Talk:Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism

Possible sources

MIT Press 2021 ISBN 10:0262542943 Genomic Citizenship: The Molecularization of Identity in the Contemporary Middle East McGonigle, Ian Ch 2 The “nature” of Israeli citizenship

"Population analysis by geneticists has led to an unresolved debate over Jewish origins (Abu El-Haj 2012; Elhaik 2012; Kohler 2014). Geneticists have begun to describe the genetic basis for common ancestry of the whole of the Jewish population (Behar et al. 2010), even though the historical claims that are entangled with these scientific studies are still contested. One of the most contentious claims made is that European Jews are descended from converts to Judaism from the Khazar Empire, which covered much of Eastern Europe during the second half of the first century CE (Koestler 1976; Sand 2009; Wheelwright 2013). Some rabbis and several population geneticists instead claim that there is a direct line of descent connecting most European Jews to the biblical land of Israel (Sand 2009).2 But Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues, “The Jews have always comprised significant religious communities that appeared and settled in various parts of the world, rather than an ethnos that shared a single origin and wandered in a permanent exile” (2009, 22) Selfstudier (talk) 17:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Title #1

Maybe Zionism and Jewish genetics? Selfstudier (talk) 18:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The word "race" in the title gives a wider scope - population genetics in this way didn't begin until after Watson and Crick in the 50s. Prior to the 1940s the Zionist discourse of this nature was about race. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

NPOV Issues

This article has multiple NPOV issues:

1. It largely ignores the widely held conventional view, which is that the majority of Jewish ethnic groups have common ancestry from the ancient Middle East. This view is currently supported by the majority of genetic studies, as well as recent research linking the major Jewish groups to ancient Canaanite DNA and other modern Levantine populations.
   
2. It uses a questionable 1974 article (Haddad, Hassan S. [in Arabic] (1974). "The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism". Journal of Palestine Studies. [University of California Press, Institute for Palestine Studies]. 3 (4): 98-99) whose relevance for the topic, reliability and neutrality are currently being discussed on another article, Zionism, (see Talk:Zionism#Question) after the same editor added it there and was immediately challenged; Here, it is added without offering any opposing viewpoints, ignoring the issues brought up in the aforementioned discussion. Tombah (talk) 19:02, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Tombah. On 1., the article says "It is likely that many modern Jews have at least one ancestral line from Levant". What more do you want?

On 2. if you think the article is "questionable" I suggest you raise it at RSN. On the other talk discussion you are referring to, it was established that Haddad was a distinguished professor at Saint Xavier University. Anyway, it is being used in a different way here, so if you wish to oppose its use here you will need to explain. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

For point #1, no sources have been presented establishing this claim of a "widely held conventional view", while, on the contrary, the page contains several sources that establish quite a separate and contrasting narrative. If there is an alternative perspective, source it. In the discussion of Haddad, that material is unbalanced likewise simply calls for other sources to be added to balance it. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:26, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

For point #1, The ancestral connection between Jews and the ancient Middle East is supported by a vast body of genetic scientific research. This topic is already covered in depth in our articles on Genetic studies on Jews with many RS mentioning shared ancestry derived from the ancient Middle East; the Middle Eastern descent of Ashkenazis in particular, totally ignored by this article; genetic heritage of the Canaanites that lives on in Jewish and non-Jewish Levantine populations; similarity to other Levantine groups, with articles touching on the relations between Palestinians and Jewish divisions (here), the connection between Lebanese, Palestinians and Sephardic Jews, described in one article as "three Near-Eastern populations sharing a common geographic origin", Samaritans and Jews, etc. You ask me to demonstrate that 1+1 is 2.

For #2, do you claim that the view that Zionism is colonialism is universally accepted? We all know it is one point of view among many, usually held by anti-Zionists. That makes it problematic to base large parts of this article on that source, and that is a violation of WP:NPOV. Tombah (talk) 11:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

References

@Tombah:

1. The point is already made in the article. It is made dispassionately, not described as "conventional" as you do, because we would need a source for this.

2. The source is used for just one sentence, and how now been watered down with in-line attribution.

Onceinawhile (talk) 06:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment

Interestingly enough, according to one article, While several non-Palestinian writers in the Arab world included the Israelites among the ancient Semitic peoples, Palestinian writers rejected this notion, since it might have given some credence to the Jewish link to Palestine. They resolved this conflict by denying any historical link between the ancient Hebrews and modern Jews, describing the latter as descendants of the Caucasian Khazar nation that had adopted Judaism during the eighth century, or as an amalgamation of people from various ethnic groups who had embraced Judaism in the course of the past two thousand years. Litvak, Meir (1994). "A Palestinian Past: National Construction and Reconstruction". History and Memory. 6 (2): 24–56. ISSN 0935-560X. I'm (almost) surprised to see elements of Palestinian propaganda on Wikipedia as well. Tombah (talk) 11:26, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:FORUM, a "Comment" in response to what exactly? Place this in context of improvement to the article, please. Selfstudier (talk) 11:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment on this piece as a whole, which is starting to resemble not only an anti-Zionist essay but also starts to bear a faint smell of antisemitism due to enormous cherry-picking of sources, WP:SYNTH editing, and denial of evidence, now even claiming that all studies involved with Jews should be disputed because their reliability might be impacted by the authors' "Zionist" attitudes. Tombah (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

More non responsive WP:FORUM and evidence free assertion.Selfstudier (talk) 11:12, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Fully agree, the article attempts to insinuate through synthesis that mainstream genetic research is "Zionist". While going back and forth between "Zionist" and "Jewish" in a way that is unsettling. The entire concept of the article "Zionism, race and genetics", is not a real thing, and is an invention of this article purely through synthDrsmoo (talk) 13:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC) Moved to own section Drsmoo (talk) 13:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Recent revert

@Drsmoo: please explain this revert, with your edit comment "Not in source, the phrase “Jewish scientific racism” could be construed as antisemitic":

• OLD TEXT: "The connection between Zionism and early 20th century Jewish scientific racism and, since the 1950s, genetic science, has been widely studied by historians and anthropologists."
• Drsmoo TEXT: "The connection between Zionism and early 20th century genetic science, has been widely studied by historians and anthropologists."
• ORIGINAL SOURCE QUOTE: "Historians and anthropologists have critically examined how the structuring assumptions of Jewish race science in early-twentieth-century Europe and North America, and their relationship to Zionist nationalism, reverberate within the genetic studies of Jewish populations by Israeli scientists from the 1950s to the present."

Your edit changed the meaning - there was no "early 20th century genetic science" relating to this topic. Early 20th century race science is one topic, and genetic studies from the 1950s to the present, is another.

And our article scientific racism states that the term "race science" (used in the original source above) is a synonym used by its proponents. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The source doesn’t call the studies racist, nor does it call them pseudoscientific. The phrase “Jewish Scientific Racism”, which seems to have been invented in this article, sounds eerily similar to the Nazi term “Jewish physics”. I will undo my revert now per 1RR, but will remove it again once ruled permit. Drsmoo (talk) 23:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Shall we just change "scientific racism" to "race science" then? Onceinawhile (talk) 23:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes Drsmoo (talk) 00:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

"Jewish race science" is disturbing as well though. Drsmoo (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Ruppin

• There are quite a number of views that emphasized Jews as a mixed 'race'. Herzl proposed that. See the Mauschel page.
• A key thinker here was Arthur Ruppin, whose views I've sketched out here.

Nishidani (talk) 23:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. Two points for additional sub-topics in this article come to mind reading that:

(1) the classification of Jewish groups by early Zionists could be covered here (e.g. Anat Leibler, “Disciplining Ethnicity: Social Sorting Intersects with Political Demography in Israel’s Pre-State Period,” Social Studies of Science 44, no. 2 (2014), p. 273.); and

(2) Zionist views of Palestinian race / genetics could fit here too.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Narutolovehinata5 (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the genetic origin of modern Jews is considered important within Zionism, as it seeks to provide a historical basis for the belief that descendants of biblical Jews have "returned"? Source: McGonigle, Ian V. (2021). Genomic Citizenship: The Molecularization of Identity in the Contemporary Middle East. MIT Press (originally a Harvard PhD Thesis, published March 2018). p. 36 (c.f. p.54 of PhD). ISBN 978-0-262-36669-4. Retrieved 2023-07-08. The stakes in the debate over Jewish origins are high, however, since the founding narrative of the Israeli state is based on exilic 'return.' If European Jews have descended from converts, the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people. The politics of 'Jewish genetics' is consequently fierce. But irrespective of philosophical questions of the indexical power or validity of genetic tests for Jewishness, and indeed the historical basis of a Jewish population 'returning' to the Levant, the Realpolitik of Jewishness as a measurable biological category could also impinge on access to basic rights and citizenship within Israel.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Gracie Graves and the Kids from Room 402

Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 07:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Zionism, race and genetics; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Article is new enough and long enough. However, it's the subject of a POV flag and there's ongoing debate on the talk page about the article's WP:NPOV. Indeed, the article's (lengthy) lede section largely pulls from 2 journal articles that seem to not represent scholarly consensus to frame the discussion. Hook is interested, but the cited source seems to be one scholar's opinion, rather than a fact. Would suggest waiting to have more editors, especially with more specialized subject matter expertise than I, weigh in on the matter at hand in the article. Longhornsg (talk) 08:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Longhornsg thanks for your comment. Since you have an interest in the subject of Jewish History (WikiProject), please could you comment on the article talk page and help develop the article there? Your comments above seem intended to cast doubt (“seem to not… seem to be”), which is helpful if you are willing to provide the evidence underpinning your uncertainty. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Article is a transparent attempt to portray studies on Jewish Genetics as "Zionist" and thereby ideological/untrustworthy, without any source actually describing the studes as such. The article itself is full of Synth and assertions that are not actually in the sources. The article should be deleted, and certainly not featured on a "Did you know". Drsmoo (talk) 13:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Note: the above editor has been adding various tags to the article. When challenged to explain the above claims he wrote: Allegations of bias and synth in a wikipedia article are not substantiated by scholarly reliable sources, they are an individual judgement. The observation that an article combines disparate ideas to push an original viewpoint is not something that would be sourced.[1] Onceinawhile (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

After the allegations of bias were substantiated, the above editor and a supporting editor asked me to provide "sources" to prove that the article was biased/Synth. As if it has been subject to a scholarly peer review and JSTOR had articles about this wiki page. Drsmoo (talk) 16:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I archived reference to this nomination on the article's (very crowded) talk page as I assumed the conversation was over but that was reverted as it has not been closed. I oppose the nomination for the moment. The article is very unstable and has been under heavy dispute. Although the contention is starting to quieten, the article is nowhere near consensus-approved enough to feature. There has been a conversation for nearly two months over whether it needs to be renamed, for example. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

• The article's neutrality has been in dispute for over a month at this point, and the prior reviewer's assessment still seems largely correct. It reads like an essay on a particular aspect of race science, and issues are still being identified (for example, an editor just today was removing close paraphrasing from sources). The talk page still has active disputes regarding the content and presentation of perspectives. All together, I doubt that this article is "reasonably complete and not some sort of work in progress". Not presentable and given the time spent already, I find it unlikely that it will become presentable in a reasonable time frame for DYK. — Wug·a·po·des 21:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Anti-Zionism and the scale of the modern Jewish connection

Reading some lower quality media on this matter, there seems to be a common strawman argument along the following lines:

• Statement: "Modern Jews may not be primarily descended from ancient Israelites"
• Response: "You are denying there is a connection between modern Jews and the Israelites"

"May not be primarily descended from" and "there is [no] connection between" are very different thresholds.

We must be careful to keep an eye on this nuance. It is not tenable to suggest that mainstream Palestinians or anti-Zionists deny all "connection" - it is patently clear that a connection exists, culturally and probably biologically. The only debate is over the scale of this connection, and in particular whether this connection to the land is stronger than the connection that the Palestinians have.

Onceinawhile (talk) 06:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Tombah: to address your most recent revert, you are referring to Meir Litvak, page 29, whose source for the claim is shown in footnote 24: 24 Chejne, "The Use of History," 395; Joshua Teitelbaum, "The Palestine Liberation Organization," Middle East Contemporary Survey (1990): 212; "A Comprehensive Interview with the Hamas Leadership," Filastin al Muslima, Apr. 1990; al-Hadaf 30 May 1993.

Chejne's article doesn't mention Jews once (it is being used to support the first part of Litvak's paragraph). So Litvak's claim is referring explicitly to the claims by the PLO and Hamas. Firebrand politicians' views do not represent the "mainstream Palestinian" view, and should not be presented as such. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Removal of sources?

@Tombah: why have you removed these sources,[2] and a sentence which is entirely consistent with them. In your edit comment, are you claiming that Ian V. McGonigle and Nadia Abu El Haj are antisemitic? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

No, I have no idea how they came to their conclusions or whether they are up to date on genetic research. My claims are only directed at people who are aware of the mainstream viewpoint and nevertheless, when editing this article, choose to reject it in order to make a point. This attack on AJ origin is especially strange, given that their Middle Eastern and Southern European ancestry is mentioned in every single article published in recent years. I haven't yet accused anyone in this room of being antisemitic, but this piece is definitely starting to smell bad, and the ancestry of AJs is not the only reason. Tombah (talk) 07:15, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

These are highly reputable scholars and these are very recent publications. They agree with each other. There are no dissenting scholarly views. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

It is the recurrent issue with Tombah's editing, passing off as an established historical fact what is simply an ideological meme. The genetic perspective was touted as endorsing the theory for some decades. In the now flourishing discipline analysing the use of genetic science in ethnic discourse, we now know that this is all based on circular reasoning. One example from Burton's book lucidly outlines the flaw underwriting much of this research:

Geneticists “ require a clearly demarcable, empirically ,manageable endogamous population,” ie., groups that could be reliably identified as reproductively isolated” and therefore “evolutionarily coherent.” An effect of this requirement was that “non-biological knowledge entered the research design,” as “linguistics, ethnographers, historians, sociologists and others, as well as myths and claims of collective identity” provided geneticists with the necessary evidence to identify ideal communities for genetic resear5ch. The biological data collected from such research, in turn, cannot be interpreted without reference to non-biological knowledge and is therefore not a truly independent source of information about human history.

The production of ethnic categories through this process of epistemological layering and cycling through social and intellectual networks is therefore a fundamental component of all genetic research concerning human subjects. This process resembles a feedback loop, by which “folk concepts” of race and ethnicity feed into the assumptions and interpretations of scientific research, whose practitioners in turn feed their work back into the original popular discourse.Through this process, genetic researchers in the Middle East effectively transformed religious, linguistic, and other social identities into ethnicities; they contrasted allegedly endogamous communities, like Zoroastrians, Armenians, Jews, and Bedouin tribes with heavily admixed populations of Persians, Turks, and Arabs. Interactions between geneticists and their research subjects reified and reinforced communal identities through a hyperbolized sense of a group’s historical isolation from others, via socially or geographically enforced endogamy. Emphasizing this isolation became configured as positive and desirable for researchers and community members alike, since strict practices of endogamy were believed to preserve a community’s authenticity through and unbroken and undiluted genetic relationship to its ancestors.’Nishidani (talk) 08:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Non Neutral, Synthesis, Factually Inaccurate

The article attempts to insinuate through synthesis that mainstream genetic research is "Zionist". While going back and forth between "Zionist" and "Jewish" in a way that is unsettling. The entire concept of the article "Zionism, race and genetics", is not a real thing, and is an invention of this article purely through synth Drsmoo (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

No sources, just evidence free assertions. Selfstudier (talk) 13:28, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The invented concept of this article is also disturbingly similar to "Jüdische Physik". Drsmoo (talk) 13:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit: Do any of the studies mentioned in this article describe themselves as "Zionist" or "Jewish race science"? If not, who calls these studies "Zionist" or "Jewish race science"? Drsmoo (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

? No idea what that means. Sources? Selfstudier (talk) 13:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: if your unsupported claim is true, how is that Springer, one of the world's most prestigious academic publishers, published a book called Zionism and the Biology of Jews? That book, and all the other high quality publications here, go "back and forth between "Zionist" and "Jewish"", because they are describing the connection between Zionism and Jewish race and genetic science – what other words would you have them use to cover this subject? Onceinawhile (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Is it your contention that that book is justification for an entire synth-filled article that insinuates that mainstream scholarly research is ideological? The subject is already covered in Genetic studies on Jews, which is actually a legitimate article, not a POV screed full of synth and false insinuations. Drsmoo (talk) 13:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Please feel free to suggest a merge if you think it can fit in there. This also covers race science, so it would require a history section explaining how one topic developed into the other from the point of view of nationalism.

As to your central claim that the article "insinuate[s] through synthesis that mainstream genetic research is "Zionist"", it must not do that because it is not true. Clearly a very significant proportion is about medical research and other matters. But as to "mainstream genetic research about ancient Jewish origins", which is what this article should be covering, well the sources are all clear and consistent that that area of research has a significant connection to Zionist ideology. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

No, they are normal highly regarded genetic studies. Your WP: Synth insinuation that these studies are "Zionist" has no place on Wikipedia, no reliable source describes these specific studies as "Zionist" or "Jewish". That is your POV interpretation, and your personal views are not acceptable on Wikipedia. Drsmoo (talk) 14:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

At least as far as the text I have added goes, this article contains none of my views at all, only the views of respected scholars. For example:

Schaffer, Gavin (2010). "Dilemmas of Jewish Difference: Reflections on Contemporary Research into Jewish Origins and Types from an Anglo-Jewish Historical Perspective". Jewish Culture and History. 12 (1–2). Informa UK Limited: 86–88. doi:10.1080/1462169x.2010.10512145. ISSN 1462-169X. However, the historical record suggests that, on the subject of race, scientists do not deal in clear-cut truths but do 'spin' and do 'whitewash', albeit often subconsciously, presenting findings that are in line with personal beliefs and ideology, not set apart from social racial discourse in any clear sense. In Jewish difference debates, this is nowhere clearer than on the issue of Israel and Zionism. In his latest book on race, David Theo Goldberg has highlighted a link between racial research into ancient origins and contemporary land disputes: "Those whose racial origins' are considered geographically somehow to coincide with national territory (or its colonial extension) are deemed to belong to the nation; those whose geo-phenotypes obviously place them originally (from) elsewhere are all too often considered to pollute or potentially to terrorize the national space, with debilitating and even deadly effect." In this way, potential links between theories of an ancient Jewish past in Israel and contemporary conflict in the Middle East become important. In the face of a generally hostile international media, which often constructs Jews in Israel as colonisers and occupiers, scientific proofs of Jewish indigeneity in Israel confer legitimacy on Zionists and their sympathisers. This being the case, it is equally unsettling and significant, to the author at least, that the leading investigators of Jewish genetic roots frequently seem to be largely uncritical supporters of Israel. In Abraham's Children, Entine has noted that the pioneering scholar of the Priestly gene, Karl Skorecki, was 'motivated as much by his commitment to Israel as by scientific curiosity'. Similarly, David Goldstein states clearly and openly his attachment to Israel in Jacob's Legacy… the seekers of the priestly gene have an openly Zionist agenda...

