoslav people existed long before Yugoslavia? It doesn't sound right does it, because no-one believes in Yugoslavia any more. But if I made the same statement in 1950 it would have felt totally normal.

Your sentence suggests that in medieval times, Yemeni Jews felt an ethnic bond with Polish Jews - there is no evidence for that at all. You should try reading this letter, by the only Jew in the British cabinet at the time of the Balfour Declaration: I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, traced back through the centuries - through centuries of the history of a peculiarly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and M. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Strong disagree. The ethnic groups, not to leave anyone out as I am simply copy-pasting from the article, in the former Yugoslavia are Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes, but also Bulgarians. Each of these groups has many things from a language to a cuisine. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they diverge. You're completely wrong about your comparison, since the Jewish nation indeed did have solidarity despite the quote you offer, which is hardly a summation of all of history. In fact, there is documentary evidence to the contrary. Merchant networks such as the Radhanites operated trade networks across diverse locales such as Italy, the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterannean, see the work of Francesca Trivellato. There was correspondence among Jewish kinship groups throughout many religious and other disputes which are well-covered in Wikipedia if you do some cursory reading. The immigrant banks in the United States, similar to a landsmanschaft or a benevolent society, such as the Blitzstein Bank and the Rosenbaum Bank, operated systems whereby Russian Jews could obtain passage to the United States and join the exiled communities of expatriates. Many other ethnic groups have similar societies in the United States. I suspect you are hyperfocused on the 1948 time period and are missing the forest for the trees. Andre🚐 18:15, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

• Each of these groups has many things from a language to a cuisine. => when were the borders between these languages and cuisines created do you think?
• Trivellato wrote about Livorno Jews, a specific subgroup. On the Radhanites, too little is known to make judgements about ethnicity.
• On late 19th century Jewish America, see the Pittsburgh Platform which opposed Zionism: We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.

Could we please stop this back and forth until you have had time to read a little more? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

By the way, your repeated references to the situation is America is a whole new topic - the problems of the Hyphenated American. Irrespective of the entirely absurd suggestion that Jews immigrating to America were untouched by Zionism (the World Zionist Organization knew full well that American Jewish public opinion was the most important element of getting a Jewish homeland in the 1910s), American culture encourages the retention of "old world sub-identities", and Jews in America developed their own identity within that.

You might also be interested to note that America governments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries strongly encouraged the formation of nationalisms across the world (most notably Woodrow Wilson), because it aided their wider goal of dismantling the empires they were competing against. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Most Jews leaving Romania or Ukraine to flee the pogroms were not Zionists, and maybe weren't even aware of Zionism. Sure, many Jewish people, most of them religious, also joined the Old Yishuv, or made pilgrimage to Ottoman Palestine. However, for the most part, a poor, moderately secular Jewish immigrant coming to work in American factories didn't know or care about Zionism. They did definitely know about matzo ball soup and Hine Ma Tov. American Jewish immigrants frequently intermarry, creating endogamy which shows up in DNA. At any rate, your opinions about the United States' relationship to its national pluralism and multiethnic polity especially in the 20th century are out of step with the mainstream. Andre🚐 19:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and their Christian neighbours they left behind in Eastern Europe ate Knödel (e.g. Semmelknödel) and sang Psalm 133 to music since at least the 1500s. Noone knows who influenced who. Your suggestion below that there was [no kinship] with Ukrainians, or Lithuanians, who were Christian or Muslim is false and absurd.

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are mistaken. While we may not know who invented dumplings, we do know that only Jewish people eat matzah due to that specific relationship to their custom and tradition. So if it's a matzo ball, it is not the same as a Polish dumpling. We can check that out. We can also observe that Jewish communities don't have pork bones due to kashrut. We also know that yeah, the Psalms, are you seriously claiming that the Christian communities invented the Psalms? 'Cause, I've never actually heard of that one. Andre🚐 21:10, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The Ashkenazi foods were similar to those of their non-Jewish neighbours, with religious modifications.

