Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jewish culture

Jewish culture NA‑class

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I happened to see a comment in Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian football that led me to an article with a section about antisemtism. Should the article’s talkpage be tagged with this wikiproject's banner? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Hi Ottawahitech. I may be the only editor who belongs to both WP:WikiProject African diaspora and this WikiProject. Maybe I should create an infobox! If you want an answer to your question, you ought to ask it at WT:WikiProject Judaism, which is the active WikiProject for Judaism-related articles. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 00:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Malik Shabazz: Just caught me on the way out :-) I thought about posting this to wp: WikiProject Judaism, but I have been told (somewhere, sometime, on wikipedia) that Judaism is about the religion, and jewish is about the ethnic group. Thanks for remembering to ping me btw. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Hi Ottawahitech. You're correct; Judaism is a religion, philosophy, culture, and way of life; Jews are people. Although there have been efforts over the years to create WikiProjects about non-religious Jewish subjects—Jewish culture, Jewish history, the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906), even American Jews—almost all have faded because of lack of interest and only two remain: WP:WikiProject Judaism and WP:WikiProject Jewish Women. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:07, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please 'adopt' this article and make it passable for WP:DYK? IMO it is a notable subject, but IMO WPDYK wpdyk turned into a walled garden nominating selves or each other, and their rules grew formal arcanity. I have troubles with using computer: it took me over 5 hours to write this stub, and unfortunately I am leaving it now. - Altenmann >talk 23:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I am not going to nominate it for DYK myself. I consider doing this bad taste or a symptom of wikiholism.- Altenmann >talk 16:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering how do you define who is Jewish on Wikipedia since being Jewish seems to cross between religious and ethnic/cultural categories (i left the same post on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism). What would be sufficient sourcing? I have searched all the relevant help pages but cannot seem to find a definitive answer. Assigning religious identity to living people requires self-identification (Wikipedia:BLPCAT) while deceased people may be identified without self-identification (e.g. "services were held at Temple xxxx"). Being Jewish as an ethnicity does not seem to require such a high hurdle (Wikipedia:ETHNICRACECAT). I was told that in order to designate a person as Jewish I would need multiple irrevocable sources that specifically state that the reference is referring to ethnicity in order to include. As most citations do not specify whether the subject is Jewish by faith or descent, they would not be sufficient. For example, Edits to Maurice Kremer (1824–1907) have been removed since I do not have multiple sources and the one I do have does not specify whether it refers to religion or ethnicity.

• "Maurice Kremer: Very Early Pioneer Jewish Merchant and Civil Servant of Los Angeles". Jewish Museum of the American West. Retrieved April 9, 2018.

and Evelyn Danzig Haas have been removed despite having an interview where she states she was confirmed and her parents attended temple during the high holy days

• Reiss, Susan B. (1995). "Evelyn Danzig Haas - Fine Arts and Family: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philanthropy, Writing, and Haas Family Memories - Interviews Conducted by Susan B. Reiss". Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley.

and despite her funeral being held at Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco)

• Cabanatuan, Michael (27 June 2011). "Philanthropist, arts patron Evelyn Haas dies". SF Gate.

For living people, I am told that I need to demonstrate a verified consensus of reliable sources that indicate that their being Jewish is key to their notability in addition to self-identification. see Bruce Berkowitz with three sources deemed insufficient

• The Jewish Businessman Who Beats Warren Buffett At His Own Game. 19 July 2009
• Forbes: "Bruce Berkowitz Dances Quietly to the Beat of His Own Investment Drum" "He is of Jewish descent and is active in his community. The value investor donated $6.75 million to the Center for Jewish History in 2011."
• Grego, Gabriele (December 8, 2014). "The Jewish Origins of Value investing". The Times of Israel. It also should be pointed out that most value investors, including Benjamin Graham, Seth Klarman, Bruce Berkowitz, Bruce Greenwald, Lawrence Tisch and Joel Greenblatt, are Jewish.

If this is the standard, it seems that there will be very few Jewish biographies left (I was perusing "Jewish writers" and very few would stand up to this level of scrutiny). Patapsco913 (talk) 18:52, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion of Lists of Jewish people on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Coffee removing Categories and Lists Inappropriately has been started. I would imagine it will also encompass what sourcing is required to define someone as Jewish.Patapsco913 (talk) 14:21, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Does WikiProject Judaism or WikiProject Jewish history have guidelines for when to classify subjects of biographic articles as "Jewish", "people of Jewish descent", etc? I have not seen any such guidance. I have noticed that many editors, who may be coming from a non-Jewish perspective and may not understand Jewish identity, inaccurately classify many Jews as non-Jews. I have seen Jewish descriptors removed from articles about secular Jews, formerly religious Jews referred to as "former Jews", and so forth. I have seen people placed into categories as being merely "people of Jewish descent", when they are indeed Jews. These presumably non-Jewish editors seem to not comprehend that Jewish identity is not only a religious identity, but a socio-cultural and ethnic identity as well. I have also seen non-Jewish Messianic Christians classified as Jews, when Jewish communities and Jewish movements overwhelmingly reject this self-identification.

One more issue; the categories for Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc. There seems to be no guidance for when to classify a person as Ashkenazi or Sephardi. The categories are currently organized according to ancestry. People with both Ashkenazi and Sephardi ancestors are typically categorized as both. Ashkenazi and Sephardi identity is more complicated than that. Being Ashkenazi or Sephardi can be considered a person's minhag, their ethnicity, or both. An Ashkenazi Orthodox woman who marries a Sephardi man may adopt her husband's minhag and consider herself Sephardi. A person with mixed ancestry and an Ashkenazi father may only consider themselves Ashkenazi, due to minhag being passed down on the patrilineal line. A convert through Chabad will adopt an Ashkenazic minhag. I think it would be useful to clarify these distinctions in articles and categories and clearly state how we are classifying people.

For these reasons and others, I think it could be useful to have inclusive but clear guidelines for determining Jewish identity. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 10:04, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]