User talk:Sebastian Panwitz

Hello Sebastian Panwitz! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 10:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial • The five pillars of Wikipedia How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Build consensus • Resolving disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Pages needing attention • Peer review Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Judensohn

Dear Sebastian - do you think 'son of a Jew' is really the best translation for 'Judensohn'? It is not idiomatic English and it was not Mendelssohn's sense when speaking with Devrient. The point of his comment was that he was Jewish, not that he was the son of a Jew. I believe a more accurate translation might be 'Jewboy' (which carries with it a deliberate mocking of anti-Jewish insults) - but this is rather controversial. In the circumstances I believe it is best to translate it simply as 'Jew' (which is how Devrient's 19th century English translator translated it), giving the German 'Judensohn' in brackets. Best regards, --Smerus (talk) 17:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear David, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy never regarded himself a Jew. "Jewry" was a matter of religion in 19th century Germany, not of ethnicity. He himself was not circumcised, not raised in Jewish tradition and baptized at the age of 11. He regarded himself and felt like a Christian German (not a Jewish German). At the same time, he never hid his Jewish descent but was proud of it, somehow. So when he referred to himself as Judensohn, it meant just that: son of a Jew, son of his father Abraham, who was born and raised Jewish, who was circumcised, who married Jewish, who was subject to special laws ("Judenrecht") etc. "Son of a Jew" probably sounds a bit strange, and my English is too poor to find a better translation. But "Judensohn" definitly does not mean "Jew". If Felix would have wanted to say that, he simply would have written "Jude". Do you have any idea how to put this term into a more appropriate English? Best regards, Sebastian Panwitz (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, perhaps we can agree on 'a Jew's son' for 'Judensohn', which is anyway a bit more idiomatic. (You probably know Zelter's leter to Goethe, where he describes the young Felix as ein Judensohn, aber keiner Jude because Abraham did not have him circumcised - the only other application I know of this term to Felix). Felix's comment to Devrient is the only occasion we have I think where Mendelssohn refers to himself, to anyone outside of his family, as having Jewish origins, which makes it particularly interesting. I entirely agree with you that he felt himself as a Christian German, yet was proud of his Jewish descent. But he seems to have been very careful with his private opinions and to have displayed them rarely. Best regards, --Smerus (talk) 08:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

'a Jew's son' is perfect, thank-you very much for finding this term! The attitude of the baptised Mendelssohns towards Jewry and their own Jewish descent is a fascinating topic, you are right. Best regards, Sebastian Panwitz (talk) 10:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

January 2021

Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to Dancing in the Street, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. Thank you. DonIago (talk) 18:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

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