Neither European Christians, nor European Jews, invented the Psalms. They both inherited and used them for exactly the same period of time, and influenced each other throughout. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Hebrew-Yiddish speakers sang a Hebrew folk song that they inherited from their ancestors. Separately, Christian Europeans might have sung folk songs that they inherited from their Romanized ancestors. These are not the same. There was no Jewish colonial empire; Jews are a people throughout history that were refugees from place to place, travelling merchants, and a class set apart by the European countries of the time. Generally, the Arab world was kinder to Jews up to a point in the middle ages. Andre🚐 21:57, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The key assumption in here is who-is-whose-ancient-ancestor. An assumption, but no evidence exists. Without it your point falls apart. Anyway, Nishidani is right - we are not progressing the article with this tangent. I am happy to continue in the userspace if you wish to learn more about where you are wrong… Onceinawhile (talk) 22:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

It's true that this is a tangent, but when I see two editors disagreeing so diametrically, I feel the need to find a way to reconcile the difference. Perhaps Andrevan is thinking of Jewish peoplehood as deriving from the shared experience of a practice of worship, the way that Jews see themselves as a people who have a unique spiritual experience. And perhaps Onceinawhile is, instead, looking at the multiple cultural practices that Jews have engaged in, in various geographic locations, sometimes sharing those practices with other neighboring people. (And if I'm wrong – never mind!) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

In a historical context, the religious aspect was extremely important. In a modern context, it is of greatly diminished relevance. But there are at least 4 very different religious interpretations of Judaism. Whereas they are all united by being Jewish. See who is a Jew? for more. Andre🚐 23:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

What all of that has in common is that it is either a religious experience or a religious interpretation. None of it is based on anything like food or language or other cultural aspects. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:38, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

No, that is not correct. It is not purely religious, and it is not all wrapped up in religious interpretation. That article on several points goes into the cultural, secular, and other aspects. Andre🚐 23:46, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I tried to find common ground between you and Onceinawhile, and I have clearly failed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I think it's just a misunderstanding. Judaism is a religion, and there is also a Jewish ethnic group. The two are intertwined, but not equivalent. Andre🚐 21:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to say, but apparently in the wrong words. I thought you were seeing it in terms of the continuity of the religion, and Onceinawhile was seeing it in terms of the variability of ethnic expression. And if I'm wrong about that, I'm not going to reply to your correction of me. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. I appreciate you trying to be helpful and to shed more light on the scenario. I am not religious, but you can't remove the religion from the story of Jewish history, and the various religious doctrinal conflicts do influence everything from food to music to literature, just like they do in Christian Europe or in Vedic India. Andre🚐 21:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

As I said, the borders between languages and cuisines are fluid, not fixed. They move over time, and they do not need to be fixed to be covered in Wikipedia. I think you are the one who must read more, perhaps about Jewish history or Wikipedia policy and guideline. Contradictions and ambiguities are OK and do not need be ironed out, just described as the sources describe them. Trivellato specifically talks about the Jewish relations across borders. Livorno Jews, are not a subgroup. Livorno was a place that Portuguese and Spanish Jews ended up after the exile. Sephardic Jews also ended up in the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa such as Tunisian Jews. They shared a kinship bond and a correspondence bond across national borders. And the borders kept moving. A Jewish person from Kishinev or Balta, Ukraine or from various locales throughout Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, etc., was a Jew and had a kinship with other Jews. Not with Ukrainians, or Lithuanians, who were Christian or Muslim. They came to the USA and they joined a Jewish community in the Lower East Side. Which, as you say, was often opposed to Zionism. Andre🚐 18:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