Onceinawhile (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I have read through the article again and strongly disagree with Drsmoo's assertion that the article "insinuate[s] through synthesis that mainstream genetic research is "Zionist"". Drsmoo, please provide some specific examples so we can assess your claim. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The section on "Jewish ethnic unity and connection to ancient Israelites" implies through unsourced synth that Harry Ostrer's study is "Zionist". Otherwise, it has no connection with a paragraph beginning with discussion of the supposed "supporters of Jewish nationalism have focused on the search for "Jewish genes"". The BLP insinuation is that Ostrer is a "supporter of Jewish nationalism" and that that has motivated his research. Which is a flagrant BLP violation. Drsmoo (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmm. I have read that section again in light of your concern, but I don't see it. There are only two sentences referring to Ostrer:

• Geneticists such as Harry Ostrer and Nadia Abu El Haj have publicly disagreed on the interpretation of the evidence, as there are many genetic mutations restricted to certain groups of modern Jews, but no single gene uniting the majority of Jews worldwide.
• Harry Ostrer disagreed with criticism of proposed genetic evidence for Jewish unity as "fragmentary and half-truths", and noted that the question "touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel".

The first sentence says that he and another geneticist disagree. The second describes more of the disagreement, in his own words. Where exactly is the implication you are suggesting?

Onceinawhile (talk) 14:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

If, having written it, you don't see the problem with starting a sentence claiming that entire fields of research are ideological, and then linking to peer-reviewed studies from reputable journals, then there is no point in discussing further. Drsmoo (talk) 14:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is firm proof that you are wrong. From Ostrer's own book:

Ostrer, Legacy, page 33: “In 1911, the forces of social cohesion were religion, race science, and Zionism. Often, race science and Zionism went hand-in-hand, and the identification of a Jewish race provided justification for an ancestral homeland. This issue was addressed head-on in the Paris Peace Conference of 19I9, and the consensus on a Jewish race led to the mandate for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. So the Jewish world of 1911 is the predecessor of the Jewish world of the twenty-first century. Many of the Diaspora communities are gone and, as Fishberg predicted, the center of Jewish life has moved to the United States and to Israel. The issues that preoccupied the Jewish intellectual leaders of 1911 are the same ones that preoccupy the leaders of today. Who are the Jews, a religious group or a genetic isolate? Did they originate from Middle Eastern matriarchs and patriarchs? Fishberg lacked the tools for answering these questions. The genetic methods that would eventually provide answers were starting to develop in Fishberg's New York in the Columbia University laboratory of Thomas Hunt Morgan. The precision of these genetic tools continued to improve over the course of the twentieth century, and as they did, Fishberg's intellectual heirs sought to apply them to the issues of Jewish origins and identity."

Surely you agree it is clear now. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:29, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Nowhere does he describe his research as ideologically motivated. This article is a WP:ATTACK page and has no place on Wikipedia. Drsmoo (talk) 14:33, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Neither does this article. Your claims have no basis.

You might like to read the chapter: "Zionism’s New Jew and the Birth of the Genomic Jew" in Cynthia Baker's 2017 book Jew, published by Rutgers University Press. It, again, confirms everything in this article. How many sources saying the same thing would satisfy your concern? Particularly since you and other editors have proved zero sources which conflict with any of the substance of this article. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Still waiting for (any) details on what in the article is "factually inaccurate" rather than an assertion that this is so. Selfstudier (talk) 14:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Waiting for an AfD instead of unproductive tagging and pointless discourse. Selfstudier (talk) 14:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Article has been tagged synth and a section as well, which is it? Selfstudier (talk) 15:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is synth on both a micro and macro level. There is synth occuring within single sentences, within paragraphs, and the article as a whole is a cherry-picked, POV-Fork conglomeration of synth. Drsmoo (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Once again, please provide sourced evidence for these claims. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Re Ostrer, see Page 106 of Cynthia Baker's “Jews”:

"Recent popularizing publications associated with the “Jewish Hapmap Project” (an international consortium devoted to “Jewish genetic research”) do, indeed, explicitly trace their scientific genealogy to turn-of-the-twentieth-century research “about whether the Jews constitute a race,” as well as to early Zionist aims of creating the new Jew as a “native” of Eretz Israel… Harry Ostrer, director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University and one of the lead geneticists of the Jewish Hapmap Project… Yet, in Ostrer’s case, the peculiar formulation “exactly how large the . . . ancestry” does not merely reflect a scientist’s preoccupation with quantitative biometric data on Jew(s) as research subject (à la Nordau). Rather, it points to his and others’ inclination to privilege genetic/genomic evidence of just such “shared Middle Eastern ancestry” among modern Jews over all other geo-politically defined lines of “Jewish genetic ancestry.”"

This is solid evidence of what Drsmoo claimed was implied about the connection of Ostrer’s work to Zionism. I don’t think it was / is current implied, so we can use this to make it more clear. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

So the article is explicitly a politicized and cherry-picked POV attack on genetic studies regarding the origin of Jews. A textbook POV fork of the main article that attempts to portray experts and their research as inherently ideological. Drsmoo (talk) 18:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

From a scholarly review of the book by Michael Satlow, a Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University:

"While most scientists with whom I have informally talked (including Harry Ostrer and Gil Atzmon, who come under particular critique)8 believe that the science of population genetics is entirely solid, Baker is suspicious."

and

It seems to me that while some on the margins have used it to make ideological claims (whether that Jews don’t really exist, as in Shlomo Sand’s deeply flawed book,9 or that Jews remain relatively “pure”), it has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return) and remains something of a novelty item in general discourse

https://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/michael-l-satlow/ Drsmoo (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, Baker, as a professor of religious studies, is a non-expert in genetics ([3]), I'm not sure how much weight her critiques in that realm should hold. Skllagyook (talk) 20:12, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

::The article is a hodgepodge of accusations that Zionists and Israelis are obsessed with genetics, synthed together with casting aspersions connecting it to racism, along with minority viewpoints that falsely claim the genetic results are wrong. One would expect in an impartial and fact-based analysis of Jewish and/or Zionist views of genetics, to have actual secondary sources describing actions taken by such groups. None of that is found in this article. It follows the well-known pattern of not actually doing a literature review and drawing conclusions from that, but throwing together sources to build a narrative.

The most pernicious and unacceptable claims being that:

"Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race"

Which "early Zionists"? There were multiple competing ideologies within early Zionism, the statement attempts to paint them all with the same brush.

"as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent".

Without attribution, unacceptably uses Wiki voice to claim an idea as a myth.

"The application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and "Promised Land" in Zionism requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of the Israelites"

In which forms of Zionism, and where are the examples? Isn't analyzing that supposed to be the purpose of this article? The article is presenting the (false) idea that all forms of Zionism have the same opinions.

"the so-called "Land of Israel"

Unacceptable POV use of "so-called" prepended to "Land of Israel"

"building on the belief that modern Jews in the diaspora are the ethnic descendants of the Israelities mentioned in the Bible, and are thus allowed automatic citizenship under the Law of Return."

Neither source relates to the content of the sentence, which combines the two to create a new meaning aka WP:SYNTH. Oddly links to an advocacy organization, Adalah. With that link itself being just a criticism of the law of return, but no relation to the material in the sentence. Blatant POV to link to a criticism of a law, rather than neutrally linking to the law itself. And all the more strange to do it as part of a Synth.

"The connection between Zionism and early 20th century race science and, since the 1950s, genetic science, has been widely studied by historians and anthropologists."

WP:Synth, the source does not claim it has been "widely studied".

"A recent study by a team of international psychologists showed that such research contributed to the "chronic otherization of Palestinians", encourages less support amongst Israeli Jews for political compromise, and could even inflame political violence."

Blatant POV misrepresentation of the study by only discussing half of its conclusions. This is the actual study: "Living in a Genetic World: How Learning About Interethnic Genetic Similarities and Differences Affects Peace and Conflict" - "Our findings indicate that learning about the genetic difference between oneself and an ethnic outgroup may contribute to the promotion of violence, whereas learning about the similarities may be a vital step toward fostering peace in some contexts." Also misrepresents the study, which found that both positive and negative outcomes were theoretical, "could", while the quote falsely presents as having happened. Additionally, the quotes presented are not actually in the study itself, despite being quotations. Has nothing to do with actual ideas regarding race and genetics, and instead attempts to scare the reader into associating "such research" with bad outcomes.

"the leading scientists into Jewish genetic roots, including the "priestly gene", have openly Zionist agendas."

Claiming that reputable scientific researchers are instead pursuing a political agenda is a blatant and unacceptable BLP violation.

"Since ancient times, Jews have believed that they share a common ancestor, in the person of Jacob/Israel."

Unacceptable and ridiculous generalizing of an entire ethnic group.

"the Zionists-to-be stressed that Jews were not merely members of a cultural or a religious entity, but were an integral biological entity"

Who are "Zionists-to-be"? non-Zionists? Proto-zionists? How did they stress it? There were and are multiple branches of Zionism that had/have radically different views.

"Notable proponents of this included Max Nordau, Herzl's co-founder of the original Zionist Organization, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel’s Likud party. Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on “racial purity", whereas Nordau asserted the need for an "exact anthropological, biological, economic, and intellectual statistic of the Jewish people"

The only actual relevant example in the article related to race is Jabotinsky. Nordau's assertion is standard anthropology. The anthropology statement is Synth'd together with the racial one to create a bizarre guilt by association.

"The phenomenon of casting modern Jews as the primary descendants of ancient Israelites is similar to the controversial concept of Phoenicianism"

The use of "casting" is a POV weasel word using Wikivoice to proclaim the descent invalid, as is associating it with a concept deemed "controversial".

"The Jewish race science which developed within early 20th century theories fed into Zionist nationalism and has influenced Israeli population studies since the inception of the state, down to the present day." 

No examples are actually given of it feeding into Zionist nationalism.

"In contemporary political history, supporters of Jewish nationalism have focused on the search for "Jewish genes" and the identification of the "original Jews", in order to strengthen the Zionist claim to the so-called Land of Israel."

Uncited, which "supporters of Jewish nationalism"? Scare quotes around "Jewish genes" are weasel words and not acceptable to use in Wiki voice. The phrase "So-called Land of Israel" is odious POV not acceptable on Wikipedia.

BLP violation by associating Harry Orster with "Jewish nationalism" and a search for "Jewish genes" by following the above with a large quote that puzzlingly has no mention of any form of nationalism, nor of Jewish genes. In fact it's a fairly milqetoast statement:

"The issues that preoccupied the Jewish intellectual leaders of 1911 are the same ones that preoccupy the leaders of today. Who are the Jews, a religious group or a genetic isolate?". 

Yet the article attempts to WP: Synth that by way of a false summary into impugning the work of a professional researcher.

"Harry Ostrer disagreed with criticism of proposed genetic evidence for Jewish unity"

Article does not actually discuss Ostrer's findings, which do not actually claim "Jewish unity" (more WP:SYNTH) and only frames them as a defense of criticism, thus manipulating the reader by presenting him as an apologist in an attempt to discredit him, while normalizing "criticism" and using the weasel word "proposed" before genetic evidence to bias the reader.

"and noted that the question "touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel""

Uses an out of context quote to portray him as politically motivated, ignoring the relevant lines right afterwards. "Non-semitic lines of inheritance may absolve Jews from Christ killing - it really wasn't them and their ancestors; it was someone else. And glorious lineages with genetic lines of descent from a king - even a Messiah - may become even more prized than the purported Cohanim modal hapolotype was prized over the last decade. And yet to look over the genetics of Jewish groups and to see the history of the Diaspora woven in is truly a marvel. Co-religionists all, her is what happened as the Jews migrated to new places and saw their numbers wax and wane, as they gained and lost adherents and thrive or were buffeted in these locals by abundance or famine, infectious disease epidemics, and wars and persecution."... "Jewish genetics is unlikely to replace the hegemony of Jewish law and Jewish culture, nor should it. But as population genetics against a foothold in the community, with Jews and non-Jews alike wanting to know about their origins, ancestors, and relatives, it will take its place in the formation of group identity alongside shared spirituality, shared social values, and a shared cultural legacy." Somehow, this crucial context was ignored in the article.

"In absence of biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as ‘settler colonialism’ pursued under false assumptions" and "right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return".

An assertion made with quotes but without attribution in the text, thereby putting a POV statement in Wiki voice, without any contrasting statement.

"most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far such facts have "remained forever elusive". 

Synthesizes a statement describing researchers during the "Mid 20th-Century" into the present tense to use Wiki voice to claim that multiple modern studies of Jewish genetics are inaccurate. Also synthesizes "most" in describing the population researchers, which is nowhere in the source. Drsmoo (talk) 04:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Read WP:WALLOFTEXT. Learn to be succinct/focused. Community time is limited. Or, if you absolutely have to create a ginormous list, at least start a new section or subsection and number your points for reference. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Most of these could have been solved by reading the underlying sources. A number of questions raised show that this has not been done. Others could benefit from in-line attribution. And some have resulted from edits by Tombah, so Tombah will need to explain. Drsmoo, if you are happy to carry out Iskandar’s suggestion of putting this in a new subsection and adding numbers to each point, I will respond constructively to each in turn. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Broken reference

@Tombah: in this edit[4] you added two references "<ref name=":1" />" but with no citation - please could you fix this? I am not sure what it is supposed to refer to. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Tag bombing?

This looks like a possible case of WP:TAGBOMBing, as no evidence has yet been provided for the various assertions made here on the talk page. If the editor(s) adding the tags continue to avoid the question when asked for sourced evidence to justify their claims, this will need to be addressed at a noticeboard. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I take issue with your repeated ignoring of contrary viewpoints, both here, where you hand wave all complaints on the article and pretend you didn't hear them, and in the article itself, which is a cherry-picked essay and POV-Fork that pushes a particular viewpoint. Allegations of bias and synth in a wikipedia article are not substantiated by scholarly reliable sources, they are an individual judgement. The observation that an article combines disparate ideas to push an original viewpoint is not something that would be sourced. Drsmoo (talk) 15:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Multiple evidence has been provided for all the claims made here, but you choose to ignore them. Tombah (talk) 16:34, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

That is an objection without substance. And this is an article under construction.

The tags are invalid, since Drsmoo's objections appear to reflect unfamiliarity, or a refusal to familiarze oneself with, the obvious, as well as the scholarship.

“race” is a significant component not only of scholarly or academic modern Jewish thought, but also of popular or everyday Jewish thought. It is one of the building blocks of contemporary Jewish identity construction, even if there are many who would dispute the applicability of biological or racial categories to Jews.xxxv.Hart cited below.

Racial thought also played a role in intra-Jewish politics. Most notably in the arguments between Zionists and so-called assimilationists. The idea that the Jews constituted a race seemed especially attractive to Zionists. Embracing this notion allowed Zionists to redefine the Jews as more than just a collective held together by a common religious faith: they were a people, a Volk, in the anthropological sense. If the Jews were a race, that meant that their identity hinged not solely on the subjective willingness of individuals to remain tied to the group but on objective, material realities, on bones and blood.' Hart p.xxviii.

One simply cannot pretend here that what any attentive reader on the topic will encounter with great regularity doesn't exist.

An AfD will be a waste of time. If editors are totally unfamiliar with the substantial body of studies in the last decades on Jewish racial thinking and its importance in particular to Zionism, they should sit down and do some work, starting with Mitchell Bryan Hart's overview, 'Jews and Race: An Introductory essay,' in the anthology Mitchell Bryan Hart (ed.), Jews and Race. Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880-1940, 2011 Brandeis University Press ISBN 978-1-611-68030-0 pp.xii-xxxix.

The tags can be removed. There is no evidence above to justify them, just assertionsNishidani (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the sentence: Allegations of bias and synth in a wikipedia article are not substantiated by scholarly reliable sources, they are an individual judgement. The observation that an article combines disparate ideas to push an original viewpoint is not something that would be sourced. This is so obviously not true that perhaps it could be added as an example blockquote at WP:JDL. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"The tags can be removed." No. They won't be removed unless the issues are solved. Tombah (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, provide an example of a source that would show WP:Synth, cherrypicking and non npov. Drsmoo (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The onus is on the tagger to demonstrate the reason for for the tag, not simply assert that it is so, which is all that has been done up to now. I think we are getting close to AE territory at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 16:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Already done. If this article were to be stripped of all bias, it would just be a content fork of Genetic studies on Jews. That is why it's currently a POV fork, and a BLP violation by insinuating that the work of respected scientists, journals, and institutions is driven by ideology. Drsmoo (talk) 16:15, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Assertion only, where is the evidence? Selfstudier (talk) 16:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Already done? Where? You have tagged and then made claims. It is very easy to prove WP:SYNTH by reading carefully the sources and demonstrating an inference has been made that is not in those sources. Go ahead, or just drop it.Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

See the edit at 14:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC) Drsmoo (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the inappropriate tags, we don't tag just because wedontlikeit. Selfstudier (talk) 16:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

It can't be a content fork as you assert from Genetic studies on Jews, for the simple reason that Once's edit to that article was reverted on the grounds historical stuff had no relevancer there.Nishidani (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Link? Drsmoo (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I removed the entirely inappropriate tags added by Drsmoo and they have restored them. Expected now is a proper explanation of the reasons, with sources/evidence, for these tags, failing which, dispute resolution.Selfstudier (talk) 16:50, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Drsmoo has crossed 1RR, having earlier reverted the addition of an image to the article.[5] @Drsmoo: will you self-revert? Onceinawhile (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, that's very odd, I certainly didn't intentionally remove an info graphic, and didn't see any comments that it had been removed subsequent to my edit. I will restore the infographic now, as I never intended to revert it. Drsmoo (talk) 17:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Restored, the original revert was likely a glitch from using visual mode. Drsmoo (talk) 17:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not the only editor here waiting patiently for a bulletted list of reasoned analyses of what in the text is, in your view (Drsmoo) synth. You are required to (a) cite a text in the article paraphrasing given source/sources, and show it combines them to produce a conclusion not in either, If you can't come up with one, and you haven't so far, the tags lose their raison d'etre.Nishidani (talk) 20:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Source explaining the difference between the science being wrong/biased and the interpretation of the science being wrong/biased

In discussion above, there seems to be some confusion between concept of "the science being wrong/biased" and the concept of "the interpretation of the science being wrong/biased". The below source explains it clearly:

Sicher, Efraim (2013). Race, Color, Identity: Rethinking Discourses about 'Jews' in the Twenty-First Century. Berghahn Books. pp. xv–xvi. ISBN 978-0-85745-893-3. Scientists must be responsible for the meanings of the language they use. As a recent study of the sociology of race in science noted, "One respondent, who was involved in studies on Jewish populations, mentioned that his research was likely to be misinterpreted and misused by some, but insisted that it was out of his hands. He said that people used to approach him and ask whether it could be 'genetically' tested if they were Jewish. He was adamant to stress that being Jewish was not about genetics and it was wrong that this research was interpreted this way, but claimed that he had no control over these types of 'popular' representations of his work." Science does have a responsibility in terms of the implications inherent in the presentation of findings; all science is ideological-though some science is less tendentious than others. In the twenty-first century, we are confronted with new data through the new genetics that needs models of analysis. Sadly, some of the models revert to older patterns or to older belief systems with un-fortunate, sometimes unintended, but often quite tendentious claims.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Another sources likewise states, paraphrasing the work of Lisa Gannett and James Griesemer

Geneticists “ require a clearly demarcable, empirically ,manageable endogamous population,” ie., groups that could be reliably identified as reproductively isolated” and therefore “evolutionarily coherent.” An effect of this requirement was that “non-biological knowledge entered the research design,” as “linguistics, ethnographers, historians, sociologists and others, as well as myths and claims of collective identity” provided geneticists with the necessary evidence to identify ideal communities for genetic resear5ch. The biological data collected from such research, in turn, cannot be interpreted without reference to non-biological knowledge and is therefore not a truly independent source of information about human history.

