Talk:Zionism/Archive 21

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Question

@Dovidroth: thanks for your edit comment. I didn’t understand how it connected to your revert. Please could you explain what – if any – of the words you didn’t agree with? Your edit comment suggested you agreed with the text you removed from what I could tell. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement over the wording aside, I can't see why the source was also removed, i.e. WP:BABY. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:37, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I have just reread Dovidroth's edit comment and note that he stated the "overwhelming majority of reputable sources" provide proof of what had been stated as just a belief in the removed source: "that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites."

I have always been keen to see this proof, because it represents the fundamental component of the logic behind Zionism's focus on the biblical Land of Israel. Dovid, please could you provide a selection of these sources? We should add them to the article.

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Apologies, but it is totally clear to me that the content presented in this source does not meet the required standards for our article's lede. I agree with Dovidroth. In this instance, we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because they stink... This source appears tendentious in its attempt to distort the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and contains factual errors. As Dovid mentioned, Jewish descent from the Israelites is widely supported by an extensive body of historical, genetic, and cultural evidence. In addition, the phrase "Land of Israel" appears in writings throughout Jewish history other than the Hebrew Bible, including the Talmud, Mishna, and numerous others. Perhaps worst of all, the source asserts that Modern Jews see themselves as "the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine"... what?! Does anyone honestly think that's what the majority of Jews think? This statement crosses the line into antisemitism.
Bottom line: it is imperative that we refrain from using this source in any capacity for our article, particularly in the lede. We should prioritize using reputable sources that accurately reflect the majority view in both academic and historical perspectives. Otherwise, Wikipedia will turn into another platform for the propagation of antisemitic ideas. Recent contributions here are undoubtedly moving in that direction. Please start approaching your sources with skepticism. Tombah (talk) 07:30, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

As Dovid mentioned, (a) Jewish descent from the Israelites is widely supported by an extensive body of historical, genetic, and cultural evidence. In addition, (b) the phrase "Land of Israel" appears in writings throughout Jewish history other than the Hebrew Bible,'(Tombah)

(a) is a belief widely supported by an extensive body of books that repeat it. There is no historical or genetic evidence supporting the notion that modern Jews descend from the Israelites for the simple reason that the historical and genetic evidence must assume that the Israelites were a genetic unity and the modern Jews share that genetic identity, which, as we all know, it untrue.(b) No one would contest the longevity of the Land of Israeli phrase: the only problem is that in rabbinical sources its imputed extensions vary strikingly. It is a religious term denoting where halakhic law applies:

Rabbis, on the other hand, seem to have been less interested in the precise mapping of the real world. Like Christians, they presented a “sacred geography” based on a particular religious ideology. Rabbis propagated their own vision of a Land of Israel in which Jewish life should be conducted and in which rabbinic halakhah was meant to be followed. Other territories beyond its perceived boundaries were considered foreign, idolatrous, impure, andpotentially dangerous.' Catherine Heszer, 'Rabbinic Geography: Between the Imaginary and Real,' p.3

As you all must know, the rabbinic texts sèin out numerous conflicting definitions, from the narrow to the largest extension inferred from Genesis 15:18, which makes Apamea for one, large parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt part of Eretz Israel, which is not even envisaged in the modern claims of the greater Eretz Israel ideologists.

Yet they held up the belief in a geographically vast Land of Israel whoseborders they were unable to define exactly.Hetzer p.15

The fact that this religious term was slung about for millenia without precise definition, and then absorbed into the political geography of Zionism, which tacitly redefined it somewhat more narrowly as embracing Transjordan, southern Lebanon and the Sinai causes endless confusion, which is evidenced in the remarks above. That is why it is a very misleading term to adopt for an encyclopedic coverage of an area at a period, high antiquity, when the concept in its various connotations had yet to be formulated. Nishidani (talk) 08:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

(a) We need nothing of the sort. The shared traditions, historical narratives, and as we know today, shared Middle Eastern genetic ancestry among diverse Jewish communities, including Ashkenazi Jews from Kiev and New York City, Sephardic Jews from Izmir and Aleppo, Roman Jews from Rome, Mizrahi Jews from Egypt and Morocco and Babylonian Jews from Baghdad, are already a live testament to their connection to the ancient Israelites. There is no alternative explanation for that, unless you're willing to assert that the ancient Israelites/Jews all perished and/or converted and that the shared Middle Eastern ancestry of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews is derived predominantly from Edomite/Adiabenese/Syrian converts, which would be utter rubbish. Tombah (talk) 09:21, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

(b) It is true that the term "Land of Israel" has historically had variable borders. However, there is a core area, "From Dan to Beersheba", that has consistently been included within its ever changing boundaries. This encompasses regions of Jewish dominance including Judea, and starting from the Hasmonean period also Galilee (and partially Golan and Perea), and this is where Jewish population reached its peak in antiquity. While exact borders were not defined, Zionism aimed to establish a Jewish presence in this area, centered around Jerusalem, the ancient capital and holy city, without the need for precise delineation. I fail to see how any other term could be less deceptive given that all have, including "Palestine", experienced shifting borders over time. Given the vagueness of all of the terms, and the fact that this is a topic related to Jewish history, it's preferable to stick with Jewish terminology. Tombah (talk) 09:21, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