You are extrapolating without evidence. Sephardic Jews in Italy and Tunisia had family connections - they are neighboring countries. Same with Poland and Lithuania. But was there really one global "Jewish people"? No evidence exists. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:37, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I've laid some of the evidence out, and indeed, Trivellato writes about their collective identity at length[3] You are simply incorrect, and more importantly, reputable historical experts can substantiate this. I haven't read it, but Salo Baron: Salo Baron: The Past and Future of Jewish Studies in America, could be a good way to describe how the field of Jewish studies has covered the evolving field of Jewish identity over time and in different historical periods or national locations. Let's stick to the sources please, and not original revisionist hypotheses. Andre🚐 19:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Surely it is pretty subjective? What Montagu might find imaginary and daft, others might find tangible. As with many things, isn't it rather in the eye of the beholder? Although it is probable that your average Tunisia Jew and Iranian Jew in the 19th century would have struggled to speak/relate to each other just as much as your average Tunisia Muslim and Iranian Muslim might. Familiarity is tricky without shared language. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

It is not subjective, it is just blurry, and relative. A Tunisian and an Iranian Jew would share the Sh'ma, possibly similar names (because Jews in every country have names like Benjamin and David, just like Muslims from every country might be named Muhammad), while the cuisines have differences, there would probably be some similarities. Depending on their specific journeys, they might share more. What the merchant groups did in the Middle Ages and whatnot is communicated using a lingua franca whether French, Greek, Ladino, Yiddish (which is a Germanic language with Hebrew loanwords that can be spoken in different dialects in many different countries such as Russia, Poland, Ukraine, etc), etc. But, there are indeed records from the Middle Ages of people like Benjamin of Tudela who explicitly kept track of the Jews in different places he visited. It was also common to dispatch one's offspring to move to another town to help the merchant business. I believe the difference with Muslims is that you have Arab, and non-Arab Muslims. So they might have some commonalities, and some differences, but I think there's a wider gap there due to the Islamic missionary tradition, whereas Judaism did not have much of a missionary tradition and often excluded or kept out outsiders in history (or all the Jews were kicked out of a country), but within Arab Muslims or within Bedouin tribes, I am guessing there are similar kinship lines. Andre🚐 19:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

One mistake above is the implication that the concept of an “Arab” is any different. It means someone who speaks Arabic. Is a Somali the same ethnicity as an Iraqi?

An Indonesian muslim shares prayers with a Tatar muslim in Russia. Muslim geographers counted muslims in far flung countries. Does that make them the same ethnicity?

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:15, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The answer to all of the above question is "it depends." Conventionally if I refer to an Arab Muslim, as our own article reads, They are descended from the early Arab tribes of Levant, Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia who embraced Islam in the 7th century. They carry that ethnic identity that bind ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical and nationalist. If you don't really agree with that, WP:RGW is the direction and maybe we should both take a break. Andre🚐 21:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The Arab Muslims article doesn't get much attention. See Talk:Arabs if you want to see the meat of it. Those people who think that a population of almost 500 million descend from the tiny population of the inhospitable Arabian desert could at least try applying logic if they are too lazy to visit a library. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The bottom line is you are proposing what amounts to a WP:FRINGE view of history. History does not go around saying Arab just means any Arab speaker. There are many Arab speakers who were not Arab Muslims - such as the aforementioned Judeo-Arabic speaking Tunisian Jews. There were also many Muslims such as Iranian Muslims who are not Arab - they didn't speak Arabic, and weren't ethnically Arab. There were also many people absorbed into the ethnic groups of Judaism or (more frequently) Christian or Muslim groups, and we don't exactly know when. But cultural amalgamation doesn't mean there are no ethnic groups in history. It's true that there are multiple lineages, there are exceptions, and errors. Still, there is an Arab world, Arab cuisine, Arab culture, Arab people, etc. You cannot deny their existence because they appear in reliable sources. Jewish people did not start appearing in sources in 1948, and it's an absurd and offensive suggestion that the ethnogenesis of Jews was a fictionalized Zionist propaganda. There are Jews in antiquity throughout the history of the Roman and Byzantine Empire. This is elementary knowledge. Andre🚐 21:46, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