The production of ethnic categories through this process of epistemological layering and cycling through social and intellectual networks is therefore a fundamental component of all genetic research concerning human subjects. This process resembles a feedback loop, by which “folk concepts” of race and ethnicity feed into the assumptions and interpretations of scientific research, whose practitioners in turn feed their work back into the original popular discourse.Through this process, genetic researchers in the Middle East effectively transformed religious, linguistic, and other social identities into ethnicities; they contrasted allegedly endogamous communities, like Zoroastrians, Armenians, Jews, and Bedouin tribes with heavily admixed populations of Persians, Turks, and Arabs. Interactions between geneticists and their research subjects reified and reinforced communal identities through a hyperbolized sense of a group’s historical isolation from others, via socially or geographically enforced endogamy. Emphasizing this isolation became configured as positive and desirable for researchers and community members alike, since strict practices of endogamy were believed to preserve a community’s authenticity through and unbroken and undiluted genetic relationship to its ancestors.’ ‘geneticists also use national lavbels to identify populations (e.eg “Iranian” oir “Turkiush”), despite the fact that such labels do not constitute biologically meaningful categories.' Elise K. Burton Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity, Stanford University Press 2021 ISBN 978-1-503-61457-4

Editors here don't appear tp be familiar with the subject matter, and, if they do read, do not appear to understand it. The methodological reserves about the repeated mention in sources on genetics and Jews (and of course any other 'ethnos') in metacriticism are therefore appropriate. These two comments should be added to the text together.

[Above comment added by Nishidani]

Agreed - adding these together with this point would be good. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Shouldn't this article be Extended confirmed protection like all the other articles Israel-Palestine articles? Crainsaw (talk) 19:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

An admin will come along and do it at some point unless it is specifically requested because of disruption. Selfstudier (talk) 11:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Matter removed that may be reconsidered for inclusion

I'll lizt below things that might be reconsidered. Not so much the text, but the matter in the footnote from a relevant source.Nishidani (talk) 20:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

It is likely that many modern Jews have at least one ancestral line from Levant.

References

I agree we need to cover this point – perhaps it could be a background section using a summary of the lead from Genetic studies on Jews. Having said which, I am keen to avoid this article getting dragged into the detailed debates about "what is the answer" on the genetic makeup of Jewish populations, as that other article is the right venue for that detail. This article is intended to focus only on the connection between nationalism and race/genetics. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

i can't see any 'debate' above. A mass of scholarship has been cited by one party, ignored by the other, which grumbles and simply walks by as they revert any tweaks or additions to the article based on that scholarship. It is a behavioural problem. Race, which was and remains, a core element in Zionist thinking, mustn't be mentioned. There are even several sources that underline the steadfast caution against naming the fact. ( A Morris-Reich · 2006 ) It is a taboo, in short. Nishidani (talk) 07:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani, do you mean Morris-Reich, Amos (2006). "Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race". Israel Studies. 11 (3). Indiana University Press: 1–30. ISSN 1084-9513. JSTOR 30245648.?

If so would you mind pointing me to the page number? I will add it in to cover Ruppin. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

No problem. I've long stored away notes and downloads for this kind of thing. Ethan Bloom's monograph (Brill2011) is important, though Morris-Reich in his later review of it disagreed somewhat over Bloom's showcasing Ruppin's racial thinking and its legacy in planning for Jewish immigrants. All of the memorialist and critical works on Mizrachi Jews in the 50s nonetheless underline that they were treated as inferior to Ashkenazi immigrants. Morris-Reich writes:-

Certain aspects of Ruppin's legacy were studied thoroughly and comprehensively. There is no common agreement, however, on the significance of race for understanding Ruppin's work. Two important studies published in recent years almost completely overlook the racial aspect in his work. In the index to Arthur Goren's comprehensive biography of Arthur Ruppin, published in 2005, the word "'race" appears on three pages of the almost five hundred and fifty page book. Goren regards the term as marginal to Ruppin's work as a sociologist, a remnant of early twentieth century anthropological views from which Ruppin never freed himself. In an important retrospective article that appeared a few years ago marking the centennial publication of Ruppin's first book on the Jews, Sergio DellaPergola, probably the most distinguished Jewish demographer in the world today, and in a way the "grandson" of Ruppin, almost completely passed over the racial aspect of Ruppin's work. (Morris-Reich 2006, pp. 4–5)

• Morris-Reich, Amos (Fall 2006). "Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race". Israel Studies. 11 (3): 1–30. JSTOR 30245648.

That passage might be cited to underline (other sources also note the careful failure not to go into this side of the story of Israel) how it was until the 2000s swept under the radar.

The work Morris-Reich alludes to is the following (I don’t know if the chapter url works for you. I downloaded it some time ago. In any case, see p.80 where DellaPergola slides over the embarrassment.

• DellaPergola, Sergio (2012) [1999]. "Arthur Ruppin Revisited:The Jews of Today, 1904-1994". In Cohen, Steven M.; Horencyzk, Gabriel (eds.). National Variations in Jewish Identity. SUNY. pp. 53–83. ISBN 978-0-791-49940-5.

List of Egregious article issues

@Onceinawhile, Tombah, JJNito197, Ffffrr, Nishidani, Iskandar323, Crainsaw, Achmad Rachmani, Zero0000, Selfstudier, and Onel5969: Tagging involved users Drsmoo (talk) 13:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is a hodgepodge of accusations that Zionists and Israelis are obsessed with genetics, synthed together with casting aspersions connecting it to racism, along with minority viewpoints that falsely claim the genetic results are wrong. One would expect in an impartial and fact-based analysis of Jewish and/or Zionist views of genetics, to have actual secondary sources describing actions taken by such groups. None of that is found in this article. It follows the well-known pattern of not actually doing a literature review and drawing conclusions from that, but throwing together sources to build a narrative.

The most pernicious and unacceptable claims being that:

1. "Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race" - Which "early Zionists"? There were multiple competing ideologies within early Zionism, the statement attempts to paint them all with the same brush.
2. "as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent". - Without attribution, unacceptably uses Wiki voice to claim an idea as a myth.
3. "The application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and "Promised Land" in Zionism requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of the Israelites" - In which forms of Zionism, and where are the examples? Isn't analyzing that supposed to be the purpose of this article? The article is presenting the (false) idea that all forms of Zionism have the same opinions.
4. "the so-called "Land of Israel" - Unacceptable POV use of "so-called" prepended to "Land of Israel"
5. "building on the belief that modern Jews in the diaspora are the ethnic descendants of the Israelities mentioned in the Bible, and are thus allowed automatic citizenship under the Law of Return." - Neither source relates to the content of the sentence, which combines the two to create a new meaning aka WP:SYNTH. Oddly links to an advocacy organization, Adalah. With that link itself being just a criticism of the law of return, but no relation to the material in the sentence. Blatant POV to link to a criticism of a law, rather than neutrally linking to the law itself. And all the more strange to do it as part of a Synth.
6. "The connection between Zionism and early 20th century race science and, since the 1950s, genetic science, has been widely studied by historians and anthropologists." - WP:Synth, the source does not claim it has been "widely studied".
7. "A recent study by a team of international psychologists showed that such research contributed to the "chronic otherization of Palestinians", encourages less support amongst Israeli Jews for political compromise, and could even inflame political violence." - Blatant POV misrepresentation of the study by only discussing half of its conclusions. This is the actual study: "Living in a Genetic World: How Learning About Interethnic Genetic Similarities and Differences Affects Peace and Conflict" - "Our findings indicate that learning about the genetic difference between oneself and an ethnic outgroup may contribute to the promotion of violence, whereas learning about the similarities may be a vital step toward fostering peace in some contexts." Also misrepresents the study, which found that both positive and negative outcomes were theoretical, "could", while the quote falsely presents as having happened. Additionally, the quotes presented are not actually in the study itself, despite being quotations. Has nothing to do with actual ideas regarding race and genetics, and instead attempts to scare the reader into associating "such research" with bad outcomes.
8. "the leading scientists into Jewish genetic roots, including the "priestly gene", have openly Zionist agendas." -Claiming that reputable scientific researchers are instead pursuing a political agenda is a blatant and unacceptable BLP violation.
9. "Since ancient times, Jews have believed that they share a common ancestor, in the person of Jacob/Israel." - Unacceptable and ridiculous generalizing of an entire ethnic group.
10. "the Zionists-to-be stressed that Jews were not merely members of a cultural or a religious entity, but were an integral biological entity" - Who are "Zionists-to-be"? non-Zionists? Proto-zionists? How did they stress it? There were and are multiple branches of Zionism that had/have radically different views.
11. "Notable proponents of this included Max Nordau, Herzl's co-founder of the original Zionist Organization, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel’s Likud party. Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on “racial purity", whereas Nordau asserted the need for an "exact anthropological, biological, economic, and intellectual statistic of the Jewish people" - The only actual relevant example in the article related to race is Jabotinsky. Nordau's assertion is standard anthropology. The anthropology statement is Synth'd together with the racial one to create a bizarre guilt by association.
12. "The phenomenon of casting modern Jews as the primary descendants of ancient Israelites is similar to the controversial concept of Phoenicianism" - The use of "casting" is a POV weasel word using Wikivoice to proclaim the descent invalid, as is associating it with a concept deemed "controversial".
13. "The Jewish race science which developed within early 20th century theories fed into Zionist nationalism and has influenced Israeli population studies since the inception of the state, down to the present day." - No examples are actually given of it feeding into Zionist nationalism.
14. "In contemporary political history, supporters of Jewish nationalism have focused on the search for "Jewish genes" and the identification of the "original Jews", in order to strengthen the Zionist claim to the so-called Land of Israel." - Uncited, which "supporters of Jewish nationalism"? Scare quotes around "Jewish genes" are weasel words and not acceptable to use in Wiki voice. The phrase "So-called Land of Israel" is odious POV not acceptable on Wikipedia. BLP violation by associating Harry Orster with "Jewish nationalism" and a search for "Jewish genes" by following the above with a large quote that puzzlingly has no mention of any form of nationalism, nor of Jewish genes. In fact it's a fairly milqetoast statement: "The issues that preoccupied the Jewish intellectual leaders of 1911 are the same ones that preoccupy the leaders of today. Who are the Jews, a religious group or a genetic isolate?". Yet the article attempts to WP: Synth that by way of a false summary into impugning the work of a professional researcher.
15. "Harry Ostrer disagreed with criticism of proposed genetic evidence for Jewish unity" - Article does not actually discuss Ostrer's findings, which do not actually claim "Jewish unity" (more WP:SYNTH) and only frames them as a defense of criticism, thus manipulating the reader by presenting him as an apologist in an attempt to discredit him, while normalizing "criticism" and using the weasel word "proposed" before genetic evidence to bias the reader.
16. "and noted that the question "touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel" - Uses an out of context quote to portray him as politically motivated, ignoring the relevant lines right afterwards. "Non-semitic lines of inheritance may absolve Jews from Christ killing - it really wasn't them and their ancestors; it was someone else. And glorious lineages with genetic lines of descent from a king - even a Messiah - may become even more prized than the purported Cohanim modal hapolotype was prized over the last decade. And yet to look over the genetics of Jewish groups and to see the history of the Diaspora woven in is truly a marvel. Co-religionists all, her is what happened as the Jews migrated to new places and saw their numbers wax and wane, as they gained and lost adherents and thrive or were buffeted in these locals by abundance or famine, infectious disease epidemics, and wars and persecution."... "Jewish genetics is unlikely to replace the hegemony of Jewish law and Jewish culture, nor should it. But as population genetics against a foothold in the community, with Jews and non-Jews alike wanting to know about their origins, ancestors, and relatives, it will take its place in the formation of group identity alongside shared spirituality, shared social values, and a shared cultural legacy." Somehow, this crucial context was ignored in the article.
17. "In absence of biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as ‘settler colonialism’ pursued under false assumptions" and "right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return". - An assertion made with quotes but without attribution in the text, thereby putting a POV statement in Wiki voice, without any contrasting statement.
18. "most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far such facts have "remained forever elusive". - Synthesizes a statement describing researchers during the "Mid 20th-Century" into the present tense to use Wiki voice to claim that multiple modern studies of Jewish genetics are inaccurate. Also synthesizes "most" in describing the population researchers, which is nowhere in the source.

Drsmoo (talk) 13:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, you really should start reading a few pages at least in the multiple sources. Take

"Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race"

You comment:-

There were multiple competing ideologies within early Zionism, the statement attempts to paint them all with the same brush.

Off the top of your head and irrelevant, because we are talking about 'race' and Zionism, and you would need a RS showing that early Zionists had multiple views on race. So supply one.

Numerous sources state Zionists, as opposed to assimilated Jews, jumped at the race angle.

'The Zionists claimed that Jews maintained their ancient distinct “racial” identity, and that their regrouping as a nation in their homeland would have profound eugenic consequences, primarily halting the degeneration they fell prey to because of the conditions imposed on them in the past.' (Falk 1998)

Note that Falk both an historian and biologists, plainly states 'Zionists' not 'some'

I don't know whether there's any point in replying to your points because much of the abovesuggests either unfamiliarity with the literature over the last few decades, or a sense that one's traditional sense of what Zionism may be is being challenged. Most of your objections appear to protest things that could be fixed, if just, by a tweak of phrasing. I am of the view that nothing should be added to any wiki page without a fair paraphrase of a reliable source. So here, it is simply a matter of (unlike Tombah's Palestinian screed) checking everything against the sources. If you can point to dissonance, by all means.Nishidani (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Not a meaningful response. Drsmoo (talk) 13:38, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Since there is no evidence you have any familiarity with the topic literature, and since, when you make an objection, and are replied to, you simply dismiss it as 'not meaningful', your seriousness here is questionableNishidani (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually you explicitly said that "don't know whether there's any point in replying to your points", and then didn't. So your non response was ignored. I'm not surprised that you didn't respond to them. This article is fundamentally broken at the base, and is a combination of misrepresentation of sources, cherry picking sources, and synthesizing sources, all of which has been documented. If you could reply, you would. I don't expect any meaningful replies, but perhaps I'll be surprised. It's fairly clear that third-parties will need to be involved. Drsmoo (talk) 13:51, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

No, that is sheer distortion. You wrote out a series of ostensible objections. I read them. They struck me as unfocused. I cited the first, and gave you a close analysis of why it was pointless niggling, since only someone unfamiliar with the literature could taise that objection. Therefore, I concluded that the rest of the bulleted points were equally ill-focused or unserious. You haven't responded to the meat of my first objection to your point, and therefore I concluded again that this is not serious. Nishidani (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Initial responses point-by-point:

1. This can be easily addressed via a minor copyedit; please feel free.

2. What does "claim an idea as a myth" mean? The article National myth is all in Wikipedia’s voice - do you object to that article? Myth is not a pejorative, it is the common scholarly description of these narratives.

3. I agree this needs nuance. Of all the points on your list, this is the most important. We need to find a way to communicate that not all forms of Zionism believe that Jews have a right to the land because of supposed ancestral descent. Some of the sources talk about the ancestral right being part of “popular consciousness” or similar - perhaps that is the correct route. Interested in your views here.

4+5. For @JJNito197: to comment on[6][7]

6. Fine, we can remove the word “widely”

7. This was sourced to Burton, not to the underlying study, and it was an accurate summary. As you have found the underlying study, feel free to add it to the article with the wider conclusions.

8. This is almost a direct quote of Schaffer who writes "the seekers of the priestly gene have an openly Zionist agenda"

9. For @Tombah: to comment on.[8] Tombah would be within his rights to raise a complaint against you for describing his good faith edits as "ridiculous".

Onceinawhile (talk) 13:47, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I think this will need external input, either in the form of an AfD or an Rfc. Drsmoo (talk) 13:51, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Giving up so quickly and throwing the ball or burden into someone else's court. You raised objections and editors are dutifully replying to them and, you just throw in the towel. One is supposed to work diligently here, no just protest and huff off to call for some external intervention.Nishidani (talk) 14:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: "an AfD or an RfC" because you raised 18 challenges but don't want to address any of them yourself? Look at one of our most fundamental guidelines WP:FIXIT - in the lede it says clearly: Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it.In the time it takes to write about the problem, you could instead improve the encyclopedia. Wikipedia not only lets you add and edit articles: it wants you to do it.

Of the first nine points that I have worked through, three were added by other editors (4, 5, 9), four are minor copyediting points (1, 6, 7, 8) and two need further discussion to clarify changes but with no meaningful opposition to the thrust of your points (2, 3). Onceinawhile (talk) 14:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

That's entirely ridiculous, an RFC needs to be a more or less straightforward discussion of simple clear questions. Not a response to a list of things that mostly can and should be resolved in the usual editing process. While an AfD is possible, I would assess the likelihood of deletion as remote given the absence of sensible arguments and the available sourcing. Selfstudier (talk) 16:21, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Some more:

10. This is a quote in quotation marks. You are welcome to clarify this - the source is there for everyone to inspect.

11. Re Nordau and race, see Fishberg, 1911, p.474. Fishberg also notes that Zangwill held the opposite view (Zangwill had to leave the ZO because he became aware of the existance of the Palestinian population): "Meanwhile, it is important to inquire in detail into the fundamental problems of Zionism. The question of race has already been discussed, and we arrived at the conclusion that the alleged purity of the Jewish race is visionary and not substantiated by scientific observation. [Footnote: Max Nordau, an avowed disciple of Lombroso, knows that anthropological research has dissipated the notion of Jewish racial purity, but he places more confidence in the acute powers of observation of the street loafer who recognizes a Jew by his nose. "To be sure, the street loafer's diagnosis is not infallible, still it fails him only rarely. But then the scientific diagnosis is not always reliable. The acute eye of the street loafer," concludes Nordau, " is sufficient proof that the Jews are a race, or at least a variety, or, if you please, a sub-variety of mankind." (Le Sicle, 1899; Zionistische Schrifien, p. 305). Zangwill asks, " Whoever heard of a religion that was limited to people of particular breed? Of divine truth that was only true for men of dark complexion?" (Jewish Chronicle, June 18th, 1909).]"

