Talk:The Invention of the Jewish People

Some thoughts ...

I think that the material related to recent genetic testing should be removed from the Lead to the body of the article. The Lead should be returned to the state where it just noted that the book had "generated a heated controversy," At the moment, in my opinion, the Lead section reads very oddly.

The new material contains some odd features. Firstly, it states that a major thesis of the book has been contradicted without stating what that thesis is, which must bemuse a lot of readers. Secondly, it talks in terms of journalists' claims, when what we should be interested in is what the scientists have to say.

On the subject of the origin of Eastern European Jews in the article as a whole, I find it curious that it is so lacking in detail on what Sand actually says, for which the book could fairly easily be used as a source without indulging in original research. For instance, the article could mention that Sand bases his arguments on linguistic and historical written evidence. That being the case, it would be good to know what Sand's critics have to say about those arguments. The article could also mention what Sand has to say about the DNA tests conducted prior to the writing of the book, which is that, for instance, the results of succeeding tests contradicted previous ones, though Sand does concede that they had firmly established the close-relatedness of Cohens.

If I remember rightly, what Sand argues is that the main ancestral source of Eastern European Jews is from a migration of Middle Eastern Jews northwards and from local conversions rather than Western European Jews migrating eastwards. The question of the relative contributions of migrants to converted locals is left open, though. As far as I can see, the tests don't actually contradict Sand as clarify what the relative contributions were.

Ironically, the Newsweek article by Sharon Begley seems to go further than Sand when talking about conversion to Judaism in the Roman era: During that period Jews proselytized with an effectiveness that would put today’s Mormons to shame: at the height of the Roman Empire, as the Roman historian Josephus chronicled, mass conversions produced 6 million practicing Jews, or 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire.

    ←   ZScarpia   02:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Good points. I also see some problem with that section of the intro. I agree totally on the point about journalists views trumping experts/geneticists views as has recently been attempted here, (see later detail*) and agree that as you say it discusses something BEFORE clarifying what that something is. But that could be fixed with a bit of a rewrite. (Viz. mentioning teh Khazars) Basically I see that section as summarising the position that is later gone into in more detail under the DNA sub-section. I myself have no hard opinion on whether that is necessary or not in the intro. But lean towards its inclusion and better wording to adress your concerns.

*About a month ago I added a summary of the understanding of a Michigan University geneticist to create what I see as better balance and greater accuracy of consensus view in the introduction. I think. It has been reworded twice in that time. Now someone is deleting it all together for reasons that I think are not justifiable. At present we have a summary of how some journalists think that there is no genetical research to support the Khazar hypothesis. That apparently is NOT supported by the evidence according to this geneticist/expert. He says the evidence is not conclusive either way. The intro did not reflect that ambiguity before my addition. On the contrary, it claimed there was no ambiguity. NoMoreMrNiceGuy keeps deleteing the balancing statement for reasons that I don't believe hold up under scrutiny. Firstly becuase he thought the source did not include any such statement like that. Then h when challenged, to saying the source didn't support the wording in the leader. And then when I attempted to adress his concern with another rewite, he just included the exact actual quote which I pointed him to and which already appears under the appropriate DNA RESEARCH heading later on the page. I think a summary of the quote is more appropriate as it is balancing a summary of others viewpoints which is also without quotes = better balance. In conclusion, if we retain the journalsist viewpoints my position is that to ONLY say the evidence does not support the Khazar hypothesis is neither fair, nor balanced nor even accurate. Therefore I would like the balancing addition from the Michigan geneticist to remain in some form.

On the other hand, if we take your view and delete this part altogether then the problem I have with it is eliminated AND that would then avoid an edit war between myself and NoMoreMrNiceGuy :-J --Mystichumwipe (talk) 11:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mystichumwipe (talk • contribs)

I disagree. First of all, Science is an academic scientific journal, so your argument about journalists vs. scientists just doesn't fly. The Science article specifically puts the genetic claims in the context of Sand's book, and this information is therefor very appropriate in this article.

Second, we have several very high quality RS making a claim, and there is no reason not to include it, per wikipedia policy. Even if they are journalists and not scientists. Do you have a policy based objection to including this stuff?