This post suggests you are not yet able to dissociate identity construction from history. You talk about Judeo-Arabic-speaking Jews, but appear unaware of Arab Jews. Are Arab Christians Arabs? Why not Jews? It is ultimately a communal choice. You appear to have a knowledge of “popular history” but little knowledge of the scholarly views. Anyway, per Nishidani, it is time to stop this tangent. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I prefer to use the term Mizrahi Jews and I think the Arab Jews article notes that it is a loaded term in the Israel-Palestine context. Which once again shows that you are tunnel-vision like focused on the Israel-Palestine aspect and lack greater context on Jewish history. Yes, Arab Christians are Arabs. Are Arab Jews Arab? Sometimes. It depends. History and reality don't have bright lines. That is important to comprehend. Andre🚐 22:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but all this is pointless. The simplest way to show the difficulties of any assertion of a common ethno-cultural unity is, with any population, to contrast people with the same 'ethnicity' but diametrically opposed values. In this case, what is it that constitutes the shared 'Jewishness' of

Margherita Sarfatti and Rosa Luxemburg

Bugsy Siegel and Elena Kagan

Baruch Goldstein and Albert Einstein

Dov Lior and Baruch Spinoza

The answer is, nothing other than Jewish parenthood. In all such examples, each would share more in common with their non-Jewish colleagues than they would with each other. Can we drop this? It is totally irrelevant to the article.Nishidani (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Nothing in your examples refutes this the existence of a Jewish people or a Jewish ethnic group. I'm not sure how you would think that there being a diverse group of values or opinions in an ethnic group means that therefore there is no group. Intersectionality isn't the right word, but it's pretty fundamental. Spinoza, as you probably know, was excommunicated and notably cut off from the group by the religious authority at the time, which is a big deal at the time. In the cases of secular Jews, they were still ethnically Jewish when not religiously or culturally Jewish (I don't know, specifically, how many of the secular Jews on your list practiced any Jewish tradition or cultural practice) Einstein had a notable public and complex relationship with Judaism and with Zionism. I do not think Bugsy Siegel had a relationship with Zionism, but he was definitely Jewish. The question of the Zionism, race, and genetics article is touched upon at several points, such as the portion of El Haj, which favors the view that you are espousing here, and others, namely, that ethnicity is a fiction, or some such equivalent perspective. But that is not the majority perspective of scholarship. Andre🚐 22:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Conversation continued at User talk:Onceinawhile#Re: Evidence. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Responding in minutes to a complex set of counterveiling contrasts that underline the immense difficulties in any slipshod generalization about a putative 'ethnic unity' signals an unwillingness to think through the exposed assumptions, while generating, in reply further misprisions which in turn would elicit other objections ad nauseam. The result is tedious, barroom level chat. You simply haven't grasped the point, and just citing stuff from wiki articles all of which share the same wildly loose premise or doctrinal meme you take to be self-evident (ergo circular reasoning) is meaningless since wikipedia is not a reliable source on this. When Einstein and Sergei Eisenstein attended a private performance of a famed Yemenite traditional singer in 1931, the former felt he detected some distant but common strain of Jewishness in the folk air, while the latter disagreed, stating that this oriental tradition struck him as totally alien to his own sense of Jewish culture. But all this chatter is an abuse of the function of the page. No one is interested in what you or I or Once may privately think about such questions. Please desist.Nishidani (talk) 03:13, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Everything I've written above with references to other Wikipedia articles may be sourced easily, and I am happy to do so, you need only challenge the validity of the statement, but nothing I wrote above was circular at all, and that's a WP:FRINGE view and has no place here or anywhere in Wikipedia. Andre🚐 03:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Falk as historian

I've been following the discussions here, and I've in fact have never gotten involved in any page or talk page that relates to Zionism, Israel, Palestine, etc. I have purposely refrained from it all these years, because in my view it's all mostly politics, and a waste of time. But I follow the discussions, and some parts here have gotten a bit deeper and better lately. I also started catching up on the core items in the bibliography, particularly Falk, and I have a comment about that.