12. The underlying source says "reconstructions of “ancient races”"; we could replace "casting" with "reconstructing as an "ancient race"". Re the addition of "controversial" (which is certainly true regarding Phoenicianism), @JJNito197: to comment.

13. For examples, see Jabotinsky and Nordau in your point 11. More can be provided as necessary.

14a. The citation for your first point is Falk - it is lower down below the quote. It puts ‘Jewish genes’ in quotes, so we follow.

14b, 15, 16: Ostrer - I simply don’t understand your point here (and see comments a few threads above re Baker and her quote). This needs further discussion.

17. Then attribute it. No objection here.

18. You have read the quote wrong. Mid-twentieth century was the “legacy” point. The quote supports the statement.

Onceinawhile (talk) 15:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Re 18. You are incorrect, it is referring to the mid 20th century. I haven’t gone through your other responses yet. Drsmoo (talk) 17:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The entire section is referring to the mid 20th century. Later on in the book he analyzes modern genetic studies. The entire article is constructed like this, synthesis built out of cherry picked quotations. Drsmoo (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The section is the Introduction! She runs through a brief history up to the present, that ends around the point of the citation we are referring to. The word "forever" cannot possibly refer to a point fixed in the mid 20th century. Anyway, it is clear from reading her whole book – again this is just the introduction – that this is fully consistent with the conclusion that her work draws. This is a good case study of the rest of your comments about synth – it seems they are constructed without having actually checked the overall conclusions of each of the authors. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:13, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect, “remained” is explicitly past tense. As is the entire sentence and section, which is explicitly discussing genetic studies of the 50s and 60s. I’ll make an RFC at a later point. Drsmoo (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The sentence is clear "By the mid 20th century...". No shared origin through mid 20th cos no evidence, just a belief that this will be found.

Later on p 65, the question is put "what evidence is there that the Jews are a nation with a shared origin

in ancient Palestine?" Note that "shared origin" has little or nothing to do with self identification as a "group".

We don't need an RFC for an evidentiary question, it's just a matter of sources. Selfstudier (talk) 18:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It is best to approach this subject in a somewhat detached manner. NPOV is fundemental, and the prose should be free from religion-specific senstivities and unrequited 100% truths. This article should not be approached like articles solely concering religon, but instead read as a logical, secular scrutinization of a race-based policy stemming from an antiquated belief system. The second paragraph could perhaps lose the "so-called", but the terminology "Land of Israel" should be kept in parentheses. We could change the reference to Israelites and refer to the Jews instead in order to cater to the source more, although it is synonymous regardless. JJNito197 (talk) 19:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the Adalah cite per recommendation and replaced with inline citations for readability JJNito197 (talk) 21:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

For the record, most of Drsmoo's comments have now been addressed. It would be helpful if Drsmoo could provide clarification on the Ostrer (14b, 15, 16) challenges which I still do not understand, and confirm which of their other comments remain unresolved. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

For the record, they haven’t. Please explain how the comments have been addressed. You can do it in the same way I did, as a numbered list. Drsmoo (talk) 01:26, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure. The article has changed a lot since your list was written three days ago, and most of the below are by-products of edits by other editors addressing other improvements:

1. This is detailed in the section "Early Zionism".

2. Attributed

3. The variety of views within Zionism have been significantly expanded upon; there is still more to do in all directions.

4+5. "so-called"s have been removed, as has Adalah, and the sentence has merged into another

6. “Widely” removed

7. The Burton quotation has been changed into a paraphrase, the original study has been added, and the other half of their conclusion added.

8. Attributed to Schaffer.

9. Wording removed.

10. Quote reduced to just the last three words.

11. Nordau quote changed to make more clear, more sources added, and Zionists with different views added

12. "casting" changed to "reconstructing" per source. "Controversial" removed and sentence restructured.

13. Many examples now given in the history section

14a. Citation fixed.

14b, 15, 16: Ostrer section restructured.

17. Attributed.

18. In the 20th century section.

@Drsmoo: please confirm if any of these have not been addressed to your satisfaction, and ideally please be bold and make further changes yourself.

Onceinawhile (talk) 16:48, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Can someone buy this man a beer?! Iron-willed patience/attentiveness. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

At a rough glance, much of the article is much more balanced now. Definitely an improvement. Drsmoo (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

AfD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Zionism,_race_and_genetics posted by a random IP has now led to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zionism, race and genetics so we can decide whether this meets GNG or not. Selfstudier (talk) 18:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The map 1490s

I'm a bit offended that medieval Ireland is represented as blank of Jews. They were in all probability there by Henry III's time. Joyce's Bloom, that quintessential Jew and Irishman, will turn in his grave next Bloomsday. Nishidani (talk) 21:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Some review and revision notes

In the AfD some complaints were made about WP:NOR, connecting this suggestion with the rich embarrassment of extended notes, adding the rider that copyright was possibly violated. As I review what we have, The WP:NOR remarks reflects a common misperception about that policy, confounding the idea in WP:Synth with the fact that, to write articles, any editor must read widely from numerous sources and patch the results together without making inferences. Research is what editors have to do and should never be confused with original research, the drawing of conclusions not present in the source material. I am retaining the notes for the following reason.

• In an intrinsically controversial readers with less time than committed content editors are thereby given immediate access to the sources used for each statement. They can judge at a glance whether the paraphrase reflects the evidence from the sources in the accompanying notes.
• The retention serves a further purpose because, as the article runs from stub to GA status (that is the aim at least) formally or otherwise, the material in the notes can be harvested for admission into the body of the article itself. That kind of possibility becomes clearer as the reorganization proceeds, and the thematics are more cogently framed.

Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I support the retention of the notes for this reason (although I believe there are other OR issues here). BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

What OR issues? People keep saying that (or the equivalent synth) but appear reticent when it comes to specifying said synth/OR. Selfstudier (talk) 15:39, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

See the discussion on the AfD page, where this is the main topic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I already commented there to say that afaics there is no synth. I was asking what you mean by "OR issues" above, if you just mean as alleged in the AfD, that's fine. Selfstudier (talk) 10:55, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

RSN Discussion

At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Hassan Haddad, Journal of Palestine Studies Selfstudier (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Selfstudier, I meant to flag this here and forgot. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:27, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Egorova

Maybe https://dro.dur.ac.uk/14291/ as a later work should be used, I think it contains the same quote that appears to be duplicated in the article. Selfstudier (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Bit of a toss-up. That is paginated 1ff.

The ref we use has a different pagination.

There's also

• Egorova, Yulia (2017) [2015]. ""Jewish genetics" : DNA, culture, and historical narrative". In Valman, Nadia; Roth, Laurence (eds.). The Routledge handbook of contemporary Jewish cultures. Routledge. pp. 353–364. ISBN 978-1-135-04855-6.

I dunno. Bit busy at the mo' and such details can wait, unless anyone wants to pitch in.Nishidani (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

It's the same, the link is the chapter of the book. I'll fix it tomorrow. Selfstudier (talk) 20:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. Nishidani (talk) 20:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done Selfstudier (talk) 10:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

How not to start an article...

Zionism, race and genetics is the use of racial theories and genetic studies on Jews in support of or opposition to Zionist political goals.... Even if ignoring (or attempting to ignore) the question of whether 'Zionism, race and genetics' is an appropriate topic for Wikipedia in the first place, that isn't how to start an article. Or a sentence in general, if one is trying to write in a style of English one might expect in an encyclopaedia. There may very well be a discourse around 'Zionism, race and genetics' (along with all the perm-any-two-from three alternatives...), but if the discourse is the subject of the article, we should say so, rather than mangling the English language in order to conform with the Wikipedia-speak Bolded-X-is-Y article-lede conventions far too many article ledes are blighted with. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Quite right. For is the use of, one should have written refers to. There rather a very substantial amount of work to be done on the article's content, so style took a back seat. Had not so much useless argufying and negative across several pages invaded the issue of the article to distract attention from building it within two days of its appearance, we'd have probably had a far better piece of work, with due attention to such niceties. There is, however, not a shadow of a doubt that the topic as framed by the title is extensively studied. The mystery is, why does the mere mention of the existence of such studies, which I for one have been reading through desultorily for over a decade, stir such anxiety?Nishidani (talk) 23:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but 'refers to' is Wikipedia-lede-speak too, in my opinion. A lede, for anything but the most obvious topics, should start be explaining, in clear language, what the article is about, for the benefit of a reader one should assume doesn't already know. Which in this case isn't the specific phrase 'Zionism, race and genetics', but rather a whole slew of debates over the conjunction of three contested concepts. Inventing shorthand for something may well be useful when everyone agrees what it is, but isn't Wikipedia's job, and in circumstances what the distinct 'somethingness' of such amorphous subject matter is open to debate, might very well be seen as editorialising. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Also agree with Andy here, per MOS:FIRST. Even though I was the one who wrote the sentence and bolded it in the first place. Moving too fast perhaps. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I have had a go at this. No pride of authorship though if others disagree. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

"Discourse" is good - I've added another fronting sentence containing "discourse" and links that most directly relate to all the key terms in the title, while also adding in the missing 'when' part of it all. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Andy for this intervention which has sparked a good step forward in the framing. As of right now, the opening sentence is "As early as the late 19th century, a discourse emerged within Zionism seeking to reframe conceptions of Jewishness in terms of racial identity and later in the products of genetic science." (I'm not sure the relevance of "as early as" but that's another issue.) So is this the actual topic of the article? If so, this definitely has a "somethingness" about it, which would swing me towards supporting its existence. I'd frame it as something like early Zionist race science, focusing it on Nordau, Ruppin etc.

However, the next sentence goes on to talk about "Since then", and my personal view is that at this point the "somethingness" starts to break down, unless it is framed as the legacy of this body of work. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:50, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

For 'since then,' read 'In every generation since' cited to {{sfn|Falk|2017|p=16}} (In every generation (since its foundation)Zionists have striven to link Jewish nationality with a biological foundation).

Actually leads in a developing article have, of necessity, a provisoriness because, as the article is fleshened out by taking in all major elements mentioned by the relevant topical literature, the lead inevitably will per WP:MOS have to be reformulated to reflect accurately what the sections state. There is a whole section to be written up on what is amply discussed in our sources, about early Zionism's rift with the larger Jewish European communities over what constituted a Jew for example, religion or ethnicity; about the overlap between early Zionist conceptions of 'race' and those of antisemites. It would have already been done, if people had been a little less hasty and allowed the article to build itself out of its humble stubbiness. Nishidani (talk) 11:13, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Much improvement i think on the approach, the historical treatment working to provide a better foundation for the reader (and maybe one somewhat surprisingly lacking in other articles). Part of the push back was maybe seeing 'Zionism', 'race', and 'genetics' as filtering words in the title, and a distasteful imagined confluence of content. The historical side-by-side treatment should i think alleviate some concerns. Question now is maybe how much can/should 'Zionism' be given up as a filtering word as discourse...seeking to reframe conceptions of Jewishness in terms of racial identity and race science could also be seen as a statement of scope. I don't know if that's useful or a horrific piling-on of work for you, but i'll try and make up for it with finding sources for Batsheva Bonne-Tamir as circa 1980 looks interesting. fiveby(zero) 17:49, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Religious views subheader

I have added a sub header for religious views regarding this topic where people can improve this article with specific knowledge (competence is required) regarding the linkage between Zionism, genetics and race. Maybe something about how being ethnically Jewish doesn't mean you practice Judaism etc. This is the sanctified place where religious views can be displayed and taken seriously, without the overall secular reading of the article which is beneficial to the logical understanding of religious concepts within this article. JJNito197 (talk) 09:49, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Is this not already covered in Who is a Jew? and/or Jewish identity? If not, that's where it should be. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:24, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have 'sanctified places'. And nor should we be imposing our own arbitrary constraints on the structure of articles. I shall remove the subheader until it can be demonstrated that the sources we cite justify it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

That's fine by me, as it being secular is what it should be being free from religious sensitivities. I was just trying to accommodate those that want to add in religious views regarding the perception of the linkage between race, Zionism and Judaism. This is not explored fully on other articles. When one wants to improve an article, one adds not strips it of potential. JJNito197 (talk) 10:36, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Using geneticists for content about non-geneticists

Currently, some of the claims we make about Zionists' beliefs cite sources which are articles by contemporary geneticists such as Ostrer. Ostrer's book is a (controversial) genetic history of the Jews; it is not a history of genetic science, of Jewish thought, or of Zionism. He should be cited in articles about Jewish genetics, but I'm not sure he belongs here. Further, his book mentions Zionism a total of 8 times, so we also need to be concerned about SYNTH if a significant amount of this article hangs on his work.

Raphael Falk is better, as he is a historian of science as well as a geneticist, but it's important to bear in mind that his historical work is not his primary area of expertise and his perspectives on history follow from his genetic agenda so may not follow the weight of opinion in the mainstream historical literature. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:13, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh come on now. Niggling away dunam by dunam at this and that is not constructive, esp. when as the above, remarks objecting to material seem grounded in a habit of forgetting what sources say. Secondary scholarly works deal with Ostrer precisely in this context. The topic is about 'Zionism, race and genetics,' and Ostrer is a Zionist, believes in a Jewish 'race' of sorts, and is a well-known geneticist. All this is noted in sources we draw on. Nishidani (talk) 10:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but I think niggling away is constructive; it's how we collaboratively create good articles. This is a new article so obviously it has a huge amount of work ahead of it if it passes AfD. Susan M Kahn's excellent short commentary relates Abu El-Haj to Zionism, showing how her scholarship is grounded in an anti-Zionist politics. There is no mention of Zionism in her discussion of Ostrer. Yes, "The topic is about 'Zionism, race and genetics,'" because that's how its recent creator framed it; but the discussion on this page and the AfD shows that there is not yet consensus that such a topic exists in a way that legitimates a WP article.

The idea that we need to talk about Ostrer because Ostrer is a Zionist and a geneticist feels very much like SYNTH at the moment, as there is no source cited here making that connection (Kandiyoti implies something a little like it, but it's a stretch). BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Niggling means hair-splitting. One can make any number of sensible suggestions, just as one can nag away, gnaw at some trivial or imagined bone of contention. Logical analysis to a propositional end is one thing, but it degenerated into disquisitions on how many angels could fit on a pinhead. You queried 'since then', and I gave a solution, already inj our sources. You ignored the suggestion and rewrote the passage as 'More recently' jumping a century- That was ugly in terms of a reader's sense of topical development, in my view.Nishidani (talk) 14:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The point re Falk is again pointless. Falk was a geneticist who wrote a history of his discipline, just as Ernst Mayr was a molecular biologist who also wrote, hang on, let me walk across to my other library stack . . .yes,The Growth of Biological Thought' Bellkap 1982, a masterpiece of its genre. There it stands next to another book, C. D. Darlington's The Evolution of Man and Society,(George Allen & Co.,1969). Like Mayr, Darlington was a biologist who wrote an historical work on the biological constraints (he thought) affecting human history. Really, one should not persist in drawing content editors off their job - writing up, or reshaping, articles that need a good deal of positive review - with frivolous time-wasting challenges. Sorry for the slight intemperance, but, there's 2500 pages of stuff so far in our bibliography begging to be analysed and paraphrased into a representation of the state of the art of this topic, and a week has passed with just endless talk page argufying. Nishidani (talk) 10:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there's a hurry. I'm absolutely not against widening the number of sources we actively draw on. I'm saying that historians of Zionism and historians of race thinking are better starting points than geneticists. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:34, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

In the history or science, surely a history of genetics by a historian of science specialized in genetics is mainstream literature? Are there more general historical works covering this topic that you can provide? Iskandar323 (talk) 13:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I would say the sort of literature that would be mainstream here (in the sense of the core, recognised body of work on the history of Zionism and history of racialisation of Jews) would be scholars like George Mosse, Sander Gilman, Zeev Sternhell, Mitchell B Hart, John Efron. Some of them are in the bibliography here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Mainstream, mainstream'. I sigh when I see that word mechanically alluded to, almost as often as i do when I see WP:Synth mentioned by editors who don't appear to know how to write articles, but love deleting them, not troubling, not only to read the sources, but also to grasp what that policy entails. I know what people think they wish to mean by mainstream, but they should familiarize themselves - it will help them tweak the drift of the usage of the word to appreciate how easily it can be abused -with the academic literature on the sociology of knowledge, systemnc bias, and the disciplines that deal with newspaper coverage analysis, which consistently show that editorial choices tilt reportage as often as not, often in ways that deprive the readership of access to neutral balanced presentations of news. Any emerging discipline will have several competing theories vying for ascendency, with some attracting more heft that others. Often less than a generation separates the dominant model from a marginal one which then gains ground (Molecular biology has several instances of this. See for example the cases of The stories of people like Carl Woese and Lynn Margulis in David Quammen’s recent The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life regarding horizontal gene transfer). Mainstream is used as a synonym for 'orthodoxy' something science, which is always provisional for methodological reasons, is uncomfortable with.