If you want to add more about Sand's thesis using his book as the source, feel free to do so. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:05, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think its being questioned whether the Science journalists opinions are "appropriate" for the article or not. The question was whether that is "appropriate" in the introduction or not. --Mystichumwipe (talk) 20

51, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Why not? Several high quality RS published something that puts his main theory in question. Why shouldn't that be in the lead? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:09, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Highly notable, as reflected in RS coverage, and therefore appropriate for the lead.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

NMMNG, when you say that it puts Sand's "main theory" into question, what exactly do you mean by his main theory?     ←   ZScarpia   23:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, his main theory regarding the origin of Eastern European Jews, which is a major part of a larger theory about the origins of modern Jews in general. Better? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Sand's "main theory" is not at all about Jewish history in the sense of what happened to Jews over hundreds of years, but rather about historiography -- how this history has come to be written and reinterpreted over time. So the question of the extent to which European Jews originate from migrants from the Middle East compared rather than from converts in Europe is actually marginal. He is more interested, and his book is more concerned, in how this question has been discussed by different historians, and the ideological influences leading to this. If you choose to disagree with his thesis, you should at least disagree with what he writes, and not with a superficial and misleading pastiche. RolandR (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I support following ZScarpia's suggestion to remove both the journalists' reports on the genetic studies and the geneticist's rejoinder form the article lead. They would be better discussed in the body of the article.StN (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Some Jewish Hapmap Project and genetic research links:

• A copy of New York University's own, clearly written, press release about the recent research.
• Langone Medical Center homepage.
• Langone Medical Center faculty and staff.
• Speaker biography for Harry Ostrer: Harry Ostrer, M.D. is a long-time investigator of the genetics of the Jewish people. He has chronicled this field in a forthcoming book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People (Oxford University Press, 2011). For over 30 years, he has studied the genetic basis of Mendelian disorders in Jewish populations and implemented new genetic tests and screening programs to benefit Jewish people.
• Common Genetic Threads Link Thousands of Years of Jewish Ancestry: Science Daily report on Harry Ostrer's recent research. Directly contradicting Sand, Ostrer says: "We have shown that Jewishness can be identified through genetic analysis, so the notion of a Jewish people is plausible."
• Analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Genomes Reveals Diversity, History: 2010 Science Daily report on work done by a team at Emory University (whose results have been published online). "Through genomic analysis, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have shown that the Ashkenazi Jewish population is genetically more diverse than people of European descent, despite previous assumptions that Ashkenazi Jews have been an isolated population." "The researchers were able to estimate that between 35 and 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome comes from European descent." "'Our study represents the largest cohort of Ashkenazi Jews examined to date with such a high density of genetic markers, and our estimate of admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates that used the Y chromosome to calculate European admixture at between five and 23 percent,' Bray says." Despite showing that the Ashkenazi Jewish population is genetically more diverse than people of European descent, Bray says "that his group's analysis agrees with a recently published study from New York University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and supports estimates of a high level of European admixture, accounting for up to half of the genetic make-up of contemporary Ashkenazi."
• Jews Are The Genetic Brothers Of Palestinians, Syrians, And Lebanese: Science Daily story from 2000 on the work of Harry Ostrer.
• Jerusalem Post article by Judy Siegel-Itzkovitch on the setting-up of the Jewish Hapmap project.
• Collection of Jewish Hapmap project links.
• Ellen Levy-Coffman, A mosaic of people: the Jewish story and a reassessment of the DNA evidence, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, Spring 2005.
• Dieneke's Anthropology Blog 1, 2, 3. 4.
• The Jewish Genetics topic on the AnthroScape human biodiversity forum (some interesting graphics, but also some rather disturbing white-supremacist-sounding comments). Links to the Jews' European and Middle Eastern Ancestry (YigalSchmendrik seems to know his stuff) and European Population Structure population genetics threads.