Falk may have been a respected geneticist, but I don't think that that fact makes him eminently a good historian too. And reading parts of his book, I got more convinced that he is actually not a very good historian. There are parts of it that for me read like some really shoddy, fringe history. And yet, his history book being one of the central pieces of this whole endeavor here, this is something that I believe should deserve some more serious consideration. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 20:15, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I concur! Too much Falk. We should lighten up on it a bit and add better historians. Andre🚐 20:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Some geneticists I've spoken to think that Weitzman (2019) does not show to his advantage as an historian. Reading Falk, I came across passages I thought poorly done, and so I can grasp exactly what you are pointing to, Warshy. But I, for one, use both. What I think personally as a reader is irrelevant. They have the relevant qualifications as quality RS, and leave very small margins for that residual 'discretion' which at times leads one not to cite poorly organized material in an otherwise excellent source. Very few scholars manage to wear two hats with surpassing abilities in both (Steven Pinker comes to mind, but it's easy to tear his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) apart despite his marvellous erudition in several fields. All one need do is redefine violence more broadly. The statistics certainly indicate on one level that infrahuman violence has lessened. But if you define violence as infraspecies aggression, or consider the natural world the object of human violence, then the Anthropocene testifies to the opposite conclusion). I just don't think we have any right, as editors, to challenge excellent sources unless other sources show that a serious mistake has been made in the ones we draw on. Nishidani (talk) 20:51, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I might agree with you about Pinker, and I thought Weitzman was perfectly fine, but I'm sure we can find more to round out the article. I'm not proposing nor is warshy presumably to entirely excise Falk, but our remit is to express proportionate weight to quality and prominence of the sources, and I agree that Falk is not definitive and has some weaknesses that should be reviewed. Andre🚐 20:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

If one can find a geneticist who is also an historian, whose published work as an historian is of the same quality as Falk's, then fine. No scholar is definitive. He just happens to be the only one so far who has dual experience in both fields, and his book, so far, appears to be the standard work on Zionism and Jewish biology. I expect this will change in a few years, but until we have a source of similar authority, we make do with it. I say that having repeatedly used as basic sources scholarship I personally don't think worth a rat's arse (in the field of political history). What I think is of zero import, since RS determines what we use.Nishidani (talk) 21:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Isn’t there a circular argument here? You’ve been arguing that the three-element topic of this article is a topic because there is a book or two about it, then you argue this is the book we need to use because it’s basically the only thing that’s been written about this topic? BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

All it means is that combined geneticist-historians in this area are rare. It doesn't mean the literature is rare. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we need to cite someone extensively just because they're the only combined geneticist-historian in the area. This article (especially under the new name) is about the history of ideology, not about the details of genetic science. Lots of historians have written about the history of Zionist ideology, and Falk is not their go-to source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