One of the ornaments of my library are 15 volumes of Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China, perhaps opne of the greatest encyclopedic works ever written. If you look at his degree, he graduated in biochemistry. Then he wrote a masterly history of embryology. A decade later he wrote another historical masterpiece on morphogenesis. The charm and sexual attractiveness of Lu Gwei-djen, seduced him into studying Chinese privately. No degree in sinology either. So he was neither a sinologist nor an historian, and is regarded as, not a biologist primarily, but as the foremost historian of Chinese science, in all of its branches, the world has ever seen. No one ever grumbled that this Needham chap's off-base. His scholarship showed irefrageably that he was inimitably at home in any discipline he chose to work on. One can go on giving examples. E. T. Bell now comes to mind. A first rate creative mathematician, he wrote a 2 volume history of most areas of that vast topic,Men of Mathematics (1937). Or take Norman Tindale, he chanced on getting as a youth a librasry cadetshiop in Adelaide, and got fascinated by insects- he took no tertiary studies in Entomology but became a recognized expert and one thing led to another and he turned himself into the leading anthropological scholar of aboriginal Australians of his day, and wrote the standard overview of 600+ tribes (1974). The list is endless. This might seem anomalous to recent eyes but only because, as Arnold Toynbee wrote (no formal training as an historian in the modern sense, just a degree in classics) in his overture to his 12 volume A Study of History, the modern insistence on a formal degree in a set and restricted discipline has been devastating in its specialized industrialization of knowledge.Nishidani (talk) 14:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Debated origins of Ashkenazim

I am moving this out of the lead as it is really contentious: I don't think the quotes support the text and they cannot be used without attribution as highly controversial. Can we find a better way to include in the body?

and the fact that the original founding fathers of the Zionist movement were Ashkenazi Jews whose origins remain "highly debated". Footnote text:

• McGonigle's thesis: Here, the ethnic composition of Israel is crucial. Despite the ambiguity in the legal, biological, and social “nature” of “Jewish genes” and their intermittent role in the reproduction of Jewish identity, Israel is a country of extraordinary ethnic diversity. Many Jewish immigrants have arrived from Eastern Europe, North Africa, France, India, Latin America, Yemen, Iraq, Ethiopia, the United States, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the former Soviet Union (FSU), and then there is Israel’s Arab minority of close to two million people. And while Jewishness has often been imagined as a biological race—most notably, and to horrific ends, by the Nazis, but also later by Zionists and early Israelis for state-building purposes— the initial origins of the Ashkenazi Jews who began the Zionist movement in turn-of-the-century Europe remain highly debated.'(McGonigle 2021, p. 35)
• Abu El-Haj: "There is a “problem” regarding the origins of the Ashkenazim, which needs resolution: Ashkenazi Jews, who seem European—phenotypically, that is—are the normative center of world Jewry. No less, they are the political and cultural elite of the newly founded Jewish state. Given their central symbolic and political capital in the Jewish state and given simultaneously the scientific and social persistence of racial logics as ways of categorizing and understanding human groups, it was essential to find other evidence that Israel’s European Jews were not in truth Europeans. The normative Jew had to have his/her origins in ancient Palestine or else the fundamental tenet of Zionism, the entire edifice of Jewish history and nationalist ideology, would come tumbling down. In short, the Ashkenazi Jew is the Jew—the Jew in relation to whose values and cultural practices the oriental Jew in Israel must assimilate. Simultaneously, however, the Ashkenazi Jew is the most dubious Jew, the Jew whose historical and genealogical roots in ancient Palestine are most difficult to see and perhaps thus to believe — in practice, although clearly not by definition."(Abu El-Haj 2012, p. 98)}}

BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:00, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Bob, please could you explain what is contentious about saying that the origins of Ashkenazi Jews are debated? I am certain there is no scholarly consensus on their origins.

It's not that the origins are not continuously debated by those who think racial origin matters. It's the synthesis in the claim, that the Ashkenazi origins of the founders of Zionism were hotly debated (back then?) and therefore they turned to race science. Even if it wasn't contentious, it shouldn't be in the lead without being in the body. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:23, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

"no scholarly consensus on their origins" I prefer this way of phrasing it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Fine with me. A version of it should be in both the body and lede, because the question of Ashkenazi Judaism was the original heart of this topic and, according to all the sources we have, remains the highest profile question in Jewish population genetics. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

What do you mean by “ the question of Ashkenazi Judaism was the original heart of this topic”? BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I mean what is stated in both quotes above – that race science within Zionism was originally focused on Ashkenazi Jews due to their role in founding the Zionism, and has remained the central area for genetic studies on Jewish origins given their population represents c.60%+ of the global Jewish population. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The concept of descent within Zionism

I don't think it needs attribution to describe most of the concept of descent-from-the-Israelites within Zionism. Perhaps certain nuances on it can be attributed, but the core logic that mainstream Zionism implies descent, effected practically via the multiple references to "return" in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the Law of Return, surely is not debated by anyone? Onceinawhile (talk) 17:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I threw in Sand because Bob removed the other sources, I agree it's a no brainer, if the similar is in his book or elsewhere, then we don't need attribution. Selfstudier (talk) 17:18, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I didn't add a cn tag after removing sources as I agree it's very non-contentious and doesn't need a source. Sand, however, is a very contentious (many would say fringe) source to add. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The whole area is contentious, for obvious reasons. Doesn't mean that he is wrong and certainly does not mean that he is fringe. Who exactly are the "many"? Selfstudier (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Sand was heavily attacked, primarily with strawmen arguments that he wasn't making. So much so that a sentence saying that "Shlomo Sand stated that 'the world is round'" would make some people wonder whether it is really true. I wouldn't attribute him for something that isn't unique to him. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

We have to attribute him because the source is "Opinion". As I said, if there is similar elsewhere we can do away with attribution but I rather liked the quote so looked no further. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think it needs a citation. It’s in the linked articles. Sand is worse than no citation in my view. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

See Shlomo Sand, afraid I am not impressed by your (or Drsmoo) innuendo. Given a choice between the opinions of random people on the internet or that of a notable historian, I know which to choose. That he has had a run-in with Ostrer is also of interest. Selfstudier (talk) 12:13, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

FYI Ostrer's attack on Sand was one of the reasons for writing his 2012 book (e.g. the JC says "In what has been mentioned as a challenge to Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People, Harry Ostrer argues in Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People..."). Onceinawhile (talk) 12:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I’m thinking that Sand should perhaps be discussed briefly in the same section as Abu El-Haj and Ostrer. All three have highly contentious positions which we should be describing neutrally via secondary sources and not using as unattributed and uncontextualised sources for statements in our voice about anything. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Plus also Jon Entine and Eran Elhaik, who seem to be the others frequently discussed in this context. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:20, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Any remaining claims of synth, POV or factual inaccuracy?

The article has changed very significantly since the two tags were added at the top of the article. Please confirm if there are any remaining points where any editor believes there is synth, POV or factual inaccuracy? Onceinawhile (talk) 08:00, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The talk in the AfD discussion focuses on this so I’d leave the tags while that continues. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:02, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I would like to confirm at the AfD discussion that the various claims have been addressed. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is still built on cherry picked sources and quotes, choosing specific sections to reference while, for example, ignoring extremely relevant sections from the same source that provide different views. There are also synth-y sections that misrepresent the quotes themselves. And there is the major issue of claiming that modern studies are ideological, and conflating modern genetics with antiquated race science. Drsmoo (talk) 11:15, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: please provide specific evidence, so that your assertions and can be confirmed and addressed. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I would rather just fix the mis summaries. The other issues are structural and require adding neutral sources.

There are also relevant sources on biology and Judaism more broadly that clash with the angular, synthd together topic title Drsmoo (talk) 12:27, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

No specifics then. Assuming GF here is pointless. Selfstudier (talk) 12:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Noted Drsmoo (talk) 12:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: please confirm which sources you are referring to, so we can all help here. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:41, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I’d rather just fix it myself after 1rr. I spent hours the other day building a list only to get insulted, and then be told my suggestions had been implemented, which was odd. Drsmoo (talk) 12:48, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Given that your only activity this week has been discussing and editing this page, I'm sure it's not beyond you to offer a few choice examples that justify retaining the tags on this article. One good example for each would suffice. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:41, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

For one example from the lead “ so that the theme of 'blood logic'/'race' has been recently described as a recurrent feature of modern Jewish thought in both scholarship and popular belief.” From the book “Jews and Race”. Jewish thought, rather than Zionist. The article doesn’t know what it is, it’s throwing quotes together from different sources but isn’t actually a critical examination of its supposed topic. Were the topic “Biological Judaism”, there would be far more sources that would apply, and the article could actually be coherent. Drsmoo (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

This kind of objection is, frankly, ridiculous. Hart's overview of race in Jewish thought 1880-1940 is widely cited, and he frequently mentions Zionism in his introduction to the anthology of texts. It is laughable to say one cannot cite Hart on Zionist race thinking as part of modern Jewish thought because the word 'Zionism' is not in the title. Nishidani (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

It’s not in the referenced material, textbook synth. Drsmoo (talk) 20:56, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

read again. It is. And read WP:Synth. Nishidani (talk) 20:59, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Show me where in the quoted material he describes Zionism. Here is the quoted material: “ throughout all of the de-racializing stages of twentieth-century social thought, Jews have continued to invoke blood logic as a way of defining and maintaining group identity.” . .“race” is a significant component not only of scholarly or academic modern Jewish thought, but also of popular or everyday Jewish thought. It is one of the building blocks of contemporary Jewish identity construction, even if there are many who would dispute the applicability of biological or racial categories to Jews” Drsmoo (talk) 23:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Hart is a great resource and shows that there is a good article topic if we focused on that 1880-1940 period and had a tighter title. However, the overly capacious title brings in genetics and forces the article to yoke this period of high race science together with a much later genetic debate, which has implications for Zionism but is very marginal to Zionism’s story. Only a couple of scholars, some very controversial, have made the link between the two periods, typically using vague words like “echoed” or “reverberated”, which is one reason the whole premise of the article feels like SYNTH. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The sentence …Only a couple of scholars, some very controversial… is simply wrong. I could list a dozen scholars making the connection. Which are the controversial ones you had in mind? Onceinawhile (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I have listed an example dozen scholars who make this connection here: [9]. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:46, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

That wording was added at 15:36 UTC today, after the comment that you were asked to justify.

Either way, what would be most helpful would be to see the sources the sources that you referred to above, as soon as you have time to type out their authors and titles.

Onceinawhile (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: it has been a day and a half since you were asked to clarify your concerns, and a day since the comment above asking for the sources you referred to above.

I will be removing the tags shortly if no clarity is provided. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

This has already been done, multiple times, not to mention the numerous commentators here and on the afd pointing out how bad the synth and OR is in this article. If you remove it, it will be highly tendentious, and the tags will be re-added. I would reach out to the editors who commented on this article’s issues, rather than continuing to bludgeon. Drsmoo (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: other editors do not need you to talk for them, and it confuses the conversation.

To my read, the only issues currently being discussed are narrower in scope and do not require article-wide tags.

Since you added the current article-wide tags, if you personally still believe that they are required, please confirm this, with evidence. In the absence of that the tags will be removed; if other editors then add them back we can discuss and address their explanations. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:40, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

You can do what you like. If you decide to WP:Bludgeon and then remove tags in the middle of an AFD discussion while 10(!) editors are describing the article as SYNTH, the tags will be re-added, and you will be reported to AE. Drsmoo (talk) 19:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

“Biological Judaism” would be a terrible title to change to imho. Plus we already have articles on Jewish generic and What is a Jew. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:49, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

What would you suggest for a title? I think there is certainly basis for an article on a conception of Judaism as being biological and the history, details, and consequences of that idea. That is in essence the concept of this article, which is running into problems due to trying to use sources broadly about Jews Drsmoo (talk) 18:58, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is about the politicization of Jewish genealogy. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think you (or anyone) can confirm anything at the AfD discussion. Editors and the closer there can read the discussion here themselves. There’s lots of threads and little consensus. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:46, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Drsmoos. A little polite care in addressing a legitimate request. We have tags that read:

• The neutrality of this article is disputed. (July 2023)
• This article's factual accuracy is disputed. (July 2023)

Editors who actually contribute to the article, as opposed to the AfD, have a right to know (a) what in the article violates NPOV and (b) the accuracy of what facts is being disputed. The last request in particular can be easily addressed, because no editor here will tolerate factual inaccuracies. So please list them, so they may be addressed and fixed, as was done earlier.Nishidani (talk) 20:06, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Already been provided multiple times. I also didn’t add the tags, which makes the badgering and sealioning even odder. Drsmoo (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Come now. This looks like angling for stuff to take to AE. I am familiar with your points earlier, and Onceinawhile's systematic replies and changes to the text in meeting those objections. You said the article was improved earlier, in consequence. So it is natural to ask whether you have other examples of problems that warrant the tags and which need to be addressed. There's nothing hostile here, no baiting. Just an attempt to get some collaborative input.Nishidani (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The problematical quote from Falk in note to lead

both Zionists and non-Zionists seeking a link between national and biological aspects of Jewish identity

• This is ambiguous. (a) Zionists seek to link national and biological Jewishness (b)their opponents, anti-Zionists, seek to link national and biological Jewishness.
• Now having read the whole of Falk I know what he means to say, but this summary way of putting it confuses readers. What he argues is that racial and biological arguments have been used by both, adversarial camps. The literature behind this, esp. 1890s-1910s is intricately nuanced. But anti-Zionists often denied Zionist (both political and cultural) arguments about race.
• So I think we have to clarify. The point will be illuminated, I hope, in the section that focuses on that period's debates on race and Jewishness, among antisemites, assimilationists, Zionists and anti-Zionists. This note is just to notify other editors to keep their eyes out for material on this point. Hart, for example, furnishes pertinent generalizations.

Nishidani (talk) 08:36, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

When he refers to "non-zionists" he is not referring to "anti-zionists". He is referring to "non-zionist Jews". As you can see from that section's footnote:

An interesting aspect is that of orthodox-religious circles that seek support of the “biological” argument for the Jewishness (or for membership in the Ten Lost Tribes) of tribes and congregations all over the world. Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, the founder of the “Amishav” (Hebrew for “My People Return”) organization and the author of the book Israel’s Tribes, followed on his journeys “the footprints of forgotten Jewish communities, who lost their contact with the Jewish world [...] at the same time he also located tribes that have no biological relationship to the people of Israel but who want very much to join them” (Yair Sheleg, “All want to be Jewish”, Haaretz, September, 17, 1999, p. 27). In recent years, Rabbi Avichail “discovered” the tribe of Menasheh among the Koki, Mizo and Chin in the Manipur mountains at the border between India and Burma. In a TV program on “the search after the lost tribes,” Hillel Halkin, a demographer of cultures, claimed that whereas the Jews of Ethiopia converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages and are not of ancient Jewish stock, the Koki, Mizo and Chin people are direct progeny of the Biblical tribe of Menasheh.

All references to non-zionists refer to Jews:

Zionists who endeavored to impose a humanistic and universal belief on their concept of race had to face not only non-Zionists and assimilationists among their own people, but also socially conscious thinkers, Marxists and others, who considered the very idea of a revival of the national notion a threat.

At the beginning of the Zionist settlement, several other, non-Zionist Jewish communities were living in Palestine: Spanioli speakers, who were probably the progeny of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492; Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for religious reasons; as well as other Ashkenazi Jews.

A more direct eugenic project has been established by the closed ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi (professedly non-Zionist) community for the detection of carriers of genes for hereditary diseases and their prevention.

Drsmoo (talk) 04:29, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

You're right to correct by writing 'non-Zionist Jews', a minor tweak. There is nothing problematical about the Falk quote though. We don't need to add the footnote, which is an aside, though I'm grateful you reminded me of that, since on reading Tamar Neuman's book several years ago I had made a mental note to fix up articles like the Bnei Menashe and then, with a zillion other things on my mind, forgot to do so. Done.

Something about the Amichail Lost Tribes farce, a one-man operation by an eccentric rabbi and his friends to rope in 35 million Talibanic Pathans for a pseudo- aliyah plan to fix Israel's demographic imbalance with Palestinians could be put in a proper section, if we have sources that mention it in a direct context involving race, Zionism and genetics. The several hundred mutually unintelligible Tibetan-Burmese- speaking Zo tribal members imported so far to clean streets and toilets while getting IDF training to helpdefend Kiryat Arba's numerous American settlers from the 280,800 alien Arabs who have plagued the city and its environs of Hebron for more than 2,000 years, have no genetic ties, are not even considered 'racially' Jewish, and are essentially an anomaly sponsored by Christian evangelical funders because the ingathering is a premise for the annihilation or conversion of the Jews. We all know Zionism is such a vast ramshackle empire-state-building project crammed with a manifold farrago of interests, ideas, obsessions that virtually anything can happen, even the ludicrous situation we have here with all its fraudulence. But that is not what the article is focused on. I only wish Roy Andrew Miller were alive to enjoy the joke about his early field of specialization.Nishidani (talk) 14:31, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

However, Jewish race scientists generally had a very similar approach to non-Jewish race scientists, whereas this was (and remains) a minority position among non- and anti-Zionists; a more accurate take would be something like "most Zionists" and "some anti-Zionist Jews", as well as (for different reasons) "most non-JEwish race scientists". The current version makes it look like Jews in general seek a link between national and biological aspects of Jewish identity, which is very far from the truth. In general, we need to (a) be careful to locate Zionist race science within race science more broadly, as a hegemonic way of understanding humanity and peoplehood in 1880-1940, (b) show that the Zionist position was contested both internally and externally, (c) avoid over-emphasising continuity between pre-WWII race science and emergence of genetics in more recent decades. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I haven't been up to par today. When I read too much, I get sleepless, 3/4 hours a night, and, whatever the talk page mentions the next day doesn't find me on full focus, also because on waking I go straight to the pile of books and print-outs for further extensivce reading and checking. So I haven't been a good correspondent here these last two days.

When I first read that I was linguistically uncomfortable, construing A's reference to non-Zionists to mean anti-Zionists or 'antisemites'. Drsmoo took it to refer to non-Zionist Jews. Still languishing somnolently after a mealI normally do not eat, I agreed.

So, let's parse it. Source

(A)‘In every generation there are still Zionists as well as non-Zionists who are not satisfied with the mental and social notions which bind Jews together, and who seek to find the link between the national and the biological aspects of being Jews.

This is immediately preceded by the remark:

It is not in the hands of the biologists to decide the ‘Jewishness’ of one community or another, even in the face of the most sophisticated molecular devices:Judaism and biology are two domains, different in kind. It is however a fact of life that embracing ‘science’ as an arbitrator in resolving all kinds of difficulties is still common.'

There are biologists, whose business is not to clarify 'Judaism'. It is commonplace to think that such a 'science', however, can arbitrate and resolve issues of 'Jewishness'.

Our article quote is then followed by

I do not intend to present in this book an historical view or a comprehensive picture of the biological literature of the origins of the Jews and the blood relations between them.

The 'Zionists and non-Zionists' alluded to are two antithetical subcategories. (i) Of the category of Zionists, there is a subcategory that strives to link Jewishness to biology. (ii) Of the category of non-Zionists, there is a subcategory that strives to link Jewishness to biology.

(i) is unproblematical. 'Some' Zionists still think Jewishness is not defined culturally or psychologically, but requires a biological grounding. True.

(ii) is problematical, as my intuitive first reading picked up. For one, who are the 'non-Zionists'? (a) People generally outside the fold (b) Jews who do not subscribe to Zionism (c) contextually, even biologists who have no horse in the race of Zionist or anti-Zionist polemics but express their views or do research on the issues that puzzle both?

Whatever the case be, (a) (b) or/and (c) the 'non-Zionists' referred to mirror the 'Zionists' in linking Jewishness to biology. There is no way to determine exactly what Falk means by (some) 'non-Zionists'.

Our article now reads:-

(B)The question of Jewish biological unity assumed particular importance during early nation building in Israel, given the ethnic diversity of incoming Jewish populations. Since then, every generation has witnessed efforts by both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews to seek a link between national and biological aspects of Jewish identit

So the addition of Jews as a qualifier is an editorial interpretation no better or worse than any other. For all we know, Falk may have had in mind the community of biologists generally, with Zionist feelings or wholly indifferent to the politics of the area, or even that variety of antisemite who thinks of Jews in racial terms, but argues that the genetic evidence points to a non-Jewish origin, say Turkic Khazars) of modern (Ashkenazi) Jews.