If I might circle back to an earlier point you made, that a source may/may not be biased is irrelevant. Biased material should be balanced, not removed. That is literally the first sentence of WP:NPOVHOW - the fundamental underpinning of WP:NPOV being that editing should be free from editorial bias, i.e. decisions made by editors based on pure sentiment. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Tombah, you need to seriously consider whether you are being impartial and adhering to NPOV regarding ARBPIA topics. You are clearly affected by the content on Wikipedia. May I remind you that humans across the world edit Wikipedia, and we are not constrained by religious or political sensitivities like you may be, we are solely concerned with adhering to NPOV and high quality sources. Using words like "Land of Israel" as if it is an actual real thing is testament to my point. Asserting that Jews in their many ethnicities are related to Levantines is insulting also. It is complicated and deserves due care not impulsivity. JJNito197 (talk) 10:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Who is, exactly, being insulted by Jews' connection to the ancient Israelites? This is not an issue of offending, but rather a persistent attempt to utilize Wikipedia to misrepresent Jewish history. I am as concerned as many others here for Wikipedia's credibility and reliability, and this problem is getting really worse over here. Seemingly I am not the only one to have noticed it during the past year. Tombah (talk) 10:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem I see right here in this thread is that you are justifying the removal of sources based on your editorial judgment about which ones "misrepresent" a topic - that is not our job as editors, which is to simply reflect and balance the sources. The source in question is from a peer-reviewed journal. Personal views of it are irrelevant. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Iskandar323, I must admit that I genuinely appreciate you as one of the top editors here. While we all have our biases, I do notice your efforts to maintain objectivity and neutrality around here. Please let me remind you something: A recent BLPVIO inquiry we both took part in was answered with the statement that "discussion of the partisanship and reliability of an author is a key part of writing an article". This entire discussion definitely represents our job as editors, since we must be skeptical of the sources we use, and debate their trustworthiness and relevance. I will never support censorship, so I believe I have no objections to allowing this piece as long as the mainstream viewpoint is also presented alongside it and it is given the appropriate weight, place in the article, wording, and attribution. For such, we'll need to discuss the details and come to a clear consensus. Tombah (talk) 10:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Well thank you for the sentiments: I have certainly made it my business of late to be particularly scrupulous with respect to policy and sources, and that is part of the point here. All that Haddad presents in that quoted text, written in the 70s, is a brief summary of Zionist beliefs. It may possibly be dated or maybe not; I couldn't say since I'm not an expert or a source, but on what basis are you supposing that Haddad is somehow not 'mainstream'? Mainstream is tricky to define in most topic areas, and generally the only way to nail it down is to find a source specifically defining what is and is not mainstream. Haddad was professor of history and chair of social sciences at Saint Xavier University, where he has Peace scholarship named after him that recalls him as "an internationally recognized scholar in Middle Eastern studies, whose passion was to foster understanding and peaceful relations among cultures". He would ostensibly appear perfectly well qualified and well tempered to write on the subject. There is little indication that he was a firebrand; on the contrary, he was noted on his passing for his peacefulness. There is no indication that he was actively involved in the same sort of ideological tussles as Nur Masalha, who was the academic referenced in that BLPVIO inquiry you mention. So again, what reasonable basis is there to on any level impugn Haddad? Iskandar323 (talk) 11:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I admit I am not too familiar with Haddad's work, but: (a) the very usage of the word "colonialism" to describe Zionism in the article's title, is, of course, partisan, and reflects a very particular POV, that for some reason reminds of me of the later revoked 1970s United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379. (b) with him writing that "Modern Jews, accordingly, are the direct descendants of the ancient Israelites, hence the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine", he seemingly opts to portray all Jews collectively as anti-gentile xenophobes who wish to kick everybody else from Palestine, but perhaps this quote has been misrepresented. (c) "the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites": The emphasis on belief is another departure from the conventional view, which acknowledges Jews as the historical, cultural, and yes, biological (i.e. genetic) descendants of the ancient Israelites (albeit with a certain extent of admixture with other populations). Even while some of those opinions are valid, this article is obviously not the most appropriate one to use to define Zionism in an objective manner, especially not in the first paragraph of the definition. Tombah (talk) 11:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the language was more spicy and avantgarde in the 1970s. Neo-colonialism was a big topic, and Zionism was routinely compared to it. There are 44,600 hits on Google Scholar for Zionism+colonialism - this is not niche stuff. People just called it like they saw it in the 70s without too much handwringing. It was and is a valid intellectual position. However, these terms are not in the excerpt, which doesn't portray anyone as anything, but describes beliefs. He also doesn't obviously provide his own views, other than what you are deducing from the terminology, which, as I've noted, could be as much a sign of the times. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No one is getting offended with the Jewish connection to the Israelites, and that wasn't what I said. That attempted retort is exactly my point - you are being combative, offended and ideological when it comes to editing Wikipedia, specifically within topics relating to ARBPIA. JJNito197 (talk) 11:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment The source is question, The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism, was published in 1974, since then, more genetic studies have come out proving, or refuting the Jewish claim to Israel and Palestine. It's not about biblical claims any more, it's about genetics so its possibly Dated (Look at Genetic studies on Jews for more info). Even then I have serious concerns about the POV in the article which violates WP:SCHOLARSHIP, the article says things such as This vision, of course, could only be realized by depriving the Palestinian Arabs of their right to their homeland. (p.6), Complete disregard for the human rights of others when it comes to the possession of the "holy land" is apparent in Ben-Gurion's statement on the subject (p.8), and the basic humanitarianism that should have prevented the exile by Israel of the Palestinian nation (p.17-18). I also have serious questions about the Journal, all their studies start out with a claim, and then keep justifying it, refusing to even research opposing claims. Normally this would be alright if it's a bit less biased and on a less contentious topic, but this is the Arab-Israeli conflict. (Look at the Journal's latest releases, and abstracts here [1]) Crainsaw (talk) 12:27, 6 July 2023‎ (UTC)

  Ben-Gurion made many repulsive statements and his racism towards Mizrahi Jews is well documented. If the extent of the problem is the page saying that statements from Ben-Gurion reflect some odious sentiments, it is a non-problem. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not denying Ben-Gurions racism, but Complete disregard for human rights? That's an intentional overstatement. Crainsaw (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't have time to answer until now. Tombah has said it right - the Jewish connection to ancient Israel predates Zionism by a long time, and in any case the discussion about genetics is undue for this article's lead. Dovidroth (talk) 07:05, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Tombah, the statement that you claim "crosses the line into antisemitism" bears a remarkable resemblance to the third article of the "Basic Law of the Nation State". Of course you are correct that not all Jews believe that, but Haddad does not ascribe that view to all Jews. What Zionism holds to be true of Jews is the relevant fish. I'm not sure that Haddad is the best source here, but I'm sure the definition of "mainstream" does not equate it with "Zionist mainstream". I'm also sure that NPOV does not give the Zionist viewpoint the right to dominate the lead of an article on Zionism. It is only one viewpoint that should be present. The claim that Jews and only Jews have the right of hegemony in the Land of Israel has been at the core of Zionism since the beginning and this must be represented via a reliable source. Zero^talk 13:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Yes, I agree - Zionism asserts that Jews have the right of hegemony in the Land of Israel, but Haddad says something else here - he says that in Zionist view, "Modern Jews [...] (are) the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine", which is totally wrong. There's a difference between claiming hegemony over a land, and denying other populations the right to live in it. It is obvious that Haddad confuses #1 and #2, so obviously, this source cannot be trusted. Tombah (talk) 13:56, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but the right to live in it is also different from the right to be citizens. (Today a large part of the political establishment does not accept the right of Arabs to be citizens, so this is not a minor matter.) It isn't clear to me that Haddad means "right to live". You can argue against Haddad on the basis of lack of clarity if you wish. Zero^talk 14:51, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Israeli citizenship law states, anyone born in Israel, with at least one parent with Israeli citizenship, automatically gets it at birth. 21.1% of all people in Israel are Arabs, and most of them are citizens, except the ones in East Jerusalem who are permanent residents. There are no major pushes to revoke the citizenship of Arabs in Israel. (Sources: Israeli citizenship law, Israel, and [2]) Crainsaw (talk) 15:21, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

This article is about Zionism and the beliefs of Zionists, not Israeli nationals and their beliefs, or the laws in Israel, which in any case are naturally a product of far more than raw political ideology. Ideology is theory, practice is practice. Israelis are not implicitly Zionists, any more than the reverse is true. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:42, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Iskandar323 is completely correct of course. But Crainsaw should know that Eretz Yisrael does not stop at the Green Line. Zero^talk 03:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Sentiment #2 appears live and well with the likes of Bezalel Smotrich, who told Arab lawmakers: "You're here by mistake, it's a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn't finish the job and didn't throw you out in 1948."[3] If this is thought to be misrepresentative of Zionism, this could be due to several possibilities, including that Zionist beliefs at the time Haddad was writing in the 1970s were more extreme and of the Smotrich ilk, which is quite possible, since this was the time of Golda Meir, who brought us such delights as "There was no such thing as Palestinians". And if so, what does this reflect now? Only far-right Zionism? The page currently makes little effort to distinguish ultranationalist Zionism from its more moderate counterpart, even though there is literature that distinguishes two strands, e.g. [4]. This paper suggests that 'moderate' Zionism has always been more prevalent. But this begs the question: are the two ideologically distinct or are both on a sliding scale, and if so, was Haddad just depicting what he observed as the ideological fundamentals, as seen in the ideology's fundamentalists? Iskandar323 (talk) 15:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I am still waiting for Dovidroth to support his edit comment. @Tombah: you supported his statement by writing: "Jewish descent from the Israelites is widely supported by an extensive body of historical, genetic, and cultural evidence." Could you please provide some of this evidence. I have never seen or heard of such evidence before, and didn't think it existed. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, Onceinawhile, is it your contention that there is not in fact “a long Jewish connection and attachment to that land” and that you have never in your life seen evidence of this? Drsmoo (talk) 00:45, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Why did you change my words? I never used the word "connection", because that word is used for intentional obfuscation. I have "a connection" to the moon, because I look at it every night, have a day of the week named after it, and had a calendar based on it and had a model of it in my room as a child. "A connection" is not enough to explain an ideology of unique ownership.

Zionism assumes that modern Jews are the same people as ancient Jews - that "they have returned". The concept of Return to Zion requires this assumption. Tombah and Dovidroth content that this is a provable fact, because they do not want to include the word "belief" in the statement. They both claimed there was a huge amount of evidence proving this, and I am looking forward to seeing it.