No Bob. I noted that many sources treat as one topic the nexus between three themes(each of which alone could be an independent topic). Over 30 sources, not 'a book or two', approach the matter this way. Several books have been written about the overlapping quilting of Jews, their history and genetics, and by geneticists (Ostrer's book is frankly farcical historically). Only Falk addresses the matter in terms of Zionism, which is precisely what the article is about. Nishidani (talk) 08:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Only Falk addresses the matter in terms of Zionism, which is precisely what the article is about but at the same time 30 sources address this topic (Zionism, race and genetics)? This doesn't make sense to me, but I've made my point. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Bob, here. This is circular logic. Andre🚐 22:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this Warshy as I was thinking the same thing. I was familiar with most of the sources used in this article before, but not this one, and I’ve just dipped into it a few times now, and every time I do I find inaccuracies, generalisations, sloppiness, vagueness and confusing passages. I’ve just been looking for reviews to see how it’s been received by other scholars but not finding much yet. I did note in looking that the publisher’s blurb opens with: “This book offers a unique perspective on Zionism. The author, a geneticist by training, focuses on science, rather than history.” I think it’s weak history and anchors the weakest parts of our article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:54, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Weitzman is at times weak on deductions from what he takes to be the implications of genetics (he consulted two who are often criticized). Falk has some problems with certain historical generalizations, though he did some very good and pathbreaking historical work on Jewish geneticists in period context. No one uses this argument against Weitzman (he happens to says 'useful' things for one perspective that, from another seem just arbitrary opinions - some discussions touched on this, where he is out of whack with whatmany equally authoritative sources say). Like any reader, I find myself vigorously arguing (scoring the margins) with almost every book I read, but on wiklpedia in editing content, I believe we are forbidden to allow such reservations to affect what we edit, Cocking a snook at Falk, who is our only major experrt source, and widely quoted as such in the scholarship, while not doing the same with the rest of our sources, lends itself to partisanship , when we must be studiously neutral. I'll put this personally. I find a lot of very attentive verbal tiptoing in most of our sources that are otherwise refreshingly critical of this thematic trend in the Zionist tradition, This is most marked in Efron's 1994 book. One can also see shifts over 15 years in the same author towards an even more critical stance that could arguably allign with a perceived disenchantment with political developments in Israel (Hart etc) But such editorial impressions mustn't interfere with our rigorous application of the guidelines. If the source is of high quality we must accept its authority whatever our private reservations about this or that in it.Nishidani (talk) 08:07, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I think we need to find better historical sources to anchor our storyline and construct an NPOV narrative. As written, this article has a lot of emphasis on one side of the story, namely that Zionists such as Ruppin were advocating the discredited race science of the 1930s. I think we're missing a critical view at how that changed in the latter part of the 20th century as the world, and Israel/Zionists, became modern and more progressive on certain issues. This is why I keep bringing up the Ethiopian Jews. This was considered a major landmark event in the solidarity of non-white Jewish people. Andre🚐 18:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Looking forward to the presentation of these better sources, y'all are saying they exist, so let's see some. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Here are a few that look interesting, but I'm still reading, toward the point on race relations with the Ethiopian Jews specifically:

• Salamon, Hagar (2003). "Blackness in Transition: Decoding Racial Constructs through Stories of Ethiopian Jews". Journal of Folklore Research. 40 (1): 3–32. ISSN 0737-7037.
• Magid, Shaul (2012). "The Holocaust and Jewish Identity in America: Memory, the Unique, and the Universal". Jewish Social Studies. 18 (2): 100–135. doi:10.2979/jewisocistud.18.2.100. ISSN 0021-6704.
• Friedmann, Daniel; Santamaria, Ulysses (1990). "Identity and Change: The Example of the Falashas, Between Assimilation in Ethiopia and Integration in Israel". Dialectical Anthropology. 15 (1): 56–73. ISSN 0304-4092.
• Abu, Ofir; Yuval, Fany; Ben-Porat, Guy (2017). "Race, racism, and policing: Responses of Ethiopian Jews in Israel to stigmatization by the police". Ethnicities. 17 (5): 688–706. ISSN 1468-7968.
• Mendelson-Maoz, Adia (2013). "Diaspora and Homeland—Israel and Africa in Beta Israel's Hebrew Literature and Culture". Research in African Literatures. 44 (4): 35–50. doi:10.2979/reseafrilite.44.4.35. ISSN 0034-5210.

Andre🚐 18:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

There are several articles on Ethiopian Jews where this has some pertinence. This material does not belong here. We have 80+ sources to 'anchor' the article already. It is not 'our storyline' but what those sources already tell us of the three themes covered by the article. If you want to develop a different article, write it.Nishidani (talk) 19:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

