Talk:List of Canadian Jews

Discrepancy

I am new to this website, but I have spent a significant amount of time reviewing the pages on notability, deletion, and editing. I am having an extremely hard time adding a prominent Jewish Canadian artist to this Wiki page: Norman Leibovitch. I have included sources which state that he is: Canadian, Jewish, an Artist, and was prominent prior to his death in 2002. This seems to be the qualifications for adding someone to a list such as this. 117Avenue continues to delete my entry based on lack of references or article. While there is currently no Wikipedia article on Norman Leibovitch, there are plenty of other names on that list which also have no articles, as well as NO REFERENCES. I believe that 117Avenue is abusing their editing power in the use of speedy deletion. I would appreciate it if an administrator could please look into this issue and let me know what they think. I find it a bit absurd that a prominent Canadian Jewish artist cannot be added to a list of Canadian Jewish artists when there are sufficient sources to show that he meets the criteria for the page. Thank you. Zkamel86 02:16, 9 March 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zkamel86 (talk • contribs)

Confirmations

Can anyone confirm whether Mark Achbar or Peter Wintonick are Jewish? (Reasons to suspect they probably are: Achbar is listed as Jewish at [1] and Wintonick served on the Film Advisory Committee at the 8th Annual Montreal Jewish Film Festival.) -Udzu 13:18, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Time to sort out the entries marked uncofirmed:

• Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick: see comments above – marking confirmed.
• Paulo Costanzo: can't find anything – will remove in a few days unless something crops up.
• Alice Parizeau: Polish-born but, unless someone knows anything to the contrary, probably not Jewish. She was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen as a Polish resistance member. There is no reference to her Jewishness anywhere online (outside of Wikipedia) – will ask User:YUL89YYZ who added her, then remove unless confirmed.
• Mark Strand: see [2], [3] (though there is a possibility that Strand is only half-Jewish) – marking confirmed.

Comments? -Juko 11:06, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

While we're at it, does anyone know if Julia Levy, the microbiologist, is Jewish? Juko

Eric Berne

User:65.8.126.42 seems to think Eric Berne is not Jewish. Here are some pages that I have found indicating he is:

• JEWISH PSYCHOLOGISTS
• Can. J. Women Artists & Dr. Eric Berne
• Tim Wise and White Privilege: A Response

Please add any sites that indicate the opposite opinion. --YUL89YYZ 15:26, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've added "(Canadian-born)" to the Eric Berne entry. --YUL89YYZ 15:32, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

=====

Not that he's not Jewish, that he's not British-Canadian. I do not think that Louis Siminovitch is Jewish though, just incase you'd like to know.

Maureen Forrester

I'm not sure what the point of a list of Jewish Canadians is, but I've added Maureen Forrester who converted to Judaism. CMacMillan 22:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Dave Barrett

Barrett did not merely have a Jewish father. He was fully Jewish and in fact was the only Jew so far to have served as a provincial premier. I looked in the Weinfeld article that was linked to suggest this and I see no mention of Barrett only being half-Jewish.

Title of this article

Shouldn't the title be "List of Prominent Canadian Jews" (or similar), rather than just "List of Canadian Jews"? With the current title, the article is either going to be very incomplete or extremely long.

Wanderer57 22:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the title of this article should be "Famous Canadian Jews" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.49.164 (talk) 19:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Interlocker

Will someone please explain what an interlocker is? The term is used in this article. Thanks. Wanderer57 19:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Mavis Gallant

I couldn't find any references to her being Jewish...are we sure this is right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.199.29.222 (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy

I wonder if there is any kind of criteria for a name to be included on this list, as there are a number of questionable inclusions, many of which seem to derive from a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes one a Jew.

You are Jewish if your mother was Jewish, or if you convert. Period. There is no such thing as being "half-Jewish" -- you either are or you aren't. A person with a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father who has never practiced is a Jew. A person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother who has been observant of Jewish laws and attended synagogue his entire life is not, unless he or she has converted.

I count 11 names of people who are listed as having a "Jewish father." Well, unless they also have a Jewish mother or have converted, they are not Jewish and should be removed. Specifically, they are: John Charles Polanyi; James Laxer; Liane Balaban; Jessalyn Gilsig; Robbie Robertson; David Usher; Nicholas Goldschmidt; Anne Michaels; Jamie Glazov; Eric Margolis; and Adam Stern. And those are only the ones where it is explicitly stated.

There is also the issue of Neve Campbell, who is a practicing Roman Catholic, yet according to her wiki, she "identifies" herself as Jewish because of her mother's heritage. Without knowing the specifics of her mother background, it is difficult to know whether she herself is in fact Jewish.

Finally, there is Pierre Anctil, who is explicitly identified as a non-Jew, so why is he on the list? Does anyone have information to suggest why any of these names should remain on the list? If not, I'll start removing them.67.71.94.24 (talk) 21:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

there are many different ways in which a person might be a Jew, and whether the person fulfills the Orthodox halachic requirements is only one of them. Adopting this as the criterion here is adopting the view of one of the sects of Judaism--although it is , to be sure, the longest standing traditional criterion through history, and is the one currently being used for the purposes of family law in the state of Israel, it is probably not the only one used by the majority of present-day Jews in Canada or elsewhere. Even Israel does not use it for the purposes of immigration law. The consensus here is that anyone who is regularly identified as a Jew by reliable sources, or who self-identifies as a Jew, will be considered here as Jewish--just as for all other religious or ethnic groups. DGG ( talk ) 16:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

That is all fair comment. Yes there are halachic differences depending on whether one is Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. But that doesn't answer the fundamental question I raised -- what is the standard? (I would note parenthetically I raised it almost two years ago -- with you being the first to respond, I question if you can say there is any consensus). You suggest that this consensus is that someone who is regularly identified as a Jew by reliable sources, or who self-identifies as as Jew, that person is Jewish. And I don't necessarily think that is a bad criterion (although self-identification is a pretty wishy washy criterion). However, many of the names I listed do not meet that test. They may have a Jewish parent, but does that provide evidence that they are "regularly identified as a Jew by reliable sources" or that they "self-identify as a Jew"? No. I will again raise the question of Neve Campbell, who is a practicing Roman Catholic, yet identifies in some metaphysical sense with her mother's Jewish "heritage." What is the nature and degree of that heritage? Would it meet the test of any level of observance, be it Reform or Orthodox? Bottom line is there needs some degree of certainty as far as what is acceptable.PoliSciMaster (talk) 04:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok i see the problem - Dont think we should be labelling people at all but thats besides the point - Y dont we simply rename the list to List of Canadian with Jews ancestry. This is not the best way - However the word "ancestry" does not imply they are practising Jews, just that they have a "Ethnic" connection. Moxy (talk) 04:38, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

No need to. That's the common understanding of the term.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:33, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps common outside the Jewish community, but it is quite a debate within the community.PoliSciMaster (talk) 07:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

We're not going to get into Satmar vs. Lubavitch vs. Modern Orthodox vs. Conservative vs. Reform vs. Reconstructionist vs. Neturai Karta debates here. Nor will we debate whether the Baal Shem Tov was really the messiah. Thank God.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Alan S. Ruddy

Where in the world does it say that Alan S. Ruddy is Jewish? I think that that is entirely speculation. Could someone verify that? Please and Thank you.108.81.112.110 (talk) 23:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)