Onceinawhile (talk) 06:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

That has long been the conventional view, even held by most anti-semites (excluding the modern ones, who for clear reasons prefer to claim the opposite), and a majority of genetic tests have now confirmed it. They found that the major Jewish subgroups all share ancient Middle Eastern genetics that is derived from the ancient Israelites. The derivation from the Israelites is more obvious in paternal genetic lineages while the maternal ones are a little more diversified. Most researchers generally concur that the early Jewish communities of southern Europe, which are the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews, were founded by the ancient Israelites, joined by local converts, most of them through intermarriage with non-Jewish women. For a recent study, check out The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews, by Kevin Alan Brook, 2022: The ancestors of Ashkenazic male lineages were largely of West Asian origin, including many from the Israelites (in the summary), and then Approximately half, or a little more than half, of the genetic ancestry of Ashkenazic Jews from Eastern Europe traces back to the ancient Middle East. Ashkenazim have partial similarities to the autosomal DNA in ancient bones from Tel Megiddo (northern Israel) and other parts of the Middle East. This type of ancestry is represented by a large proportion of Ashkenazic Y-chromosomal haplogroups, passed down by males, as well as by a minority of their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups, passed down by females. Many of these haplogroups stem from Canaanite, Edomite, Arabian, Mitanni, Iranian, and Egyptian progenitors who contributed to the gene pool of Jews in ancient Israel and its southern successor kingdom, Judea. Modern matches to these haplogroups include Arab-speaking non-Jews of the Levant such as Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinian Arabs but often Gulf Arabs as well [...] Ashkenazic autosomal DNA can be modeled as about 87.2 percent related to Sephardic autosomal DNA in terms of sharing the same ancestral sources [...](pp. 3–4). If you're going to claim that the Jewish Ashkenazi population's other ancestry, which is primarily derived from Southern Europe, demonstrates that they are not descended from the Israelites, then go ahead and inform the Samaritans, who today import and marry Ukrainian women out of necessity, that their descendants will no longer be regarded as Samaritans. Do you think that Palestinians who live and marry in Chile qualify for the right of return, if and when it is ever granted? or not? Bottom line: the majority of Jews worldwide (excluding some of the smaller communities) are indeed descended from the Israelites. By the way, I won't be surprised if many (Hellenized) elites in Jerusalem during the late Second Temple period already had southern European ancestry, but for this kind of analysis, I guess we'll have to wait a few years.Tombah (talk) 06:52, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Your conclusion doesn’t follow from the quote. This article is saying simply that the Meggido bones share some DNA with a wide variety of Middle Eastern modern populations, including some modern Jews. That is not the same as descent – more likely shared ancestors further up the chain.

It also says that modern Jews have no closer relationship to the Meggido bones than non-Jewish populations.

Thus we are still left with zero evidence for the claims that modern Jews are the primary descendants of ancient Jews and Israelites. We need to find the evidence so we can justify removing the word “belief” when explaining this component of the foundational logic of Zionism. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Are you an expert in genetics? If so, let me know. The quotation, like numerous other recent reliable sources, explicitly connects contemporary Jews to the ancient Israelites. The majority of subject-matter experts now acknowledge that the majority of Jews sprang from Israelites, so the word "belief" can no longer be accepted. I have will feeling that no matter what proof is presented to you, you will choose to ignore it. There is just one word to describe it: bias. Tombah (talk) 09:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Because that is the text you removed. Is it your contention that the text is inaccurate? Drsmoo (talk) 16:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

No, that text is accurate but imprecise. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a terribly off-topic route to go down. Let's not recreate the talk page of Genetic studies on Jews. Needless to say Zionist beliefs were never rooted in genetic studies, since the ideology originated in the 19th century, long before even the most rudimentary genetic studies. The wider problems with genetics-based claims in the context aside, it is simply irrelevant to the ideological history of the topic. Perhaps some modern Zionists use genetic studies to backdate their ideological beliefs and justifications, but such things were never the underlying basis of these beliefs - the basis was quite clearly scripture and faith. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:23, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Scripture, faith, but also a sense of shared ancestry and common history, very similar to those held by other ethnic groups. Since the earliest texts, the terms Israelites and Jews have largely been used interchangeably in Jewish languages. Words derived from "Hebrews" are used in several European languages (such as Italian and Russian) to refer to Jews, recognizing their historical connection with the ancient Israelites. Only with the emergence of anti-Zionism and contemporary antisemitism has this rejection of traditions dating back thousands of years begun, for obvious political reasons: challenging what has been a universally accepted truth in order to undermine the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. Tombah (talk) 09:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

If that's true, then it should be relatively simple to source and include in the article. no need to wax lyrical here on the talk page. Pretty sure that AZ has been around at least as long as Z (as ideology) and "contemporary antisemitism" is something else, not sure why you would mention that, but again, sources is the way to go. Selfstudier (talk) 10:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@Tombah: Onceinawhile may not be a geneticist, but your source Kevin Alan Brook isn't either. He's a guy with a B.S. in Business Administration known for his obsession with Khazars. See here for a summary. It's pretty clear that we should not treat him as a RS. Zero^talk 12:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, why is this a debate, check out the comparison of Jews with other non-Jewish populations, it has people qualified in the fields, and the article is pretty hotly debated, so I would consider its sources reliable. Crainsaw (talk) 12:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes most Jews are related to Middle Eastern populations. That is not the question. The question is trying to find evidence for what Tombah asserts above: "The majority of subject-matter experts now acknowledge that the majority of Jews sprang from Israelites". I have never seen evidence for this, and it has certainly not been presented in this discussion.

I don't see the problem with stating that this connection is based on a belief, given that sources state as such. It is clearly a belief. If there are any Jewish people in this conversation who are certain that they, personally, are descendants of the ancient Israelites, perhaps they could explain how they know this. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:23, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Go look at this, this, this and this. Crainsaw (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but that is the same useless information that fails to address the central point. Try this source, centrally focused on this discussion:

Falk, Raphael (2017). Zionism and the Biology of Jews. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences. Springer International Publishing. pp. 208–210. ISBN 978-3-319-57345-8. There are no 'Jewish genes,' even though there are plenty of mutations that are pretty much restricted to a certain group of Jews. It follows that there can be no clinching biological answer to the question of identifying the original Jews, nor to any question about the shared heritage of all Jews qua Jews… Smocha argues for the emancipation of the Jewish nation from inherited notions of alleged biological unity. Shouldn't genetic research likewise shake itself loose of the effort to anchor Zionism in the supposedly shared biological origins of the Jews?

Onceinawhile (talk) 12:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Ostrer, Harry. A Genetic History of the Jewish People. Oxford University Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-3-319-57345-8. thus, it is common today among Ashkenazim and other Jews—Syrian, Kurdish, Djerban, and Yemenite Jews. It demonstrates that these Jews are the descendants of people who once lived in the Middle East

Abu El-Haj, Nadia. The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. University of Chicago Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-0-226-20140-5. It functions as evidence of what one might call cultural fidelity—of the fact that contemporary, self-designated Jews really do descend from a single ancient population, from a common history and long tradition of cultural distinction that is visible on the Y-chromosome only because their ancestors remained true to their faith.