I think the quote is important only to underline the continuity of efforts to link Jewishness to biology. I think therefore we should just state (some) 'Zionists and non-Zionists' alike. Tell me if the above still reeks of a sleepy head or not, Bob? I might sleep more soundly.Nishidani (talk) 16:23, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

NO need to reply. I did a word search. had Drsmoo taken the trouble to provide page numbers it would have saved me a lot of needless effort.

Zionists who endeavored to impose a humanistic and universal belief on their concept of race had to face not only non-Zionists and assimilationists among their own people,' p74

So Jew it is. Time for a stroll and a beer or three.Nishidani (talk) 16:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Kinda figures: unless non-Zionist means non-Zionist co-ethnic individuals, well that's just the whole world ... that would be a rather large net and a rather unbalanced binary opposition. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much Nishidani for the thoughtfulness and effort you put into this, as always. I agree with your reading, that he is referring to Jewish Zionists and Jewish non-Zionists and is a little unclear about who the non-Zionists are. I guess my problem still remains that "both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews" seems to me to imply Jews in general, whether Zionist or not, whereas in fact we know, from otehr sources, that most non-Zionist Jews did not pursue this biological agenda, whereas some did.

My instinct is that this does not go in the lead as it's too complex and subtle and would be better placed further down in the body. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Per Tekiner below, "non-Zionist" (referring to Jews) was coined by Weizmann " to neutralize political opposition to Zionism by Jews who objected to the political implications of "Zionist," but nonetheless wanted to help improve the future prospects of persecuted Jews. Selfstudier (talk) 13:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Roselle Tekiner was an anti-Zionist writer, married to Elmer Berger, and maybe a little dated in her treatment of race for an anthropologist. Kind of a useful snapshot in time. One thing she does do is devote quite a bit of space to an introductory discussion of "Jewish race" to provide background, even in a journal article. I think an introductory encyclopedia article for a general audience would serve the reader well by doing the same: giving up much of the immediate focus on Zionist thinking, anti-Zionism, non-Zionism. fiveby(zero) 14:14, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Jewishness?

Wouldn't "Jewish identity", the article the term is wikilinked to, be a better choice of words in the lede? :3 F4U (they/it) 01:15, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

In the spirit of BRD, I'll be changing the phrasing. 👍 :3 F4U (they/it) 01:16, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

We write according to sources. Sources on this topic repeatedly refer to Jewishness. The difference between 'Jewishness' and 'Jewish identity' semantically in this academic context is that the former connotes the concept of a (biological) essence, whereas 'Jewish identity' does not.Nishidani (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I see, I've self-reverted. :3 F4U (they/it) 05:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I felt obliged to run a check on usage of these two terms because I dislike making a judgement without evidence. It turns out that the master reference on this topic, Falk's 2017 book employs 'Jewishness' on 15 pages (pp.10.15,16,22,45,83,91,106,123,162,170,,183,191,201,202) as opposed to 8 uses of the term 'Jewish identity' (pp.pp.xi,21,49,63,144,200,202,209).Nishidani (talk) 06:04, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Agnostic on the right phrasing in the lead, but I don't think Jewishness connotes biological essence unless you already subscribe to a raciological worldview. The Yiddish word usually mis-romanised as Yiddishkeit, usually translated into English as Jewishness, has no biological implications at all. The German word used by lots of the 1880-1940 scholars we refer to here would be "Judentum", which also sometimes did and sometimes didn't have a biological connotation. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:01, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Bob. That is clear from the phrasing 'reframing Jewishness' in terms of racial theory means Jewishness prexisted and race science narrowed the concept. It's everywhere in the sources on this specific issue we have listed. I noted Falk, but, just take Avraham. It's used on pp.474,476,478,480 etc. Yiddishkeit is specific to Ostjuden, not Jews. Sorry, I must look after the spaghetti sauce. Nishidani (talk) 10:53, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Isn't it the case that 'Jewish identity' has more of a personal self-identification connotation, whereas 'Jewishness' lends itself better to the broader, more abstract discussion of meaning? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Decline of Jewish race science?

This edit implies "racial science" died out in the 30's. I think the way this is phrased is not quite right, the Zionist movement was concerned with eugenics as a kind of bridge to genetics while distancing from the Nazi usage. Per Haaretz "In August 1952, a decision was passed by the World Congress of Jewish Physicians to establish a scientific institute dedicated to issues of eugenics in Israel. The institute was never established; eugenic theories were beginning to be abandoned by then" So that is up to the early 50's at least. Selfstudier (talk) 18:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Lipphardt 2008 puts the end of the Jewish version of racial science at 1935. Avraham 2017 says it stopped around Kristallnacht 1938. It was discredited or disowned by the UN in 1946 by implication in its call to end racial discrimination, and I think a booklet came out stating race was unscientific at that time. Nonetheless, under cover, the huge thrust of these 19th-early 20th century clichés wagged its tail all politically (the US and Australia with its Whitre Australia policy) and in anthropological works for decades. We need more sources on Israeli policies in the 1950s onwards. A lot of doctors there, for example, had been trained in Germany and it was hard to shake off assumptions built into their mother-tongue and the very languages of sciences like anthropòology and biology.Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

You've seen Roselle Tekiner?[10][11]. Not sure how strictly authors are scrutinized in the topic are, but maybe useful for research regardless? fiveby(zero) 22:02, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Selfstudier and Nishidani. I meant to write more in that section, as I had a bunch of tabs open with sources commenting on this, and just ran out of time and steam so it remained/remains stubby and in need of developing and caveating. It was certainly not an overnight shift, but a gradual turn from the 1930s onwards. But I strongly think we should avoid giving the impression that there was more continuity than there was between the pre-WWII race science and the return of biology in the radically different genomic form post-WWII. My strong view, as I've already said too many times, is that these are different phenomena and yoking them into a single narrative is a form of synthesis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:33, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I can see now that the terminology around "race" is rather slippery. We have sources linking them, personal opinions that they are not linked are not relevant. As Nishidani says, perhaps the bit in the middle needs fleshing out. Selfstudier (talk) 13:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The term 'race' is slippery. It is true as once formulated and developed 'race science' had its heyday and affected a lot of disciplines down to the 30s. The crowning Nazi application of what it could imply totally wrecked its credibility. But at the same time, while formally disowned, it kicked on in modified form, and there is a notable amount of material showing that in eugenics and immigration regulation, the 'quality' of the races in Israel was an abiding concern for decades, which was reflected in political, administrative and scientific practices. The Yemeni and Northern African aliyah literature shows this time and again. The Cochin Jews were blocked on race grounds, as I noted at the AfD. None of this can be understood except as the long hand of core Zionist perceptions of what was intended by the 'renewal' of the Jews on the 'soil' of Palestine (they used that term at the time). So there is absolutely no 'synth' and it all makes sense in a single linear narrative, that culminates in genetics. It is a fundamental premise of historians and their art that there are no 'clean breaks' in history, that even radical revolutionary changes take years if not decades to work through the received pressure of the ideological, religious, cultural and social traditions of the past. Your suggestion that adherence to the continuities as they are given in the literature isd a synthesis strikes me as enacting a neat break, creating a 'tabula rasa' that detaches 1948 and onwards from everything beforehand. That's good politics but bad history. It simply wasn't like that. Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

We have Falk R. Zionism, race and eugenics. In: Cantor G., Swetlitz M., editors. Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism. University of Chicago Press; Chicago: 2006. pp. 137–162. (The book is in the article Biblio already)

"Although eugenics and Zionism had completely different ideological roots, both were products of the materialistic beliefs that underpinned much social philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both articulated strong utopian programs. While the former focused on the improvement (or prevention of the degeneration) of the human species, the latter addressed the future of the Jewish race. Both were based on the achievements of scientific rationality. In the present paper I will show that many Zionist writers appealed to biological conceptions of race and nation and displayed an awareness of their responsibility not only to preserve this biologically circumscribed ethnic group but also to propagate and improve it. Although never a major issue in the complex history of Zionism, I will argue that it has been a persistent one.

Before World War II the emphasis was primarily on overcoming those degenerate qualities that Jews were charged with having accumulated while living in the Diaspora. After the Holocaust and the gathering of exiles in the new State of Israel the focus changed to the search for common genetic denominators to Jewish communities dispersed throughout the world that would establish their ancient roots in the Land of Israel. Advances in genetic research endowed eugenics with a new significance." Selfstudier (talk) 15:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that too can be used, though it recurs also in his later book, as evidence against Bob's contention of a caesura between early Zionist and Israeli thinking. It is true that race discourse disappeared from official Israeli discourse, since the ingathering was conceived as a melting pot to burn out differences between Mirachi, Sephardim and the Ashkenazi, and correct me if wrong, Bob, but I think that perception underlines your comments above. However, in practice, it was retained informally, in land planning, and in the way the very stereotypes which in European race discourse were used to pin down the physical difference of (Ashkenazi) Jews resurfaced in numerous ways when the ruling managerial and cultural elite dealt with Mizrachis. Two examples. If antisemites 'effeminized' the Jew in Europe, and promoted the fantasy that Jewish women were biologically over-sexed (is that possible, an old man like me wonders) these selfsame clichés re-emerged in depictions of Mizrachi as 'effeminzed' by adaptations to 'Arab' passivity, as the perceived exotic beauty of eastern Jewish women was repackaged to insinnuate their greater sexual attractiveness. That is what I mean by the long durée of jewish stereotypes, morphing from inside/out, from marginalized victim to the master of one's own house, which eugenics and later genetics failed to shake off 8per sources). Nishidani (talk) 15:41, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

"Zionism, race and eugenics" differs from the article title only in "eugenics", for which genetics can be substituted as a continuation in later times. Selfstudier (talk) 15:58, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

(Copying part of your post from AfD so we don't lose track of the sources) Kirsh, Nurit (December 2003). "Population Genetics in Israel in the 1950s: The Unconscious Internalization of Ideology". Isis. 94 (4): 631–655. JSTOR 386385.which documents how the earlier Zionist ideas of race were absorbed into Israeli population genetics in the 1950s and abide there in the discipline as unconscious influences. Selfstudier (talk) 10:44, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

I have reviewed the talk page and AfD discussion and can see no continuing claims of factual inaccuracy relating to the content of the article.

I have removed this specific tag, and kept the POV tag for now. Not quite sure why because I have not seen any claims of POV either. The issue being discussed is one of SYNTH, but no “implied original research” has been suggested either.

We will need further explanation from some editors in order to proceed. Now that the AfD discussion is over, hopefully the discussion is now able to be clearer and more focused. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:40, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Title

Before an WP:RM, it would be good to collate all suggested titles from interested editors. The titles I have extracted from the various discussions so far are below:

• Biological Judaism
• Politicization of Jewish genealogy
• Zionism and Jewish genetics
• Zionism and Jewish genealogy
• Zionism and Jewish race and genetics
• Zionism and Jewish biology
• Zionism and the origin of modern Jews
• Zionism, race and eugenics
• Zionist race science

Please add, delete or comment. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• Zionist eugenics
• Scientific racism in Zionism

Per WP:AND can we think of meaningful titles that avoid the conjunction? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Eugenics is just the flawed application of a science, but it is not the science itself. 'Zionist eugenics' could be a page in of itself, based on the sources, but it is a subtopic of the wider 'Zionist race science' topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:22, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Jewish Origins and Ancestry
• Origins of the Jewish People
• Research on Jewish Origins and Ancestry
• Research on Jewish Origins
• Research on Origins of the Jewish People Drsmoo (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the title should be shortened to Race and Zionism, since it isn't really about genetics. Crainsaw (talk) 05:47, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Jewish biological racism
• Jewish eugenics
• Jewish race science
• Jewish scientific racism
• Zionist biological racism
• Zionist race science
• Zionist scientific racism

I am so far undecided about the use of "Jewish" in the title. While much of the article discusses the attitudes of certain people, many but not all of whom were Jewish, regarding real or imagined biological similarities among Jews (and perceived differences from Gentiles), the context for this research was undoubtedly the use of said research in the search for a solution to the Jewish question, on the part of both antisemites and Zionists. A few of these titles are good, but I am leaning towards Zionist scientific racism Zionist race science at this time (see this diff). While related, I don't think "genealogy" or "ancestry" covers the entire topic well. Havradim leaf a message 02:25, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Scientific Racism is defined as using pseudoscience to try to prove that certain races are superior or inferior. The pre-genetic research was searching for biological origin, not seeking to prove Jews as superior. And modern geneological research has nothing to do with racism. Drsmoo (talk) 02:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It's also about the use of science to create a race consciousness in the pursuit of Jewish separateness or nationalism. Not so much about 'who is superior', as much as 'who has the superior claim on Palestine'. Havradim leaf a message 03:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

But "race science" is a different thing from "scientific racism", which has a specific definition. And also differs from modern genealogical research. Also I did not intend to undo your second edit with my first, there was an edit conflict. Drsmoo (talk) 03:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

My apologies for the misunderstanding. It's a semantic choice for me, race science just sounds better to me than racism. Havradim leaf a message 03:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree, there is a good quote in the AfD discussion which explains the difference between “racialism” and “racism”. We are talking about the former, not the latter – exactly as Drsmoo says, this was not about superiority, but about unity and origins. Onceinawhile (talk) 05:37, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Two things. (a) A huge amount of effort was wasted in just defending the legitimacy of a topic with this 'triadic' focus. It brought a thorough revision to a standstill. I, for one, now have 54 books and articles, and extensive notes from them, lined up to help do that job. (b) To prioritize a title change discussion will put a further spanner in the works. Title changes can drastically alter editorial focus and bibliographical selection.

By all means we should keep this as an option, but to be exercised when the intense development and précising of those 50+ sources on these themes is substantially completed. (I'll add further items I have noted shortly). This should take, barring heart attacks, ictuses and mental constipation, I imagine this drive towards a comprehensive expository article should take a week to 10 days. After which, with the reference evidence before us, we can then discuss the title.

I might add I don't like the word 'Jewish' in any title.I don't believe, despite what some sources say, that it is healthy to essentialize anything 'Jews' or 'Jewishness' or 'Jewish thinking' except with caution (as opposed to Judaism - a vast cultural system).Nishidani (talk) 05:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Good idea. It will be a much better and clearer discussion if we wait until then. I won’t remove the remaining tag during that period either. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I have added a second tag to request time for these edits. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

If we were talking about the lead, waiting would be eminently sensible, but the fact that the question of title might bound the article is surely the point. You said wait for the AfD to finish to have the title discussion. It is finished and workshopping the title ahead of an RM is now due. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't help the discussion, and it probably didn't help the AfD, that 'race science' currently redirects to 'scientific racism' despite the quite different connotations of the two terms. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with others that waiting for the article to reach some level of stability before working on the title is the proper approach. Zero^talk 11:51, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

+1 Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a thought then. Next time you don't know what the subject of a page is until you have finished writing it, you might save a good deal of angst if you develop it in draft and only publish it to the world at the point you actually know what it is about. Especially true when you intend to conjoin probably the three most controversial words on Wikipedia. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Mea culpa. On the positive side, it has been a valuable exercise to hear the wide range of opinions on the topic, which will inform the development of a robustly balanced article. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

That's the question, isn't it, what is it about, I keep thinking it is about Zionist thought in relation to race and genetics and maybe that's the title right there, I could of course be totally wrong and all those people claiming its about eugenics or Jews or something else are completely right. Selfstudier (talk) 17:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

That is what it is about. I've been reading this literature for over 12 years, virtually since when it started to dribble out in notable articles, and so, when the primary editor mounted his article under that title, I thought, 'Oh, finally a venue for all of this stuff' though I thought, 'damn it, this is going to need one heck of a load of work, given the variety of sources'. Still, it's up, and the task is to write it, without getting bogged down in trivial disputes, delete or no, this title or that. It's quite true that a lot of people react viscerally to discussions of this, because social taboos exist. But you can't write anything serious if you take those seriously. The principles we follow, here and in scholarship, for rersearch and coping with stubborn reactions of 'no, no, no' respectively are twofold:

(a)Le bon historien, lui ressemble à l'ogre de la légende. Là où il flaire la chair humaine, il sait que là est son gibier.(the historian is like the ogre of legend, where his nostrils flare with the scent of human flesh, he knows he's found his quarry)Apologie pour l'histoire ou Métier d'historien p.18

And if, while closing in on one's topical quarry (in both senses), exclamations of anxiety break out, then Francis Bacon's dictum kicks in.

(b)The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion . .draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises. . in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolate.’ (Novum Organum)

The last dictum is cited, very appropriately, by Raphael Falk, who knew the resistance his kind of historical analysis of zionism, race and genetics would generate.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

After thinking about this for a while, two possibilities occur to me:

• Zionism and Jewish identity
• Zionist thought on race and genetics

The second of those is based on what Selfstudier said just above. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Both of these have an "and" in the title, although Zionism and Jewish Identity is narrower, perhaps to the point of being "closely related or complementary topics." My concerns about conjoining race and genetics were, of course, shared by people on both sides with the AfD [12], and the second suggestion doesn't address that. Yet what is wrong with this title?