    ←   ZScarpia   02:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC) (latest redaction: 23:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC))

A review of a couple of books on Jewish genetics, including one by Harry Ostrer: The New York Review of Books - Richard C. Lewontin - Is There a Jewish Gene?, 6 December 2012.     ←   ZScarpia   21:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's worthy to mention that even in antiquity this same argument has been made, ergo Josephus' books: Against Apion, Antiquities of the Jews. Manson 23:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manson48 (talk • contribs)

If you can find reliable sources that discuss The Invention of the Jewish People and the promulgation of similar theories in ancient times, please bring them here for discussion. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

DNA origins

The DNA origins section of the article has just been modified. Editors may be interested to read what Ellen Levy-Coffman had to say about the research being done up to 2005 and the researchers involved: Ellen Levy-Coffman, A mosaic of people: the Jewish story and a reassessment of the DNA evidence, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, Spring 2005.     ←   ZScarpia   00:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

This article is fundamentally flawed

This article does NOT meet wikipedia standards (presuming such exist) as it is in essence a long diatribe against one controversial position. The article is full of unsourced assertions meant to undermine Sand's work. The amount of space given to the DNA issue is also odd as the topic is barely coivered in the book. Instead, the article should simply note that the DNA 'evidence' is barely discussed (and Sand states that there are flaws in the methodology used) while linking to articles that explore it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emory1989 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Critism in the lead

I have tried to insert the criticizm to the lead to reflect article content properly if I hadn't do it in the right way.Please suggest how the text could be improved.Thank you.--Shrike (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Something that you should bear in mind is that the historians and geneticists attacking the book are ones whose views or whose work is attacked in the book. You might also like to note that, though having supporters, those historians are attacked by other historians and that the geneticists are attacked by historians, ethnologists and linguists. Our job, as Wikipedia editors, is, of course, not to adjudicate who is right, but to present the different viewpoints neutrally.     ←   ZScarpia   22:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Of course per WP:LEAD all significant criticism should be mentioned.What my sentence is lacking and how it could be improved to properly summarize criticism in the article?--Shrike (talk) 11:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

And, of course, you want to mention the acclamation the book has received as well, don't you? Perhaps it would be better to just say that the book has been both praised and vilified?     ←   ZScarpia   15:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC) --- for those interested, here's Shlomo Sand talking about the ideas in The Invention of the Jewish People.

It was already said that it was praised in the lead so the current situation is not WP:NPOV.Ok here is my proposal."The book was praised by journalists and by some historians but was criticized by other historians as inaccurate and fringe and by geneticists as goes against recent finding about Jewish genetic history." --Shrike (talk) 15:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we should leave it as is: "It has generated a heated controversy." If we start in with weasel words like "some historians" and "other historians", people are going to add {{who}} tags. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 15:31, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Further to Malik's comment, your choice of wording rather implies that there's a general criticism among geneticists of the book, rather than criticism by a couple of teams whose work is itself controversial and which has, in turn, been criticised by Sand. You say that the book is praised in the Lead. The Lead mentions how well the book has sold and that it's been translated into a number of other languages. Is that what you mean by praise?     ←   ZScarpia   16:37, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

the paper of Elhaik

Might those who are revert-warring over Elhaik's paper like to discuss it here instead? Elhaik's paper is available for free here.

My comments: Genome Biology and Evolution is one of the most prestigious and appropriate scientific journals for this type of study, so claims that Elhaik's work is either unreliable or fringe are untenable. The relevance of the paper to Sand's book is clear enough too: Elhaik repeatedly gives Sand's book as an example of a work supporting the hypothesis that he is investigating. Those are the only objections that I can see from edit summaries, and both are insufficient. On the other hand, Youngdro2's text has some problems (eg. the word "recent" and the "Ph.D.") that need to be fixed. Zero^talk 00:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Any thoughts on the fact that the person introducing this text is an obvious sock of a banned user? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It might be so; I'm pretty useless at identifying socks. I'm more concerned with article quality. Zero^talk 08:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Elhaik does not carried out any genetic study, he wrote an article and analysis which has opposite conclusions than all genetic studies carried out in this subject. The exclusion of this article/contra all genetic studies is WP:UNDUE question

User Youngdro2 who violated 1RR on this page, many times is repeating exactly the same words and sentences in the exactly same places as did user Historylover4--Tritomex (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC) He is also engaged in obvious vandalization of Genetic studies on Jews in the same way as Historylover4 did--Tritomex (talk) 04:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Elhaik did a genetic study by his own claim "We investigate the genetic structure of European Jews, by applying a wide range of analyses" and by common sense. Zero^talk 08:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)