On the topic of the controversy of Ostrer there is this review which also mentions the Ethiopian Jews, and yes it is related and they all belong here I think. [4] Other researchers praise the work. It's the largest to date on this question, and using the IBD method to tackle it is "innovative," says geneticist Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, says that "this is clearly showing a genetic common ancestry of all Jewish populations." Nevertheless, says Rosenberg, although the study "does not appear to support" the Khazar hypothesis, it doesn't entirely eliminate it either. The study does not address the status of groups whose claim to Jewishness has been controversial, such as Ethiopian Jews, the Lemba from southern Africa, and several groups from India and China. But given the findings of a common genetic origin plus a complex history of admixture, geneticist David Goldstein of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, says that neither of the "extreme models"—those that see Jewishness as entirely cultural or entirely genetic—"are correct." Rather, Goldstein says, "Jewish genetic history is a complicated mixture of both genetic continuity from an ancestral population and extensive admixture." Andre🚐 19:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Where is Zionist thought found anywhere in this? Iskandar323 (talk) 09:12, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Where is Zionist thought found in most of the material in that section of the article? BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm also looking at From Assimilationist Antiracism to Zionist Anti-antisemitism: Georg Simmel, Franz Boas, and Arthur Ruppin (pp. 160-182) Amos Morris-Reich Andre🚐 20:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

This talk page cannot become a social media site for discussions on Jews, Israeli progressivism, Ethiopians or whatnot. On that precedent next we'll have the article on slaves or race in the US, where the situation is far worse, being substantially modified by editors defensively try to add sections stating how much better things are now. Nishidani (talk) 20:14, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

All of the above discussion is with an aim toward improving the article which needs improvement on the basis of NPOV. Again, as the sources above show, the issue of race relations in Zionism (which is Jewish nationalism and an Israeli social movement), the Ethiopian Jews were a major point and part of that. The above link to Science is a review of Ostrer which mentions this as well. Andre🚐 20:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Write an article, Ethnic relationships in Israel. We are just on or over the ideal limit for article length here.Nishidani (talk) 20:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources that refer to race and genetics in Zionist ideology, then those merit inclusion with due weight, my initial impression subject to seeing some source saying otherwise, is that Ethiopian Jews are not going to carry much weight in this page.Selfstudier (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Why does that belong there and here we have discussion in the 1970s section of Mizrahi-Ashkenazi politics? If we make that article, do you agree I should remove that from this page? Andre🚐 22:06, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

No. Cannibalizing any page to make another article is poor practice. One should never copy, or excerpt and paste material from one article to make another. Every article should be written off the sources adduced to write it up, autonomously. Otherwise, one would set a precedent of hacking an existing article to pieces to create a set of related or sister articles, not to develop A new topic, but to damage the narrative integrity of the existing article. That would be creeping deletion by the back door .Nishidani (talk) 22:55, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

That's not what Wikipedia guidelines advise. See Wikipedia:Splitting. Andre🚐 22:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

What wikiguideline approves of making new articles by copying or lifting and pasting material from already existing articles? Read what Andythegrump perceptively wrote some time back in these threads. If your intention from the start was to find a reason for splitting the article, you should have openly said so.Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

That is not my intention. My intention was to expand this article in the part pertaining to the 1970s-present. Where I think Zionism gained a lot of progressive characteristics, which is why people familiar with the history of contemporary Zionism find the 1930s Ruppin stuff kind of distasteful and unfamiliar. See [5], Andre🚐 23:08, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

That would be to politicize the article. It would only mean cramming pro and contra material on the issue of Ethiopians into the article, so that some articles not even dealing with 'Zionism, race and genetics' (the criterion for source selection) edged in to render the article more complex than it already is. I.e. we would have the material you selected balanced by articles like Oz Rosenberg's in Jerusalem protest racism against Ethiopian Israelis Haaretz 18 January 2012 etc. With that precedent then we would intrude general articles about the improvement in Yemenite conditions. And then someone would say these policies have have impacted Palestinian israelis, but their situation somewhat improved after the military curfew was lifted, while othe editors would inmtroduce counter-evidence of contoinuing racism. And then others could use that to expand coverage of hafrada as racist, pro and contra. There would be no end to POV battling. We have numerous articles on these aspects (many of them inadequate. but they are there for expansion, i.e. Racism in Israel. The section you allude to contains a sequentially coherent coverage of one specific issue, the interface between Zionism and genetic research- As far as I know:, nothing about that exists elsewhere on wikipedia. To disrupt it with the endemic political narratives of Zionism- good-or-bad which are omniptesent, would, I strongly suggest, displace the intended focus on the problems of science by pros and cons everyo0ne is already exhaustedly familiar with.Nishidani (talk) 08:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I am definitely sympathetic to what Nishidani is saying here, that we need to set a limit to what the article is about and not include everything to do with race that happened in Israel. But to my mind this is the inevitable result of the "and" formula in the old and new title. At the moment, the final section is about genetics in Israel, not about "Race and genetics in Zionist ideology". There's no reason it should be about genetics in Israel and not about race in Israel. If we only want material that is about "race and genetics and Zionism, most of the final section already doesn't fit, so I understand why someone would question why this and not all the other stuff about race. (In my view, rather than expand that section per Andrevan it would be better to trim it back to what is actually about the title topic.)