I think it would also be appropriate to quote Abu El-Haj again to clear out any misunderstanding Such markers are not, by way of contrast, evidence of the “biological unity” of the Jews, a concept central to racial theories of Jewishness that dominated late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thought. Crainsaw (talk) 13:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Anyone can be a Jew religiously, I could convert to Judaism today. But that won't make an ethnic Jew. People can be atheist, yet still be ethnically Jewish, and people can be religiously Jewish, but they won't become ethnically Jewish. Crainsaw (talk) 13:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

You should also consider reading chapter 9.1 of the book you quoted above, Zionism and the Biology of Jews, which explores common mutations, allelomorphs and genetic disorders among Jewish communities, even Yemenite Jews who were considered pretty isolated by the book shared certain common allelomorphs with Jewish communities all the way from Iberia to Cyprus. Crainsaw (talk) 13:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Everything you wrote in your 13:36 and 13:57 posts above is from chapter 9 of Falk. My quote is from chapter 10 of Falk; it is his conclusion and summary of the whole book and the culmination of his research. Do we agree that what Falk has written in that quote is indisputably correct? Onceinawhile (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Falk also said on p. 208 Although there is widespread evidence of certain Middle Eastern genetic components in numerous Jewish communities, there is no proof of a typical Jewish prototype. Emphasis on the numerous Jewish communities. Those numerous communities are the vast majority of Jews, as I've quoted above from Ostrer and Abu El-Haj. Crainsaw (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Correct. This is as far as the evidence goes. There is no evidence whatsoever that "the majority of [modern] Jews sprang from Israelites". Onceinawhile (talk) 16:12, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The sources listed above disagree, such as Ostrer and Abu El-Haj, would you like more sources? Crainsaw (talk) 16:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

"People who once lived in the Middle East" does not equal "Israelites". If those - or similar - are your only sources, this conversion has confirmed you cannot support the statement we are discussing. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

It's a fact that Judaism emerged in Canaan, which is today Israel/Palestine. It spread to regions like Syria, Egypt, Iraq and other neighbouring regions first. There's also no denying that at least some Jews are descendants of Israelites, the question here is about whether the vast majority of Jews descendants of Israelites. And what I'm trying to prove to you is that most the Jewish communities in fact are related and descendant of Israelite Jews. For that, you should have a look at p.58 [5] "Most Jewish populations show their Middle Eastern origin." You should also read on the Babylonian exile, the destruction of the 2nd temple and its aftermath, and in general the migration of Jews from Israel/Palestine to other places. Crainsaw (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

You are making an unsourced leap. You appear convinced that because (a) ancient Israelite Jews lived in the Middle East; (b) modern Jewish groups have an element of Middle Eastern genes; and (c) the modern Jewish religion descends from the ancient Israelite beliefs, then it must follow that (d) modern Jewish groups are direct biological descendants of ancient Israelite Jews.

The logic simply does not follow without a large dose of confirmation bias.

Here is an example to show you:

(a) ancient Sumerians lived in the Middle East; (b) modern Jewish groups have an element of Middle Eastern genes; and (c) the modern Jewish religion descends from the ancient Sumerian beliefs, then it must follow that (d) modern Jewish groups are direct biological descendants of ancient Sumerians.

Even though a+b+c are all true, d is clearly not. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:19, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Theoretically speaking, I'm a descendant of the first humans in Ethiopia, I'm not sure about their ethnicity, but I'm pretty certain their genes are way different from mine. Ancient Sumerians never settled Canaan, they might've converted the native Canaanites to their religion, but Canaan was still inhabited by Canaanites, who were the first settlers of the area. Again, as I've stated above, people can be atheist, yet still be ethnically Jewish, and people can be religiously Jewish, but they won't become ethnically Jewish. The same applies to the Sumerians as well because religions aren't restricted to a certain people. I've linked genetic studies above, the people whose genes were sampled, analysed and studied could've been Hindu religiously, but ethnically they're still Jewish. Frankly, I'm a bit confused about your reply, the question is whether the vast majority of Jews have common Israelite ancestry. You say the logic doesn't follow without conformation bias, and claim that I am ignoring contrary information, well, where is the contrary information, the only source you've provided so far is Falk, who himself says There are no 'Jewish genes,' even though there are plenty of mutations that are pretty much restricted to a certain group of Jews. and Although there is widespread evidence of certain Middle Eastern genetic components in numerous Jewish communities, there is no proof of a typical Jewish prototype., there's also Ostrer who, as stated above, said that many Jewish communities share very similar genetics, who are descendants of people who once lived the Middle East (Most likely Canaan) Crainsaw (talk) 20:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

All of these studies use the very loose term of Middle East because the reality is that genetic studies of this type can accurately pinpoint just about nothing. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

This is getting too off-topic, we should return to the original discussion, regrading Davidroth's edit. Crainsaw (talk) 20:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Separately, the below article in a special edition of the journal Human Biology about Jewish genetics,[6] is a good summary of the debate between Ostrer and Abu El-Haj:

Susan Martha Kahn (2013). "Commentary: Who Are the Jews? New Formulations of an Age‐Old Question". Human Biology. 85 (6). Project MUSE: 919. doi:10.13110/humanbiology.85.6.0919. ISSN 0018-7143. What it means is that a certain number of people who currently identify themselves as Jews have certain genetic variants that indicate a high likelihood that they are descended from populations that likely inhabited the Levant some 2,000 years ago. These variants are not necessarily exclusive to people who identify as Jews, nor are they present in all people who currently identify themselves as Jews. Even Jews who do have these variants likely have ancestors from other parts of the globe. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to assert that, based on current genetic testing technologies and theories of genetic variation, there is a high likelihood that many contemporary Jews have at least one ancestral lineage that leads back to the Levant. In fact, contemporary genetic studies, including recent studies of the whole genome that extend beyond the Y-chromosome and mtDNA studies discussed by Abu El-Haj, agree on a much greater level of genetic sharing and continuity among Jewish populations than would be evident from only a single shared lineage. This does not make Jews a race any more than shared ancestry makes Italians or Basques or Finns a race. It makes them, like all humans, a product of complex and diverse ancestral lineages that ultimately all converge together back in Africa some 100,000–200,000 years ago. The persistent and intractable question of who are the Jews remains unresolved despite Ostrer's and Abu El-Haj's careful analyses, passionate arguments, and differently extreme conclusions. These contrasting scholarly efforts represent only the latest chapter in a long and complex history of discourse involving biological determinism, prevailing notions of peoplehood, and very real social and political agendas. Perhaps any scientific data that suggest a biological component to Jewish identity will be the subject of heated and multivocal debate. New techniques in genetic ancestry tracing may have the potential to create more consensus than discord about the nature of Jewish peoplehood, but all interpretations of this research must be fully contextualized in order to recognize what is at stake and for whom. Only then can we hope to find some kind of shared understanding about "who are the Jews."

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:39, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This is still not relevant to Zionist beliefs, which predated modern population genetics. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:52, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Zionism is an ideology, - people with ideologies never question their premises, they just spin variations on them - just as religion is based on faith. In neither case can any scientifically trained person get much traction in rebutting the fundamental tenets, even less so when, as in late Zionism, the secular ideology took on board the religious orthodoxy it otherwise found repellent, to create the muddled incoherencies of both So we have Tombah citing a non-geneticist, with his fringe and internally inconsistent chatter about genetics 8as shown on another page), as though it rebutted what Falk and many other professional repeatedly affirm. The analogy between Zionist and religious fundamentalist thinking keeps recurring here. First the Exodus was literally true, then no evidence was found for it, then some hypotheses that tidbits might betray a nucleus of truth were advanced, each one of which emerged to be messing with history, and no one can connect the dots or define what 'nucleus' means (see the Exodus talk page). So 'Next year in Jerusalem' meant 'aliya to Palestine' and now means 'return to the Land of Israel', no longer halachically defined, and including Samaria (ancient Israel qua Samaria vs Judea) which for the Samaritans was not what eretz Israel was for religious Jews. Endless verbal confusion, and conceptual equivocation as ideological obsessions run rampage through close historical thinking. Just so Zionism jumped at genetics, and early papers spoke of origins from the Israelites (not Judea!), then the southern Levant, then West Asia, expanding the definitional range north-west and east. as the advance in genetics rendered a far more complex picture than the one originally stipulated. As we know of ideologies technically, they are impermeable to any structural dislocation caused by new empirical evidence that challenges theor premises: the ideologist just tweaks and dodges and harps back on defensive variations of the creedal assumptions. The editing on this is steadfastly ideological, and no amount of evidence will budge beliefs, esp. given their political motivation. Crainsaw, all the wiki articles you cite are notorious jumbles of inconsistent data mishmashed together by successive editors, and wiki is not a reliable source.Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Once again you are claiming that Jews have nothing to do with Israelites. What source did you use for this? I'm still waiting for evidence. As far as I know, there is no evidence that Jews or Samaritans ever thought of Jews as being non-Israelites. There is no need to mention that the two phrases are nearly interchangeable in Jewish texts. AFAIK, contemporary research agrees that the northern Israelites and the Judahites were of the same ethnic stock, all derived from earlier Canaanite populations anyway. Additionally, there is this theory (of Finkelstein, Na'aman etc) that suggests that northern Israelites, including the elites, moved to Judah after Israel fell around 720 BCE, bringing northern traditions with them, and thus came to be considered to constitute a part of the later Judean ancestry. Tombah (talk) 15:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Tombah, please don't set strawmans by asking Nishidani to prove a negative. This conversation is about one thing: Dovidroth's deletion of the sourced text "These convictions are based on a historical reading of the Bible and a belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites." in which Dovidroth challenged the description of this as a belief. You followed up and wrote: "The majority of subject-matter experts now acknowledge that the majority of Jews sprang from Israelites". Neither you nor Dovidroth have supported your claims, whereas the removed text was fully sourced, and with the Falk quote above we have a second (and even better) source confirming that "belief" is in fact the correct description. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