• Zionist thought on race

The article continues to discuss population genetics in the context of Jewish identity, ethnic unity and descent. That is, it is used as a tool in the narratives around race. Iskander's "Zionist race science" also captures this, without requiring this juxtaposition of genetics in the title and the start of the lead. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:13, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Nothing is wrong with it, of course, as we are (I assume) just brainstorming here. I don't like "race science" because of its association with pseudoscience, which has been mentioned above. I'm not as bothered with "and" as some other editors are, just so long as we have sources that justify the combination. I could also see going with:

• Zionist thought on Jewish identity

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that one works. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:21, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Jewish identity is a much broader topic that goes well beyond what has covered here into other aspects of culture, tradition and belief. See related literature such as [13], so that would be a major change in the scope, not just the title. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I see your point. "Jewish racial identity" might be more specific, but is also wordier. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

All three elements alone invoke, each, a very large number of books and periods. Here we are dealing with the genealogy of an idea which greatly narrows our focus to a single strain in Zionism, race and genetics, the way the concept of race inflected Zionist thought, and the impact this combination had on Israeli/diaspora studies of the Jewish people down to the present day. I don't know why this is problematical, or why the title should be changed to generate a completely different set of expectations in the reader, where content editors would, depending on the title, then be expected to substantially rewrite this highly thematically focused article, throwing out half of the sources, and dredging in dozens of different sources for the different content in a new title. It is easy to toss round suggestions, and on occasion they can be useful, but a little thought should always be given to the implications of any proposal. I.e. 'now, who is going to do a month's further reading (for example we would need an extensive section on Leo Strauss) and a lengthy outline of the historical dynamics between secular and religious Zionism's thought traditions),, and a few weeks of intensive editing to satisfy our consumer's dissatisfaction with the product on display?Nishidani (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The arguments for or against the move may be kept for the RM. This is workshopping the titles themselves. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The title must faithfully reflect the article. Proposing titles that suggest different articles is pointless.Nishidani (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

There are clearly enough editors here who have concerns about the page that it is reasonable to brainstorm about possible improvements. In part, of course, the content of the page must be correctly reflected in the chosen title. But in part, thinking about a better title can be a good way to gain insight about how to improve the page. For a Contentious Topic like this, it is best not to try to shut down good faith discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Tryptofish. I appreciate the revert, but the insult remains in the history. Perhaps I wasn't clear. How would one write 'Zionist thought on Jewish identity' when our coverage of the topic is so thin? We have no wiki articles even on basic figures for that topic's history, figures like Samuel Weissenberg, Elias Auerbach, Felix Theilhaber Ignaz Zollschan, Martin Engländer, Max Mandelstamm and Alfred Waldenburg, to name but a few. One cannot expect people who work their guts out actually writing articles to cater to expectations or desires for different content by editors visiting a talk page. If I saw any signs of a willingness to write up articles on such figures, in short, collaborative help, I'd be less, well, disappointed by the comments on alternative titles above. There is nothing contentious about the topic in Israeli and diaspora scholarship. It is only 'contentious' for some wikieditors.Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

As for "contentious", see Wikipedia:Contentious topics, which apply to all editors, not just some. I appreciate the work you have been putting into this page; I sincerely do. But you also need to keep sufficient "distance" to be willing to listen to editors who make good faith comments in talk (or if you don't want to listen, then at least don't be dismissive). There is no threshold defined in Wikipedia policy for an editor to have made enough edits to a page before being able to be listened to on the corresponding talk page. Part of what gets in the way is when you take the position that editors who have not become subject matter experts should defer to whatever you insist is right. Just above, Iskandar323 made a perfectly reasonable objection to a suggestion of mine, and I accepted that. It was simply a matter of stating objectively what a potential problem was. In contrast, when you post a, well, wall of text, as you often do, stating that you have read all manner of source material and this is what you have concluded and you expect the rest of us to accept your conclusion, that is unhelpful. Is it absolutely impossible to come up with a better page name? Is it absolutely the case that a better name cannot possibly exist? Of course not. Editors should be able to discuss that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I saw a stub for an article with this name. So, being very familiar with the topic, I decided to help improve or build it with its creator, a very experienced wikipedian editor. That means one gathers as much relevant material on the topic, reads it, and, fulfilling the promise of the title, writing up the history of Zionism's use of race and the way these formative ideas were carried over, often as an ideological substrate or unwitting premise, in post-war Israeli studies of Jewish ethnic subgroups, from blood types to genetic diseases and more recently, to population-genetic research,some of whose practitioners thought they could find a biological basis for Jewishness. So the article is generated, indeed dictated, by the title we have. Change the title, for whatever reason, means changing the subject, shifting the goalposts. People who prefer punting a football 90 degrees left or right of the traditional placement of scoring posts have every right to play a game with different rules, but not on the field where the goalposts are already established and the rucks, rovers and full forwards vie to kick the 'pill' back and forth along the standard axis. Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

If it were the case that this is an actual subject in and of itself, sources to support that would have been brought forth (there are supposedly several dozen in this article). Instead we’re seeing personal attacks, self-aggrandizement, and general filibustering. Drsmoo (talk) 16:01, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I am satisfied, based on what I see in the article, that there is an "actual subject" here.

Instead we’re seeing personal attacks, self-aggrandizement, and general filibustering. Does this include yourself or just those editors that disagree with your POV? Selfstudier (talk) 16:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Let me translate all this. You, Drsmoo, have complained of being 'insulted'; of being the object of Onceinawhile's sealioning; Tryptofish in a careless moment called me 'an obstacle to reasonable discussion' (but quickly retracted with the es 'screw it'); Onceinawhile stated we have 'dozens of sources', which you now spin as 'several dozen'. I said we had over 2,000 pages of sources to read and discuss, and you made that figure explode exponentially into 8,000. Apparently, either Onceinawhile or I are engaged in 'personal attacks' now. My attempt to exhaustively answer (WP:Consensus) what I privately consider frivolous objections is spun as 'self-aggrandizement' or does that refer to note that I've read several books running from 250 to 4000 pages to get a thorough handle on the topic?; that the courtesy of not ignoring each brief refrain about synth, whose meaning as used here is totally obscure, becomes 'filibustering'. No one has been insulted by either Onceinawhile or myself. On the other hand, you persist in personalizing what is adherence to procedures about collegial editing as a provocation. This last comment is another WP:NPA personal attack, which has no other function than to raise the temperature of the room. I refuse to respond in (un)kind. Insinuate and insult as you will.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

My edit summary was actually "self-revert, screw it". I'm glad that I self-reverted it, because it was an error of judgment on my part. I think that being receptive to the possibility that one can be mistaken is a useful trait, here on WP and elsewhere, and I highly recommend it to anyone else. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, can you provide examples of the multitude of sources that describe a connection between Zionism, race, and genetics as a cohesive subject? Drsmoo (talk) 16:23, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Read the sources.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

In the interests of trying to bring an end to this, let's take this sentence from the lead:

"Since then, every generation has witnessed efforts by both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews to seek a link between national and biological aspects of Jewish identity" together with the accompanying footnote.

Does that, in your opinion, constitute a foundation for the topic? And if not, why not?

@Nishidani: Is it possible to rework the opening paras so as to provide foundational sourcing for the title? Selfstudier (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I already explained that the title dictates the content's scope. We have 85 sources. Choosing one for a 'foundational sourcing' doesn't make sense. In my reading, all of the objections here have one purpose, to detach 'race' from Zionism in the face of massive RS evidence that historically they were intimately conjoined. I'll reconsider of course. Despite rumours, I'm flexible, as long as people are rational in their counter-proposals, something I see little evidence of. But I, for one still have several days of hard work ahead of me to finish my review and rewrite of the stub we had. What is paramount is that the lead must faithfully cover the section contents. Without all sections in place, tampering with the lead at this point makes no sense. Once we have a complete text, we can then look at title options. Nishidani (talk) 16:47, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

MOS:OPEN Choose more than one, several if you like. "The first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it. If appropriate, it should give the location and time. It should also establish the boundaries of the topic;.." Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Note that Sirfurboy has as well raised this (about the first para) below. I would rather nip a second AfD in the bud at this point, since we have agreed on the "topic" (if not the precise title). Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

No as it’s a single source, for one. This statement is also broader than race and genetics. There are sources that discuss differences between race science and genetics as well. Drsmoo (talk) 18:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Fortunately we are not relying on it solely, I have begun a rework of the opening to make things more clear, still needs work. I understand why Nishidani would rather finish up with the article content and only then the lead, that would be the usual way, however in the circumstances doesn't mean we cannot edit the article for effect in between times. Selfstudier (talk) 18:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been thinking about the issue raised here, about "moving the goalposts". In part, I really do understand where that's coming from. I can see and sympathize with how it can be frustrating to work hard on the page and then see other editors make suggestions that might change the direction the article moves in. On the other hand, the contention that the figurative goalposts are already at exactly the right place now makes an assumption that might not be true. Perhaps the goalposts need to be adjusted a bit, and, to mix metaphors, it's not unreasonable to try to kick the tires and see if an alteration in the page name, and thus the page focus, would or would not make sense. No one should feel threatened by that, and brainstorming about it might (or, ultimately, might not) lead to some good new ideas. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Further reflections

@ජපස, Sirfurboy, and Drsmoo: While the period of article development Nishidani requested is ongoing, and before a WP:RM, as the three 'oppose' editors who have commented most frequently, could we take this opportunity to understand our respective positions a little further? I have the following questions for each of you:

1. Is it right to understand that your primary concern is that the article addresses an intersection of topics?
2. It is right to understand that you acknowledge that there are many sources describing this intersection, but just not as many covering the topic in full detail as you consider necessary?
3. Are you opposed to any specific parts of this topic having their own articles? For example, the obvious alternative would be splitting the article into two: Zionism and the Jewish race and Zionism and Jewish genetics, both of which would have very large subsections explaining how they are widely considered relate to each other – would you be opposed to any of this?
4. Are there any serious NPOV issues in this article, and if so can you explain them, or are we just leaving the tag as a placeholder to represent your ongoing concerns over justification for this as a separate article?

Please don’t focus too much on the specifics of the current article while it is still in development (i.e. during the remainder of the 10 day period Nishidani requested). I hope this will help us to understand each others’ positions a little better during this period of calm. I am equally happy to answer any questions to explain my position on any matters you would find helpful. Regards, Onceinawhile (talk) 12:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the two main problems I have is that race and genetics as well as Zionism are the two parent articles which makes me think this is at best a synthesis of the topics. If there were sources that worked on this as a coherent topic, I could better understand what was going on but, in spite of that contention being made, what I see instead are historical analyses and critiques of certain scientific interpretations which do not strike me as plain encyclopedic topics. Better to include this material in Genetic studies on Jews instead of risking the charge that this is just a WP:POVFORK of the same. Hope that makes sense. jps (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Onceinawhile. A number of editors in the AfD made a number of different (if interrelated) points, so I only talk for myself here, of course.

• For me, I think point 1 is correct. That is my primary concern as expressed in the AfD.
• The second point is not exactly correct. The sources presented, and particularly Falk, were talking about eugenics, and although that necessarily incorporates matters of race (socially constructed, as per Falk) and genetics (which gives the lie to the social constructs, also per Falk), neither of those are his primary subject. Falk et al. avoid placing the term genetics in the titling, because it inadvertently gives an initial impression, that is hard to shake, that race and genetics are talking about much the same thing, whereas an analysis of these shows that they are not the same at all.
• On your third point, not opposed - I think I even suggested that as a partial solution, but I am not convinced Zionism and the Jewish race nor Zionism and Jewish genetics are a good move. We have Jewish genetics for the genetic science, and adding Zionism onto this has two problems. Firstly, we are again contending with WP:AND, and secondly it suggests that there is a primary topic of Jewish genetics in Zionism. I don't think that is right. There is a primary topic of something I have referred to as "the Zionist hope", by which I meant the desired eugenic outcome. There is a primary topic in Zionism itself in seeing itself as the inheritance of Abraham, and these topics (no need to use my terminology) are what could be treated encyclopaedically. In discussing these topics, a section on population genetics will be very interesting, but genetics is not the head topic - it is the science that proves or disproves matters in the head topic. So some of this perhaps belongs in existing articles, but there is something here that can indeed be unpacked and presented, but that is about a line of thinking within Zionism.
• Fourthly, I am avoiding reading the article whilst giving you the time to write the subject as you believe it should be. Thus I am not going to pick up specific issues. There s the one I raised at AfD though, and still extant. The very first paragraph has

  In the late 19th century, a discourse emerged in Zionist thinking seeking to reframe conceptions of Jewishness in terms of racial identity and race science. In more recent times, genetic science generally and Jewish population genetics in particular have been used in support of or opposition to Zionist political goals, including claims of Jewish ethnic unity and descent linked to the biblical Land of Israel.

  Now this is the defining statement about what the article is about. But it makes it about two different things and these still look like Synth. It is about the reframing of Jewishness in terms of racial identity and race science. That is thing one. It is also about genetic science in general and Jewish population genetics. That is thing two. There is an attempt to defend the juxtaposition of these with recognition that genetics has been enrolled in support of Zionist political goals, except it is also about the use of genetics in opposition of those goals, etc. Now if we take a source such as Falk, this is not what he does. He frames his narrative in terms of the eugenic hope, and race science. He uses genetics ably as a critique, but his narrative is not about the genetics, it is about the Zionist narrative. Genetics is the tool he uses to hole that narrative. If this article were similarly framed, I would suggest losing genetics from the title, and having a population genetics section in the article as part of the critique, as he does. The happy outcome of such a change is that you would have a much less contentious sounding article, that would nevertheless have just as much encyclopaedic information.

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I can't recognize what you state about Falk. Have you read his 2017 book, and the four other papers?Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy: for what it's worth, I think your third and fourth points set out our challenge quite well and is roughly consistent with my own thinking. I agree that at its heart this topic, and the vast majority of the bibliography, is about a single line of thinking within Zionism. If we can find a title that sets that scope better than the current one, I would be supportive of such a change. I am interested to hear others' views; I think the RM will be difficult to find consensus without some good discussion like this beforehand. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:57, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Zionism had a theory of a state and the population to inhabit it. It formulated this in race terms, and on the foundation of the state, in various forms, there was and remains a continuity betweenm the aims, and theories of an earlier period of pseudo-science, and the modern evolution of biological sciences in Israel. Ther eis not split and no synth because Zionist concepts of origins and racial unity influenced, per sources, the way biological science in Israel sought confirmation for these theses in various biological forms, leading to genome theory. As Falk noted, the same material is repeated and recycled for a hundred years under duifferent guises. There is no dual theme, to think so is to misunderstand the nature of what we call 'the genealogy of ideas.'Nishidani (talk) 19:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not getting deeply involved in this page, but I've been following the disputes and commented in the AfD. I looked back here, and I agree that what is being discussed in this talk section is a good thing to discuss. And I particularly want to endorse Sirfurboy's fourth point. He expresses much more cogently than I did, what was concerning to me in the AfD. I'll add that the sentence from the first paragraph that he quotes here also incorporates "used in support of or opposition to Zionist political goals". I encourage editors to think through very carefully how – or whether – to treat both support and opposition as being within a single topic. I don't have a good answer to that question, but I think it's something that needs to be handled in a precise way. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

The article reads elsewhere:

"Historians and anthropologists have critically examined how the structuring assumptions of Jewish race science in early-twentieth-century Europe and North America, and their relationship to Zionist nationalism, reverberate within the genetic studies of Jewish populations by Israeli scientists from the 1950s to the present."}} Burton 2022 p.11

That is from a historian of science's review of the whole subject. The other sentence comes from Falk 2017, who dealt with the continuities as well. What's the problem?Nishidani (talk) 20:39, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I decided to look back here, to see if there was a reply to me. I think what you quoted there is very helpful in addressing the concern that I had. (What's the problem? I'd say that there is a problem in your speaking to me in that tone.) However, I don't think that it speaks to the issue of support/opposition that I pointed out. I also see that the use of the distinctive word "reverberate" in Wikipedia's voice was far too close a paraphrase of the source, bordering on a copyright violation, so I changed it to a different word. I strongly urge editors to check the page and correct any other overly close paraphrases, if there are any. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Look. Goodness me, dear Tryptofish. Ihere is not the slightest hostility or enmity in 'what's the problem?' or in any other language I can think of (qu’y a-t-il ?/?何かありましたか/Che problema c'è?/В чем проблема, не вижу etc.etc.etc.). As the Russian idiom has it, it connotes an admission that the speaker can't see anything problematical, where his interlocutor might (and therefore implicity asks the other person to assist in clearing up the dyscrasy in perceptions. At times I can be forceful in my judgements, but that useful phrase is not an instance of provocatory innuendo. (2) when one word is repeated from a source it in no way an issue of copyright violation. To the contrary. When it a key word, it is advisable to use it in a sentence that otherwise carefully paraphrases the rest. In any case, since this is a matter of tone and style, 'appear' is not correct. 'Reverberate' could be glossed as reappear, which however is a flat word when 'resonate' would serve the same purpose. Please don't get me on to the question of tone in prose. I might, were I thin-skinned, feel the same way, but I survive here, past a first decade of insults, by never taking abuse or innuendo or even intended provocations personally. Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

From the source: "reverberate within the genetic studies of Jewish populations".

From our page, before I fixed it: "have reverberated in genetic studies on Jews". [14], [15].

I still don't see an answer about the point I raised about support/opposition. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The quote isn’t relevant to non Israeli studies Drsmoo (talk) 00:53, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Tryptofish. If you have the slightest doubt about what I clarified above, i.e. that using one word 'reverberate' from the sopurce is a copyright violation, then ask wikipedia's undisputed grandmaster of that policy, Dianaa, whose judgements have quasi papal authority. As said, 'appear' is not a synonym of 'reverberate': 'resonate' is.

As to support/opposition and SirFurboy. I can't comment on his posts, since, perhaps it's a defect in my education, but I usually can't see the point he is tryuing to make, and find these remarks either (a) conceptually muddled or (b) illustrative of unfamiliarity with the topic (c) extremely repetitive in their variations on the opinion he kept giving in the AfD. You write:' I encourage editors to think through very carefully how – or whether – to treat both support and opposition as being within a single topic.' I can construe that, yes. But I don't understand its relevance, unloess you think we should analyse whether the article should deal with either proponents of race and genetic studies of Jews in iZionism or critics of those views. My approach is simple: I read the literature and paraphrase it in orderly fashion. If the scholars cover both proposals and critical reactions, I duly note both. We do that in numerous articles, and no one has every questioned giving both sides to an area discourse. It's called WP:NPOV.Nishidani (talk) 08:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll take you up on that offer. @Diannaa: I've got a quick question for you about close paraphrasing, asking you for a third opinion.

The source says: "reverberate within the genetic studies of Jewish populations".

Nishidani cited it on this page, writing in Wikipedia's voice: "have reverberated in genetic studies on Jews".

I changed it to "have continued to appear in genetic studies on Jews", correcting what I believe to have been overly close paraphrasing, to the point of a borderline copyright violation. Nishidani objects to my change, saying that there was no problem to begin with, and that I lost the meaning of the source.

Thanks in advance for your take on it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:40, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The issue is 'reverberate'. The other phrasing, be it ' genetic studies of Jewish populations' or 'genetic studies on Jews' are so commonplace in the literature, any article of scores on this topic necessarily employing them several times, that no one can possibly claim copyright (in my view).Nishidani (talk) 22:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

"Reverberate" is a unique expression and should be omitted in my opinion. You could change it to "resonate" or "echo". "have continued to appear in genetic studies on Jews" is good too and more direct, and therefore easily understood by all. Currently the word "reverberate" is in quotation marks in the article, which also eliminates the copyright issue. But it's better if we write our own prose. — Diannaa (talk) 00:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Great, so 'resonate' it is, as I suggested if reverberate is ruled out. 'appear' , as noted above, loses the connotative thrust of repetitiveness in that 're' we have in both resonate and reverberate, which the author, as in several other sources, obviously intends to get over (in technical language, the fact that this is a kind of topos.Nishidani (talk) 01:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that thoughtful answer. So "reverberate" should be omitted, and two out of three of us agree that "have continued to appear" is "good too and more direct, and therefore easily understood by all". And I'll add that the use of "have continued to" captures the "topos" of the repetitiveness. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Research section

@Nishidani: we have two sections called “Overview of a neglected problem” and “Research into the connection”. I think these are basically the same topic, perhaps most succinctly and neutrally summed up as “Historiography”?