But this discussion has segued quite far from Falk as historian so if we continue on this expansion topic we should either introduce a heading break somewhere in this section or open yet another new section. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

the final section is about genetics in Israel, not about "Race and genetics in Zionist ideology".

Sorry Bob, but that is incomprehensible to me. What final section, and I'd appreciate you explaining the assumption here that 'race and genetics in Zionist ideology' is totally unrelated to the history of the practice of genetics in Israel, since numerous sources state and document the contrary. Nishidani (talk) 12:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry by final section I meant the one headed "The genome era: 2000 to the present", where the "edit warring" this talk section refers to was occurring. Of course the two topics are not "totally unrelated"; they're obviously related. As I read the section, several passages in it are not obviously directly about the topic in the title. Just one example: the sentence on Ranajit Chakraborty in its current form is not about "Race and genetics in Zionist ideology", although possibly Burton talks about him in that regard - and we have a great big picture of Chakraborty as if he's a central character in our story. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be some radical misunderstanding here. Wikipedia simply sums up (ideally) what the best sources on a topic state. Scholars -who produce our documentation, do not puts blinkers on (as we do) by making hairsplitting rules about some topical austerity that must minutely hue to the general wording of their titles. They range widely, view matters from several angles, drawing on all material they find shedding light on the specific issue(s) being addressed. It seems to me that you are judging source relevance by criteria that pertain solely to wikipedia's unique protocols. Scholars can't work like that. If Burton, in analysing the work over decades of geneticists in Israel and elsewhere, finds that Chakravorty's paper cogently marks, and illuminates, a crisis in genetic studies of Ashkenazim and Jews in Israel, then as editors we accept as important her judgment that Chakravorty's paper provides an important insight into part of the discourse of genetics as it was influenced by Zionist perceptions at the time. Take out her point re Chakrovorty and the history of the development of this nexus becoes totally obscure, I'd say, incomprehensible. Burton thinks it important, and, as amanuenses we follow her, whether we like the content or not. In rewriting the first part of Hamas, I consistently found Matthew Levitt's book so politicized it looked problematical (and I could go into numerous details). But, I still put in quite a bit of stuff from him I thought dubious (in terms of what other scholarship wrote). Because it's not my job to question how an RS authority deals with the topic. To the contrary, I am obliged to respect the source, whatever it states.Nishidani (talk) 16:49, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if he's a historian or not because his work in this narrow field is widely cited. I am not aware of any work in this field written after 2017 (when "Biology of Jews" was published) that doesn't cite Falk. Is anyone else aware of such works? If Falk is always cited in this field, then Falk is a leading source in this field. (Although, statements that can be sourced only to Falk should generally be attributed to Falk.) Levivich (talk) 13:53, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Obviously he should be cited, and obviously statements that can only be sourced to him should be attributed (an important caveat). I don't think anyone wants him removed, just less central and not treated as the definitive source of all truth. (Note: Of the 78 citations, the following are about our topic, and it might be worth double checking if we include them all: Burton, Hirsch, Kirsh, McGonigle, Morris-Reich, maybe Novick, maybe Kohler, N Cohen. We have three of four recent texts on our current list of sources in the article that don't cite Falk.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:35, 18 September 2023 (UTC)