That's not accurate though. The Zionist conviction is not new, and is an extension of the Jewish longing for a return to Zion that has existed and been well documented in writings for thousands of years. And is extremely well supported by reliable sources. The genetic evidence of Middle Eastern ancestry among Jews came well after the establishment of Zionism, as has been pointed out to you. Drsmoo (talk) 19:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The word "return" in "return to Zion" means they believe they are the same people. Any Jew who believes in a "return" believes "that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites". Onceinawhile (talk) 19:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that WP is not a RS, still it is difficult to make progress when an article such as Israelites (for instance) contains a bald statement in the lead

"Jews and the Samaritans are the modern descendants of the ancient Israelites."

I gather from the above discussion that this statement is not accepted?

Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Yes. ThaT is rubbish, and the sourcing a disaster.But if you fix it, you will predictably be reverted. There is notable genetic evidence of Samaritan descent from Israelites, and via that inferences that try to get the Judean descent piggybacked on the former via the Cohen lineage chromosome. Of course, in rabbinical ergo Jewish tradition the majority viewpoint was that Samaritans were not Israelites, but descended from Cutheans. The Samaritan population 2 millennia ago was as large as, if not greater than, the Judean population, and had its fixed eretz Israel in Samaria, but they were not considered 'Jews' any more than Samaritans considered Jews Samaritans. In Zionist discourse, however, these Samaritans are Jews because they descend from Israelites, and ergo, that land is Jewish. This area is a complete conceptual mess, using as interchangeable terms that underwent consistent redefinitions throughout the ages, and the confusion is repeated, unfortunately, in the sources we use, leaving wikipedia hapless before the fact that complexity must never get the upperhand over ideological simplifications.Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This has been quite eye-opening. There are about 60 articles across our encyclopedia who use Harry Ostrer's work to claim in Wikipedia's voice that modern Jews are descended from Israelites. That includes this article, where the claim was added by Tombah last year. This nonsense needs cleaning up - Ostrer doesn't actually say this using genetic research (he makes the claim only in an first chapter trip through pre-conceived Jewish history, and his work seeks to provide supporting evidence, not prove it outright), and the broader sources above (Falk and Kahn) confirm that such a broad claim is unsupportable.

Ostrer, Harry (2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. OUP USA. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-19-537961-7. Are recent discoveries fragmentary and half-truths? I think not, because the molecular genetic studies of which Sand is critical have set the bar higher for discovery, reporting, and acceptance than the race science of a century ago—less stand-alone observation with more replication and more rigorous statistical testing. The stakes in genetic analysis are high. It is more than an issue of who belongs in the family and can partake in Jewish life and Israeli citizenship. It touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel. One can imagine future disputes about exactly how large the shared Middle Eastern ancestry of Jewish groups has to be to justify Zionist claims.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

If you want to see how a geneticist totally screws up history with a naive credulity that wouldn't be accepted in a high school paper, see pp.28-29 of his book, and the graph.

The census of King David counted 1.3 million males older than age 20 years. This figure implies a total population of 5 million, a number that was not achieved again until the nineteenth century,

The graph puts the total number of Jews around 1,000 BC at roughly 2 million.

You don't need to be familiar with a study like Magen Broshi, Israel Finkelstein,The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research No. 287 (Aug., 1992), pp. 47-60 p.54 (510,000 two centuries later - a relatively peaceful period that would, on Ostrer's figures, mean the population collapsed without any known reasion by 75%) to know that the figure is impossible, indeed fantastic. That utter absence of a critical imagination, in a matter of figures, tells you how careful anyone must be in trusting even O's area of competence.

As I said before paleogenetics has its methods. What many of them do not understand in the implications of their inferences for ancient history and why much of this work strikes historians as question-begging.Nishidani (talk) 21:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

What it means to be descended from the Middle East

The number of lines of descent going back 100 generations from one person is 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376. Given that this somewhat exceeds the number of people who ever lived, many people must appear many times in the family tree of each of us. This simple count doesn't tell us much more, but several sophisticated models have been developed. Clearly, a certain fraction of people don't leave descendants at all. It is believed true that with high probability most people alive today are descended from most people living 2000 years ago who left descendants. The exceptions, if any, would be those like Pacific islanders or Australian aborigines who were isolated from the rest of humanity for very long periods of time. Groups like Jews who have a negative view of intermarriage make no difference as it only takes a handful of Jews to leave descendants outside the fold during the Middle Ages for this semi-isolation to be statistically irrelevant. A starting point for literature about this is here.

So the answer to "who is descended from the ancient Israelites" is "all of us". Of course this isn't true if we consider the all-male line or the all-female line, which we hear about a lot from the geneticists for the simple reason that they are easier to infer from DNA data. It also isn't necessarily true for percentages, which affect things like disease frequencies. An Irish person might have a smaller fraction of their ancestors from the Levant than an Armenian, for example, but they will both have plenty of Levantine ancestors. The moral is that crude arguments that boil down to "we are descended from Eretz Yisrael and you are not" have no scientific basis.

Anyway, on this page we should present descent-based arguments as arguments that are made, not as arguments that are valid. And we should also present counterarguments. Only using sources in the context of Zionism in both cases. Zero^talk 04:27, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Hear hear. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Ditto.More or less the mathematics behind this geneticist's argument, which I have had to repeatedly post, because editors who cite genetic papers appear neither to understand them, nor grasp the technical problem raised by the general geneticist ignorance of history. I hope that now we may assume that the persistent habit of editors in evoking these nonsensical clichés - the hotair of racial nationalism - will stop. If it doesn't then we have a behavioural problem: abusing the encyclopedia by recycling a known fallacy.Nishidani (talk) 11:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

And claiming that said fallacy is supported by a majority/most scholars...ahem.Selfstudier (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I believe Nishidani is referring to this quote:

Jones, Steve (2013). The Serpent's Promise: The Bible Retold as Science. Little, Brown Book Group. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7481-2111-3. How far back must we go to find the most recent shared ancestor for – say – all Welsh people or all Japanese? And how much further is it to the last person from whom everyone alive today- Welsh, Japanese, Nigerian, or Papuan-can trace descent.. Speculative as they are, the results are a surprise. In a population of around a thousand people everyone is likely to share the same ancestor about ten generations. Some three hundred years- ago. The figure goes up at a regular rate for larger groups, which means that almost all native Britons can trace descent from a single anonymous individual on these islands who lived in about the thirteenth century. On the global scale, universal common ancestry emerges no more than a hundred generations ago-well into the Old Testament era, perhaps, around the destruction of the First Temple in about 600 B.C

So the Japanese people are descendents of the ancient Israelites - perhaps we should add that to their Wikipedia page.

