Talk:Ashkenazi Jews

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2017

To reflect the scientific fact that Ashkenazi Jews are descendant from the Khazar Tribe, this has been proven by John Hopkins and is Scientific FACT, all private racial DNA tests list Ashkenazi's are Khazarian-Turkic. There is no evidence to support Ashkenazi's are Semitic nor middle eastern, however, the Sephardic Jews are. This is a FACT and must be addressed, any attempts at whitewashing it, or quoting highly erroneous and discredited studies done before 2012 should be revealed as misinformation. 2001:569:BC08:8200:2CE7:E0B6:B26D:7E3B (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2017 (UTC) " This is a controversial request, which as a matter of fact has been rejected in the past several times. Please do not add the edit request till such time as there is consensus. Debresser (talk) 05:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Please consider new research showing no connection to the middle east http://www.livescience.com/40247-ashkenazi-jews-have-european-genes.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.195.168 (talk) 10:29, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Khazar Hypothesis

There are studies that support the Khazar hypothesis. https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/5/1/61/728117/The-Missing-Link-of-Jewish-European-Ancestry http://jogg.info/pages/11/coffman.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultrabomb (talk • contribs) 20:19, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I am not happy with this editors edits, which I think make this article less accurate and encyclopedical. Debresser (talk) 20:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

You'll have to be more specific Debresser. Please explain why. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

At this stage I'd be happy enough to have my fellow editors examine these edits for themselves, to see if any of them also sees something that doesn't look right. Can't really point my finger at it. Debresser (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Whoever has been reverting my edits wants to keep mention of studies whose results contradict their position off of Wikipedia.The ancestry of the Ashkenazi Jews is a political issue. But, politics and science don't mix. The article should mention studies supporting both positions and let readers decide for themselves which they think is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultrabomb (talk • contribs) 03:24, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Not neutral

In the late 19th century, it was proposed that the core of today's Ashkenazi Jewry are genetically descended from a hypothetical Khazarian Jewish diaspora who had migrated westward from modern Russia and Ukraine into modern France and Germany (as opposed to the currently held theory that Jews from France and Germany migrated into astern Europe). The hypothesis is not corroborated by historical sources[147] and is unsubstantiated by genetics, but it is still occasionally supported by scholars who have had some success in keeping the theory in the academic conscience.[148] The theory is associated with antisemitism[149] and anti-Zionism.[150][151]

This is all a laughingstock caricature. The 19th century scholars did not argued in terms of genetics, a science that postdates the period. The Khazar hypothesis was originally about eastern European Jews, not about the Rhineland hypothesis primarily. There are several theories about the origins of Jews in Europe, not just the Rhineland vs Khazar hypothesis. No hypothesis like this or the Rhineland hypothesis is corroborated by historical sources: these theories both arose in lieu of historical sources, which are lacking for both. What 'keeping a theory in the academic conscience' is supposed to mean is anyone's guess. The Khazar hypothesis is not intrinsically anti-Semite or antizionist, since it has been supported by Jews and Zionists. All these points were once clarified by careful editing on related pages. Whatever you guys think about the idea, and I have no problem with those who think it nonsense, it must be described accurately, and neutrally, and not with dumb offthehand writing like the boorish pastiche that some idiot has now restored.Nishidani (talk) 16:06, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, genetics as a science started in the second half of the 19th century.

That paragraph doesn't say that the Khazar theory is "intrinsically" anti-semite, only that it is "associated" with ant-semitism.

I understand what is meant by "keeping a theory in the academic conscience" very fine, although it might be rephrased.

If no hypothesis is corroborated by historical sources, then you agree that the specific theory in question also isn't.

In short, this section is so far much noise and little wool. Debresser (talk) 16:14, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Just become someone is Jewish or Zionist does not mean everything they write is in support of either. People are people ok? .Jonney2000 (talk) 16:38, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

And it's not to do with genetics as a science. "Genetically descended" here means simply "descended through an unbroken chain of biological parenthood", as opposed to adoption, conversion or other forms of mixing in. An analogy. If it is uncertain whether an object got to a place by falling there or being deliberately thrown, it is not anachronistic to describe the first theory as being "by gravity" even if the person who thought that lived before Isaac Newton. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 16:59, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Most editing and edit warring in this areas occurs because texts are written and rewritten without (a) a knowledge of the topic(s) and (b) without consulting the sources existing on any given, or related page. When I posed the above query, I expected someone to examine the issue closely. I.e., to note that a statement like 'The hypothesis is not corroborated by historical sources,' referred to Mikhail Kizilov The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority Among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945, BRILL, 2009 p.5.(a book I introduced to several wiki articles) fails verification. It does so because it has been mindlessly copied from another wiki article, but with the wrong page link.

The joker who keeps fiddling with the text without going closely through the 20 odd sources (cited over several articles) that would enable this paragraph to give a succinct synthesis of the topic is wasting my time while getting your support gentlemen. Examine the fucking sources, and the talk pages, for once.

The theory is associated with antisemitism[149] and anti-Zionism

The theory as it is currently framed is associated with antisemitism and anti-Zionism beyond a doubt and trying to remove that is not good faith

While everyone sat round, sitting on a general opinion, mostly reverting or challenging versions without consulting sources or introducing any new ones, I did 99% of the work documenting the theory, the anti-Semitic and the anti-Zionist history etc. The fact is that, apart from several rather obscure antisemities in Canada and the US, and the endemically anti-Semitic Slavophile world, the theory was discussed and propounded widely among notable Jewish scholars for a century, and was revived by them. It is in contempt of the record to try and say, as you are all endorsing now, that it is 'currently framed' or intrinsically anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist. To assert this is to ignore the evidence, and violate the neutrality of Wikipedia by 'framing' a theory as 'essentially' something it never was, and certainly isn't even to day, in Jewish tradition. Still this is a numbers game. So trying to plead for a scrupulous review of the record is pointless.Nishidani (talk) 17:23, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Saying that the Khazar hypothesis is associated with anti-semitism is an attempt to discredit it by associating it with bad ideas or bad people. It's like Christians arguing that the Nazis believed in evolution.