Percentage of original genes remaining in a population group after generations of exogamy or conversion

On a separate but related (pardon the pun) note, I read recently that some 19th-century European Jewish communities were recorded to be intermarrying outside their groups at a rate of above 10%. Assuming a roughly static population size through much of the 2nd millennium, a consistent rate would mean that after just 30 generations modern Jews in those areas would have had only 4% (= 90% ^ 30) of their genes from the Jews who were living in those communities in the Middle Ages. And that excludes conversions etc. Extrapolating this, and adjusting for debates around the 10%, see the chart on the right. Even if 1 in every 100 people were intermarried or converted into the group over 100 generations, you still wouldn't have majority "Israelite" genes in the group today. And in most likely scenarios, given the scale of known converted nations, groups or tribes from non-Abrahamic religions to Judaism, the likely answer is somewhere in the second half of the table. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Lots of twaddle around here. If that were the case, (a) What purpose might be served by a growing number of studies comparing ancient populations with modern ones based on ancient DNA? (b) Why do DNA test results for contemporary Jews show Levantine ancestry? Why are Nablus-based Palestinians receiving DNA findings that indicate they are partially Ashkenazi/Sephardic Jews? (an obvious error, but possibly explained by the relatedness of Jews and other Levantine groups and the genetic proximity between Ashkenazi Jews and Islamized Samaritans in Nablus) (c) The extent of known conversions of groups to Judaism in antiquity is actually unknown, the only case widely accepted is that of the Edomites, a relatively small group which inhabited the area between Hebron and Beersheba; the notion of significant Khazar ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews has been rejected by conventional scholarship; and there isn't any solid proof supporting Feldman's claim that there was widespread prostelyzation throughout the Roman Empire. It seems to me that this entire discussion has lost any purpose; at this point, it is just a bunch of editors trying to deny the connection of modern Jews to the Israelites. Tombah (talk) 13:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I am writing an article on the subject of "Zionism, race and genetics", using the sources discussed here and a few others. It will provide part of the answer to your question (a). Your question (b) is already answered if you read the above - there has been consistent mixing for a very long time (you believe the mixing to be relatively small, I believe it to be significant - but to the point of where this whole conversation began, it still comes down to belief). Onceinawhile (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The good ol' "Zionism and...". There are too many articles about Zionism and not enough about the history of the Palestinians, for example. Maybe I'll write a piece about the origins of Palestinians − that could be an interesting topic to cover. (a) When I mentioned the gradually growing research on ancient populations' DNA, I wasn't necessarily referring to Jews. Check this [article] for example, which attempts to assess the genetic shifts that took place in the city of Rome and its vicinity from prehistory to modern times (Featuring an intriguing discovery, according which the city's residents experienced a sizable genetic influence from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East during the height of the city's imperial rule, maybe due to mass migration and slave trade originating in the Levant, Asia Minor and Egypt... perhaps this provides yet more evidence of the aftermath of the Jewish-Roman Wars, among other historical events and migrations?) (b) Mixing where exactly? While there has undoubtedly been mixing throughout history, the issue of quantifiable genetic distance across populations persists. Every single study has demonstrated that Ashkenazi Jews, for instance, are genetically closer to Cypriots and Italians than to northern European populations. Yes, you can discover British or German individuals with DNA data suggesting Jewish ancestry, but for obvious reasons, you'll find many more of those cases among Levantines, including Palestinians (Nablus, Safed/Nazareth, Unknown #3), Lebanese and even Jordanians. Once more, in my opinion, this is not necessarily evidence that those individuals are descended from Jewish communities, but rather that they share a genetic composition that causes the algorithm to classify them as Jewish rather than Levantine. Tombah (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Tombah. The twaddle is all yours. It is pointless therefore to engage you on this, since it just consists in wasting time in an WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT context. Why should I listen to you in nescient drival like the above with its in-your-face assertions that are immediately obvious counter-fgactual claims (further proof you haven't the slightest familiarity with the relevant historical scholarship)?

The extent of known conversions of groups to Judaism in antiquity is actually unknown, the only case widely accepted is that of the Edomites, a relatively small group which inhabited the area between Hebron and Beersheba

Rather than Simon Schama, to cite one of dozens of actual authorities, who writes, to instance just one example:

There had been so many conversions over the centuries since ther Hasmoneans forcibly imposed Judaism on the desert-dwelling, ethnically Arab-Iturians (yeah, ya forgot that, uh) and Idumeans, that it is impossible to differentiate Arabian Jews who had originated as emigrants from pre- or post- Temple destruction Palestine, and the multitudes of erstwhile pagan Arabs who had chosen Judaism rather than Christrianity as their monotheistic faith. Recent studies on the DNA of modern Yemeni Jews by the geneticist Batsheva Bonne-Tamir have confirmed their ancestral origin in south-western Arabian and Bedouin conversions.'(an allusion to Dhu Nuwas). Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews:Finding the Words, 1000BCE-1492 CE, Vintage Books 2013 p.234.

Geneticists generally know nothing of history, and it shows up in virtually every other paper. their Principle Component Analysis methodology is mathematically suspect, since the desired outcome is generally ascribable to the selective input used. One could go on, mentioning the extraordinary reluctance in Israel, based on religious taboos, to conduct large scale DNA analyses of skeletons for bones datable to the relevant BCE millennium and after. When finally the Jewish cemetery in Trastevere was excavated in 2017, the archaeologists were pressured to yield up the bones to rabbinic authorities who wanted them reburied, hence destroying one more change to get a genetic profile of those Jews in antiquity, of whatever origin.(Ariel David, 'Religion, Science Clash as Archaeologists Restore Ancient Jewish Catacomb in Rome,' Haaretz 16 October 2018 That way one secures the dogma that they were necessarily from the ME. Theyt may have been. They may have been also converts.) They exist in great abundance. It was a freak that the Erfurt excavation which revealed 'genetic heterogeneity' in that particular group of medieval Jews not carried through into their Ashkenazi descendants wasn't denied the right to conduct DNA testing. You don't understand the topic, and talk past everything thrown your way. Pointless.Nishidani (talk) 14:45, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

There's a reason I haven't mentioned the Itureans; archaeologists like Uzi Leibner contend that there is clear archaeological proof that Iturea remained outside Hasmonean borders and dispute Josephus's account of the Itureans' conversion (see the Hasmonean period on Galilee#History), And this is just one perspective on Yemenite Jews. Try reading Yemenite Jews#Genetic Studies and you'll see that there is no agreement on this issue. No big surprises around here: as always, among the full selection of theories, you choose the one that aligns most with your views. And as always, your writing style is dreadfully condescending, making it impossible for readers to relate to you and your message. Maybe if you didn't have this attitude, you'd be a little bit more successful in persuading others to adopt your perspective. You have probably heard that before. Anyway, I'll be watching the upcoming study on ancient Jewish DNA with keen interest; there are rumors that we may soon receive some samples from ancient Judah, but we'll have to wait and see. It is currently accepted that the majority of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews' ancestry originates from the ancient Middle East, and I am unable to think of any other possible source save the ancient Israelites, maybe with some related Levantine populations (Edomites, Syrians, Moabites, Adiabenes, etc.) thrown in the mix. Tombah (talk) 15:37, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Distraction fail. The problem remains the removal of "belief" as well as the insertion in the first place, both of which on the evidence presented, are just wrong. Not a matter of perspective, just POV and incorrect. Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

There was a British Israelite movement, but genetics don’t show them as being connected with the Levant in the way that studies of Jewish genetics do. Contemporary Jews have a well-established literary, religious, cultural, and genetic connection to the people and practices of Judea and Israel. The use of “belief” is a weasel word. Drsmoo (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

As long as it is made clear that there is a contradictory narrative, that appears equally strong, it makes no difference to me what words are used but belief does seem to me to be the simplest way of expressing the contradiction. Selfstudier (talk) 16:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Every serious book discussing the history of the Jews has traced their history back to ancient times. What is the “equally strong” contradictory narrative? Drsmoo (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Read this convo and don't try and confuse the issue. Selfstudier (talk) 16:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The connection between Jews today and the Jews of ancient times is well established. You claimed there is an “equally strong contradictory narrative”. Please articulate this narrative. Drsmoo (talk) 17:01, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

No. Everything needed is here in this section. If you have additional sources on the point do feel free to elucidate. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Because you don’t have one. It’s the logical fallacy of ambiguity. Drsmoo (talk) 17:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Another distraction fail. Yawn. Selfstudier (talk) 17:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The eye-opening sentence I am unable to think of any other possible source save the ancient Israelites, maybe with some related Levantine populations (Edomites, Syrians, Moabites, Adiabenes, etc.) thrown in the mix seems to be the whole problem. The research uses "Middle East" precisely because they have failed to narrow it down to the Levant. So please don't extrapolate. If you must persist with original research about Levantine populations, consider all the people who wrote the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions. They were very closely related, and the "paleo-Hebrew" writings are just a small part of the spectrum. DNA can't tell ancient Phoenicians apart from ancient Israelites, let alone further flung Middle Eastern ancient populations. As Falk says, we are simply unable to tell who Jews descended from in ancient times, and it is highly likely this will remain the case because as Zero says, the answer is that they descended from everyone. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

@Tombah: The key to your "twaddle" assertion is in my sentence "It also isn't necessarily true for percentages". Population genetics, when it is isn't focussed on male-only or female-only lines, works on averages not absolutes. Imagine two populations A and B of a million people each, with equal birth and death rates so the population doesn't vary over time. Suppose they are entirely separate for 49 generations, then in the 50th generation 1 person moves from A to B and 1 person from B to A, then they are entirely separate for another 50 generations. Then with high probability every person in both A and B is descended from all the original inhabitants of both A and B. However, if you count 100-generation descent lines rather than the number of ancestors, only one millionth of the descent lines of a current inhabitant of A originated in B. Statistical genetic markers work on descent line counts (to first approximation), not on ancestor counts, so the populations of A and B test different despite them having the same set of ancestors. No twaddle, just mathematics. Zero^talk 15:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Zero, this is interesting. I am not sure I fully understand your key point that Statistical genetic markers work on descent line counts (to first approximation), not on ancestor counts. In my table above with 5% mixing per generation over 100 generations leaving an average of just 1% of the original gene pool within the group, are you saying that this would look different on descent line counts and ancestor counts? Also to do my table properly I should probably consider how to incorporate the male-only or female-only perspectives given that most studies seem to focus on non-Mendelian mitochondria. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Once, I'm simplifying a lot of course. Consider a simple model where half of one's genetics comes from each parent. You have 16 great-great-grandparents and on average you can expect 1/16 of your genetics from each. Now suppose that two of the 16 are actually the same person, so you have only 15 different great-great-grandparents. It isn't true that you expect 1/15 of your genetics from each; rather you get 2/16 from the duplicate person and 1/16 from the others. So to determine the contribution from each ancestor you need to count the descent lines from them. If instead we are considering features inherited mostly from the mother, or mostly from the father, it becomes more complicated as we have to treat descent lines differently according to their gender mix. However it is still true that the descent lines and not the mere counting of ancestors is what determines our likely makeup. In the case of attributes inherited solely from the mother or solely from the father, the same is true in the extreme sense: only one descent line matters and the identity of all other ancestors is irrelevant. There's nothing strange about, say, the male-line ancestor coming from one place and the majority of all descent lines originating somewhere else. In all these cases, a very complicated stochastic model is needed to do a proper analysis but I don't know that anyone has done it. It is way beyond the mathematical ability of the average geneticist. Zero^talk 01:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Zero, that is clear - as you say, descent lines is the only way to calculate what percent of a person is made up from a certain group of ancestors. My simple chart approximates that.

So, as you say above, a person has 1.3 nonillion descent lines going back 100 generations, and within that is likely related to almost all 100 billion people who have ever lived. However, in contrast to these huge numbers, they will have only 100 pure patrilineal or matrilineal ancestors.

So there are people out there who are patrilineally descended from Moses, which when we find his bones we will be able to prove, but they could be 0.000000001% Israelite by the rest of their ancestry. The statistical connection between "patrilineal/matrilineal descent" and "average ancestry" would be a very interesting question for study - perhaps it has already been done. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:53, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

New article: Zionism, race and genetics

See Zionism, race and genetics. All support, edits and sources to build out the article would be appreciated. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I see Tombah has just begun the new article Origin of the Palestinians. Even though it is an apparent case of “tit for tat” (per their comment at 15:19, 8 July 2023), it strikes me as an interesting topic to cover in detail. It will be a very different type of article because Palestinian nationalism is land-based rather than race-based; their connection to the land is based on legal documents not national myths. Also, genetic studies on Jews compare their DNA to Palestinians in order to try to prove their descent, thereby implicitly accepting Palestinian historical descent in the process. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

An improvement over "There's no such thing..." at least :/ Selfstudier (talk) 11:17, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

You're not hiding your biases at all, are you?... The real interesting article would be "Palestinian views on Jewish history", as denial of evidence for Jewish ancestry from the Israelites, and the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, is apparently typical. Tombah (talk) 11:34, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

By all means start it. Here's a good source, esp. on numerous Arab and palestinian remarks on the kinship between Jews and Arabs. Jonathan Marc Gribetz, Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter,Princeton University Press 2014 ISBN 978-0-691-17346-7.

Non responsive. Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

In the last few days there has been a multitude of high quality sources brought here which confirm there is no scientific evidence for the Zionist belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews. Tombah, why would you expect Palestinians or people from any other country to take a different view in the face of no evidence? And why are you singling out Palestinians here, as if their position on the matter is unique? Onceinawhile (talk) 20:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 15 September 2023

Change Reference [43]: The metioned quote is on page 27 of the original document, not 29! Mbeeezy (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

 Note: in the article, it does state 27,29. M.Bitton (talk) 23:37, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: per M.Bitton. StartOkayStop (talk) 05:10, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Edit request

"Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position (Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973)."

I think "intellectually and morally disreputable" is a value judgment and should be removed from this article. To note that some consider it so is fine; to simply present it as fact, not so much. Thanks. User: Scott.huler — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott.huler (talk • contribs) 21:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

"In China, top figures of the Nationalist government, including Sun Yat-sen, expressed their sympathy with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a National Home."

This sentence is misleading, the Republic of China (Taiwan) is not recognised or referred to internationally as China.

It should be changed to "In Taiwan, top figures of..." Endim8 (talk) 00:46, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

No change needed. at the time Taiwan was owned by Japan. Sun Yat Sen was a leader of what is now China. Rjensen (talk) 00:50, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

"and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jewish tradition as the Land of Israel" it should be added "or Palestine in modern times" or equivalent. This is what it has been called outside the Zionist perspective. Even from the Zionist perspective, early Zionist thinkers and leaders like Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, and Meir also used the name Palestine to refer to the region. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:57, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Importantly, the first official manifesto of the Zionist movement named the land as Palestine. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to this but would be a little repetitive given it's in the second and third paras already. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

BobFromBrockley has a point. If you include the phrase Ottoman Palestine, the word Palestine appears in the lead 4 times already, which greatly helps neutrality in an article about a Jewish movement to settle the Land of Israel. But possibly to address Makeandtoss' point, the current opening sentence would do better to define the movement in terms of the general idea to settle the Palestine (region), and leave the specifics of which iteration of Palestine it actually came into conflict with (Ottoman Palestine first, Mandatory Palestine later) for subsequent paragraphs. For example, the final sentence could be amended to read, Critics of Zionism view it as a colonialist, racist or exceptionalist ideology or movement that competes with Palestinian nationalism for the same territory. Havradim leaf a message 10:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It somewhat is what it is. That was the terminology at the time. What to do. It was certainly worth clarifying the break /distinction between Ottoman/Mandatory Palestine in the third paragraph though. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

As a follow-up, I boldly removed the word Ottoman from the first sentence, which was not even linked properly anyway. Havradim leaf a message 10:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Havradim: Why did you remove the 2nd link to Ottoman Palestine? Iskandar323 (talk) 11:10, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Iskandar323, in my edit summary I implied that it violated MOS:OL, but what I was really referring to was MOS:DL, which is further down the same guideline page. Havradim leaf a message 20:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, but you also removed the first link in the prior edit, so both links are now gone. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

You are correct, reinstated now, thanks. Havradim leaf a message 20:31, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This article needs revised to reflect the historical accuracy of the land. What is listed in this article as Palestine was not Palestine at the time of the creation of Isreal. Infact the nation of Isreal predates Palestine back to 722 BCE with the first exile of the jewish people from Jerusalem known as the Assyrian excile. The "creation" of the "modern" state of Isreal is founded on thier long standing and historically documented ownership of the land of Isreal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B115:5E7B:B18E:FD7C:59AA:52A8 (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Grand Isle is Grand Island

Grand Island, NY is the correct place name under the section that begins "Moral but not practical efforts ..." and refers to Mordecai Noah. See this source for use of the correct name: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mordecai-manuel-noah/ Sgardner2 (talk) 11:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• What I think should be changed (format using {{textdiff}}): is a nationalist[fn 1] movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine,[3][4][5][6] a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition.[
• Why it should be changed:extremely bias and can lead to people believing the misinformation. Should be changed to “ Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. What is known as modern Zionism emerged in the mid-19th century in tandem with the rise of the nation-state and widespread national liberation movements across Europe. In the case of the Jews, it was also in response to a long history of intense anti-Jewish hatred, persecution, and discrimination in countries and societies across the world where Jews lived, including in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Zionism is a big tent movement that includes those across the spectrum from progressives, moderates and conservatives and those who are apolitical.”
• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button): https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/zionism

2600:1017:B8C3:9EA2:85FB:8A6D:1360:7674 (talk) 14:51, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

References

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. M.Bitton (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 November 2023

Please Change Zionism became an ideology that supports "the development and protection of the State of Israel" to Zionism became a settler-colonial ideology that supports "the development and protection of the State of Israel".

Mralroumi (talk) 09:10, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:06, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Population numbers seem to differ between pages.

On this page we have a certain number stated for total population and breakdown by Muslims/Christian/Jews.

On a related page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) the numbers are significantly higher. Can we reconcile these numbers and get to an accurate number? Rkd80 (talk) 04:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Mental Illness

Why are there no mentions of the obvious links between Zionism and mental illness such as Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, etc... We have a long record of their mental health issues in Israel and the article for APD blatantly exemplifies the traits of Zionism. We have a long record of their actions.

"Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD or APD) is a personality disorder characterized by a limited capacity for empathy and a long-term pattern of disregard or violation of the rights of others.[3][4] Other notable symptoms include impulsivity and reckless behavior (including substance abuse), a lack of remorse after hurting others, deceitfulness, irresponsibility, and aggressive behavior."

There are sources from mental health professionals attributing the perspective with mental illness. https://www.standwithus.com/post/george-washington-university-professor-accused-of-anti-semitism-says-zionism-is-a-mental-illness for instance. Do we need to dig up a laundry list of sources so unbiased representation of this topic is even allowed. Or is wikipedia only here to press an agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.59.230.15 (talk) 14:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Missing Information in History Section

Modern Zionism needs to be discussed on this page, especially with how relevant it has become with the current conflict between Israel and Palestine.

At the moment, the history section only mentions Zionism up to the 1940s. There is certainly additional information that can be added to this article. Considering how many people will be visiting this page in the coming months, it is critical that it is not lacking information.

Many people are getting exposed to the idea for the first time with how much media attention it is getting, and this article provides absolutely no information regarding modern Zionism. To some, this could even imply that Wikipedia is censoring information.

An update is needed expeditiously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnawg (talk • contribs) 18:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

rewrite

I think things are getting a little out of hand here especially in the current climate. Someone in talk is actually trying to make the argument of zionism and personality disorders going hand in hand, citing someone who has no clinical psychology. In another comment another user is accusing Wikipedia of censorship (although on a personal note I do agree the article could do more to expand on how the definition has changed over time. Regardless I think we all should step away from this article for a while and try and maybe reach out to a neutral party or two. Dabrams13 (talk) 15:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry typed on the phone. No clinical psychopathology experience ie relating to evidence based treatment, etiology, prognosis, and diagnosis of personality disorders. Dabrams13 (talk) 06:34, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 November 2023

Zionism is a decease. Zionism is terrorism Yas11111111 (talk) 07:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Add more details about early 19th century foundation of Zionism

Only a single line is given about the fascinating early 19th century period, which laid an important foundation for late 19th century Zionism. Could I suggest that the following be used in place of that single line?:

In the early 19th century, a group of Jews known as the perushim left Lithuania to settle in Ottoman Palestine.  They were inspired by a prophecy in the Zohar (book of Jewish mysticism) which indicated that the Messiah would appear in the year 5600 AM (1839-1840 CE).  This interpretation of the Zohar gained credence in many parts of the Jewish world and inspired some immigration from several of these communities, starting in 1808.  Jewish populations grew, not only in the four holy cities (Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed), but in eight other cities as well.  A census in 1839 by Montefiore indicated that 6,547 Jews were living in these 12 cities at that time.  Although the community was disappointed that the Messiah did not appear in the predicted year, 1839-40 was the year that the rights of citizenship were extended to non-Muslims, as the Ottoman authorities (with their Tanzimat reforms) re-took control of the Palestine from the Egyptians.  This allowed Jews to own property and establish businesses, which became a critical foundation step for later Zionism.

Source: Hastening Redemption--Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel by Arie Morgenstern, Chapters 2, 3 & 8 published by Oxford University Press, 2006 Jetstream423 (talk) 05:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Non-Zionist (Messianic) emigration to Israel would be appropriate for other articles. The only content relevant to Zionism is th claim that re-establishment of Ottoman control (from Egyptian) and legal reforms strengthened the Zionist national claim. Ben Azura (talk) 05:34, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

You could certainly add those points. It might be more accurate to say that "the re-establishment of Ottoman control from Egypt in 1840 and the resulting extension of rights to the non-Muslim populations 'opened a door' [rather than 'strengthened'] for the Zionist national claim. (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

edit request 2023-11-23

In the 'Anti-Zionism' section of this page there is a rather large quote..

It has been claimed that "Denying the Jewish people their basic human rights, including the right to self-determination, is anti-Semitism. This basic right is fulfilled by the existence of the State of Israel. It is protected and advanced by the political movement to guarantee Jewish self-determination – Zionism. Zionism is about the Jewish people, and does not compete with any other people’s basic human right of self-determination. As anti-Zionism seeks to undermine this basic right of the Jewish, it is anti-Semitic.

A very large quote following the words "It has been claimed..." felt very awkward when I was reading it. Especially considering how this section begins..

Zionism is opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. It has been claimed that "Denying ...

In my view the next thing after the first sentence is a sentence with a short list of organisations or individuals who oppose Zionism. What we actually see is a lengthy quote explaining why one should support Zionism. This is out of place at the beginning of a section on Anti-Zionism.

suggested fix: remove the quote entirely, add short sentence listing groups or individuals that oppose Zionism. Sorniva (talk) 05:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it is out of place and inappropriate. Zero^talk 07:32, 23 November 2023 (UTC)