What do you think? Onceinawhile (talk) 16:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I must admit I don't even read the page. I did twice during the AfD. My working method is (a) gather the sources (b) read them, annotating by theme (c) draft the history of the concept (d) look into themes etc. (e) go slowly through the page from the top down, editing according to what I know from the sources and (e) incorporating stuff in the article later as it is covered in the earlier bits. The section I am working on now jumps a bit. I am writing up a section on the history of these debates in Israeli genetics, from 1950 to the mid 1980s. We have brilliant details analytical and historical coverage of this, esp. in Burton's work, and it draws together the imprint of Zionist ideas about the ingathering as a return, the repeated changes in scientific methodology as dictated by the necessity to prove that, the assumption feeding several distinct population methodologies, the crisis of the mid 70s, down to the arrival of the genome methods in the mid 1980s, with everything unresolved. I think that is the core to it. I'll be offwiki tomorrow, must take a friend to see the Sistine Chapel.Nishidani (talk) 17:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Let me put that another way (I was mowing gardens under a broiling sun, and thirsty for a beer and just checked in before going to the pub, in a haste).

The overview is, as I said, designed to address a serious problem noted in the AfD where a notable number of editors saw the title and got upset. This was not something they come across in reading around. If editors react that way, all the more so readers generally. So it struck me as indispensable to write a preamble collating the many instances where scholars speak of the race issue as something ignored or underplayed in various areas of studies on Zionism, race and genetics.

I think Research into the connection will be absorbed into the overview as we go along, as well as in the latter sections on the history of Zionist/Israeli/ or more generally 'Jewish' thinking about their origins. The whole crux there was (and is) how to reformulate the earlier endorsement of 'race', which 19th-century pseudoscience thought something of a core constituent of nationhood (the central concern of political Zionism). With the establishment of Israel, the assumptions of descent from Israelites replaced 'race', and intense efforts were made, all failing, to develop a science that would vindicate descent, via analyses of blood types, serum etc., from predominantly Mizrachi and contiguous non-Jewish peoples, Kirsh, Falk, Burton et al., stess the continuities beneath the differing thrust of innovative analytical theories and methods down through the post-war period. Thus the article can cope with this best by a chronological exfoliation of the way these ideas arose, were developed and reformulated. The sections should not be thematic, but temporal.

In anycase, one gets what one has in in a consistent outline, and, that done, one can trim, reorder, rewrite and take into account all the other subsidiary concerns. Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I think Research into the connection will be absorbed into the overview as we go along I sort of did that but it needs some rearrangement. In some respects it is all background/history but it is probably just as well to highlight the "connection" in the same sort of way we use an etymology section to clarify word origins. Selfstudier (talk) 15:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 22 July 2023

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived:

Zionism, race and genetics → Draft:Zionism, race and genetics – This page is obviously not yet ready for primetime, indexing, etc. There is a template being used on the page which is designed solely for draft space. There is active discussion about appropriate article title. If ever there was a case for WP:DRAFTIFY, this is it. jps (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

The template says " This article...or is in the process of extensive expansion or major restructuring" so it is not the case that it is designed solely for draftspace. Nor was draftification an AfD outcome. The current consensus re the title is to wait for the article to be largely completed in a week or so, This nom is an unnecessary distraction and should be closed. Selfstudier (talk) 14:58, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Can you find another instance of this template being used in article space for this amount of time? It is frequently used in draftspace. jps (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - So your AFD fails and now you try to move it to draft space? No, thats not how this works. PackMecEng (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I am not convinced that this particular RM is the best approach here, but referring to the AfD is somehat bogus as the AfD result was not to keep the page, it was that there was no consensus. I have already stated my opinion that this probably should have been developed in draft space rather than mainspace, and the editors arguing that time is needed to write the page before we can even discuss what the page title should be really are demonstrating that this is essentially a draft. I don't really understand why there is opposition to draftification, when it is clear editors want to create some safe space in which to develop the article. Yet I also think that the quickest route to finding a consensus here might be to allow the few more days editors have requested before workshopping and launching the RM on the appropriate name. This should not be a battleground. We need to find a sensible consensus. On that basis I am refraining from supporting this RM at this time, and ask jps to consider withdrawing it. As long as there are no supports posted, the nom. can withdraw the RM themself and close as a non admin closure. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:25, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I am confused why you think draftification will not be a quick route to consensus. I am concerned that the creation template being used on this page is typically reserved for draftspace. If the consensus is to include a template that indicates that the article is functionally a draft, I don't understand why it shouldn't be in draft space. Can you expand? jps (talk) 16:34, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure. In essence, I agree that this should be a draft, but there is also a more general agreement that a change of article title is required. But we cannot have a move discussion about a change of title whilst there is an ongoing move discussion about a move to draft space. It is also clear that this move discussion will have difficulty achieving a consensus, and that it may last longer than a week. So for as long as it is being discussed, it stalls the discussion that may achieve consensus, and runs the risk of exhausting the patience of those involved. I think withdrawing this request would demonstrate good faith towards finding common ground. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:41, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the analysis. However, I worry that your prediction that this discussion about moving the article to a new name is likely to have a timeframe of more than a week indicates that having that discussion first will entail putting the cart before the horse. Right now, this article is exposed to Google Juice through indexing. This is a problem, in my estimation, in part because the consensus template clearly indicates the article is not yet ready for primetime (this template, as far as I can tell, is used almost exclusively in draftspace and not in articlespace). I am sympathetic to the concern about discussant exhaustion, but I also think there is a preferred order of operations here: (1) create a draft, (2) discuss article title, (3) improve article for move to articlespace. I don't see why the discussion over the appropriate article name could not be completed in draft space just as easily as in article space. Is there some other aspect of this story that I'm missing? jps (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there some other aspect of this story that I'm missing? I have nothing further to add. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Drafts#As a result of a deletion discussion. This would require consensus in the WP:AFD. Consensus was not achieved. Reopening an equivalent discussion so soon after the WP:AFD is inappropriate. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

To my reading, this just says what to do in the instance where the consensus of an AfD is to draftify. It says nothing about what to do when the AfD is closed as "no consensus". jps (talk) 17:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose and trout - this is an obvious abuse of process (and one of the oddest I have seen in a while at that). Evidently not content with the 182kB no consensus AfD they started, the OP is now being WP:POINTy, and this is becoming borderline disruptive. Bearing in mind that this is a contentious topic this behavior is obviously doubly inappropriate. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• To the admin: See out of process RM request and subsequent comments above. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Disagree that this is out of process. There are no existing RFCs, RMs, deletion discussion or merge or split proposals, and the page is live in Wikipedia mainspace. Any editor is within their rights to propose a move in such circumstances. I am not sure why this request for admin intervention was necessary when I had already asked the proposer to voluntarily withdraw. They are clearly under no obligation to do so. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:45, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Filed at ANI for clarification. Selfstudier (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• See WP:FORUMSHOP. An unhelpful distraction to the work ongoing to develop the article. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support, there are obvious disagreements and not yet a clear path forward for the article. Draftify to better achieve consensus and get those mired in a controversial topic area to heed outside criticism seems a very rational approach. I don't see any argument above that this content should be in mainspace, but just WP:BURO opposition to asking the question. fiveby(zero) 17:22, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Reviews of Baker

Drsmoo added a review giving a seemingly irrelevant quote. I tagged this for relevance.

I then added a review with a quote that is exactly about the "connection" so Drsmoo in turn tagged that for relevance. E The Satlow quote is undue as well as irrelevant and should be removed. Selfstudier (talk) 12:06, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I don’t understand your argument. The source is an Ivy League professor of Judaic Studies offering a perspective on material cited right above, as well as commenting on the impact of genetic studies on Israeli Law and modern Judaism; much as other sources have, though with actual concrete examples (rather than hypotheticals).

The quote from the review you added just quotes from the same source that is already right above. Why not use original thoughts from the review? Quotes from Baker can go in the section for quotes from Baker. Drsmoo (talk) 17:38, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

The section header is Research into the connection and begins "Several scholars have studied the early connection between Zionism and race science," (including Baker). The quote provided by yourself has nothing to do with that, it is just a para about genetics and says nothing whatever about the connection whereas the quote I gave is directly about what Baker says about the connection.Selfstudier (talk) 18:47, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Huh? It directly describes the tangible impact (or lack thereof) on Israeli policy (Zionism). Did you actually read the full paragraph? Earlier you said it was a blog post when it was clearly a scholarly journal. Drsmoo (talk) 19:52, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Since Drsmoo is edit warring so as to include only one cherry picked and irrelevant review of only one book, I have removed it altogether.Selfstudier (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Selfstudier, you have now tried to remove highly relevant material three times. First by falsely claiming it was a "blog" when it was a reliable source, then by falsely claiming it was only about genetics, now by falsely claiming it is cherry picked. I am re-adding this information to the lead, as it is highly relevant. If it is removed again, this will be brought to AE. Drsmoo (talk) 12:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I have made precisely one removal of an irrelevant (in the location where it was placed per above comment) cherry picked quote from a single book review. An obviously cherry picked quote from a single review by a non wikilinked author in a non wikilinked journal is not NPOV whereas I note your removal of a second review by a notable author in a notable journal containing material completely relevant to the section in which it was placed. Selfstudier (talk) 12:43, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, your argument makes no sense. Satlow is very much relevant, certainly more so than Baker, and the quotation is relevant to the topic outside of its relationship to Baker. The excerpt of the review you posted contained no new information and simply quoted from/paraphrased an existing source. It provided no benefit to the article except to seemingly hide Satlow. You’ve now made three distinct arguments for removing Satlow, and all three are demonstrably incorrect. Drsmoo (talk) 12:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

In fact, I kept Satlow and the full quote, merely moving it to a section for book reviews where it would be relevant but you reverted that as well as restoring it to a location where the quote was not relevant and at the same time deleting a wholly relevant review. Nor is adding Satlow to the lead, where it is self evidently undue, a good idea. I will admit to confusing the issue initially, because I mistakenly looked at Satlow's blog post and did not realize that it was a copy from a published source, nevertheless I did not remove it, instead starting this discussion. What is it about that particular quote from a single review of a single book that is so relevant exactly? Selfstudier (talk) 13:12, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The material from Satlow is notable beyond its placement inside of a review of Baker. It is relevant as it directly describes the impact (or lack thereof) of Population Genetics Drsmoo (talk) 13:24, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

And that information is not available elsewhere? In a book or paper about the subject rather than in a book review? Selfstudier (talk) 13:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The Satlow material was previously in the Impact section. A scholarly review of a book by a reliable source is reliable. This article currently has a quote in the lead about a criticism of genetic studies that is A. Attributed to the wrong source (so much for reading source material). B. Only found in the lead. Yet it does not have an undue tag. Drsmoo (talk) 14:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Let's fix that then, point me in the right direction, please. There are so many sources now and the article has been in a state of flux since inception so it is not surprising that there are errors. This is not the sort of thing that usually interests me but in for a penny, in for a pound. Selfstudier (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• (1) Our text

Michael Satlow notes that while some scientists on the margins have used the science of population genetics "to make ideological claims", this "has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return) and remains something of a novelty item in general discourse".

• Source

The second context in which Baker places the pathologized Jew is genomics (104-110, 142-148). There has been an explosion of work on population genetics. Within this work, “Jew” – particularly Ashkenazi Jew – has emerged as a distinct population. While most scientists with whom I have informally talked (including Harry Ostrer and Gil Atzmon, who come under particular critique) believe that the science of population genetics is entirely solid, Baker is suspicious. “Genome biology,” she writes, “has been harnessed to creating and sustaining a Jewish genetic-identity discourse…”(p. 105). Elsewhere, however, Baker seems to retreat: “my interest has been in briefly examining some of the ways in which this new Jew, this genomic Jew, is being constituted both through the measuring, compiling, and comparing of genetic data and through the framing and narrating of the findings thus derived” (p. 109). I am not sure if Baker fully knows what to do with the science of population genetics, but in truth, I am not sure if any of us do. It seems to me that while some on the margins have used it to make ideological claims (whether that Jews don’t really exist, as in Shlomo Sand’s deeply flawed book,9 or that Jews remain relatively “pure”), it has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return) and remains something of a novelty item in general discourse: look how Jewish I am, my friends announce on Facebook, giving the number from the results of their mail-order genetic analysis. They mean nothing by it except for a laugh.

i.e.

• Most scientists are contrasted to Cynthia Baker, a professor of religious studies, not a scientist.
• Satlow then adds his general opinion: 'while some on the margins use it (science of population genetics) to make ideological claims' , themargins does not refer to scientists but to an historian, Shlomo Sand.

So the text we had in the lead was an outright example of WP:OR, falsifying the original perhaps through hasty reading, but certainly to the effect of suggesting, that only marginbal scientists have used genetics in this field ideologically.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• (2)Satlow. Satlow's work is always highly informative. It perhaps may be used below, but not in the lead, where this edit puts it to state that genomic testing has not affected the Law of return. Thus put this is Satlow's personal view, which is contradicted by the far more detailed scholarly work precisely on this issue. For one
• Ian V. McGonigle 1, Lauren W. Herman, 'Genetic citizenship: DNA testing and the Israeli Law of Return,' Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 17 June 2015 pp.469-478

After the news of this one student’s experience made headlines, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that many Jews from the Former Soviet Union (‘FSU’) are asked to provide DNA confirmation of their Jewish heritage in order to immigrate as Jews and become citizens under Israel’s Law of Return. According to one source, the consul’s procedure, which was:

approved by the legal department of the Interior Ministry, states that a Russian-speaking child born out-of-wedlock is eligible to receive an Israeli immigration visa if the birth was registered before the child turned [three]. Otherwise a DNA test to prove Jewish parentage is necessary.

There is no mention of genetic testing in the Law of Return, so Satlow is technically correct. In actual procedures however, Israel’s official legal authorities have ruled (and the ruling has been applied in numerous cases) that exercising a right of return can be challenged by the state on DNA grounds, so Satlowe's statement is misleading.

This point can be addressed much later down the page, but not in the lead, at least for now.Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I don’t see an argument for how this information is OR, or not lead worthy. Drsmoo (talk) 16:35, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Leaving aside dueness, I would like to pin down exactly what it is you are relying on Satlow for because it seems possible that the same or at least similar material can be located in a more usual source. If it is something peculiar to only this source, that's different. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you consider an Opinion Paper to be a usual source? Drsmoo (talk) 17:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

We regularly remove opinion from contentious articles unless by an acknowledged expert in the subject area, I have not given any consideration as to whether this exemption applies to Satlow and did not initially remove him because of this possibility, even though no wikilink.

I would like an answer to my question though, since a well sourced view can be given as fact in WP voice.Selfstudier (talk) 17:20, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, my edit did not mention scientists. So Iskandar323 edited my post to add a reference to scientists, and then you removed the whole thing as OR because of the reference to scientists, is that correct? Drsmoo (talk) 16:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The text as it stood, from whatever combination of edits, was a distortion. I'm not interested in blaming. I'm interested only in the integrity of the article. (2) I gave you a source which shows what you in particular cited Satlow for, was misleading. He had an opinion, which happens not to be correct, since Satlow fails to clarify that a Law of return is one thing, the state's legal interpretation and judicial practices produces a practice which makes the abstract principles of the Law of Return irrelevant. In practice genomics has already influenced immigration policy via government guidelines. We should not be fiddling with the leads over this, particularly in a partisan way (a) because the information given was partial, not the full picture, and (b) per WP:LEDE, we would require a substantial section in the article to warrant summarizing the issue in the lead. For that reason alone, it can't be restored to the lead unless we have a section with several sources on genomics and the Law of Return.Nishidani (talk) 17:11, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, after 1RR I’ll restore it to the lead and the correct body section per your feedback Drsmoo (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you link me to the 'correct body section'? I can't see what section it is supposed to summarize.Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

These two papers are not conflicting, Satlow discusses population genetics. McGonigle's example from Times of Israel is DNA testing to determine a child's parents a DNA test to prove Jewish parentage is necessary, which is well established in many legal systems. fiveby(zero) 18:39, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

No you are wrong on both counts. I agree with Selfstudier's analysis for a different reason. This article has a large body of work by historians of science on genetics and of Zionism. Satlow's paper is a solid synthesis of several directions in the discussion of what constitutes Jewishness and it is concerned with Cynthia Baker's general book Jew. I.e. two specialists in Jewish studies, neither with a science background. Satlow is cited for a statement which is misleading in its simplifications, no doubt an oversight given his general excellence. His input comes from personal talks with two geneticists known for supporting a thesis which other geneticists, and historians of science, contest, in a short paragraph which hardly amounts to a 'discussion of population genetics' (his few notes indicate no familiarity with the large literature on it, but only impressions and anecdotal evidence. Selfstudier is correct that this is not the quality of sourcing the article is striving to maintain. Secondly Fiveby's analogy is just that, an editor's analogy, find for a talk page, but not cogent for determining if Satlow's remark be included or not. It is not a commonplace in legal system the world over to deny citzenship by a DNA criterion. That is what at least one ethnic state requires, but in other legal systems, DNA testing is not about legal entitlement to be a citizen, but about determining paternity or maternity in civil suits. You looked at one primary source, one footnote of 79 used by McGonigle, and deduced that it backs Satlow. So its is a tendentious inference on your part, as well as a personal analogy.

The Law of Return was written before genetics began to impose its viewpoints on the debates. (a) Governments have instructed legal offices to require them in a number of cases, and, since 2018, rabbinical courts accept mitochondrial evidence. There are thus 2 different systems now in place, the secular state guidelines and the rabbinical religious guideline. The state in such cases accepts aliya if a parent or grandparent, regardless of sex, is genetically 'Jewish': the religious authorities only accept Jewish identity if the mother is Jewish (and of course, even there, the rule can be ignored if a person or group with zero Jewish ancestry converts). This ia all detailed in McGonicles later book, Chapter 2: The “nature” of Israeli citizenship pp.31-62 of his Genomic Citzenship (2021). In short, in usi9ng Satlow's remark that genetics

has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return) and remains something of a novelty item in general discourse

three errors are introduced into the lead: (a) it has had an impact on religious law (2018,and the Supreme Court 2020 per McGonigle 22021 pp.32-33 (i.e. Satlow's point is outdated, overrun by developments) and (b) that genetics hasn't had an impact on the Law of Return is a truism only because that law was written in 1950, before molecular biology entered the fray. We know that the Law of return as interpreted in secular legal guidelines has been 'impacted' since 2013 by genetics. Thirdly for McGonigle writing in 2021, it is not a novelty in general discourse

This man's stance on the use of genetics in political action, extreme as it is, speaks to the way in which genetics has infiltrated the Israeli popular imagination'.2021 p.32

So, no. If that material is to be restored somewhere, one needs (1) consensus, and (2) a detailed multisourced section on 'Genetics and the Law of Return' where Satlow's equivocal and now dated claim has no place.Nishidani (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I didn't comment on inclusion of Satlow. But you do understand the difference between population genetics and DNA paternity testing? fiveby(zero) 22:41, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

“His input comes from personal talks with two geneticists”

…that is not what he says.

”While most scientists with whom I have informally talked (including Harry Ostrer and Gil Atzmon, who come under particular critique)8 believe that the science of population genetics is entirely solid, Baker is suspicious.

He is including those two, they are not the only ones from which his statement is based. He names them because they are singled out in Baker’s book. And his statement “ it has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return)” is not “misleading”. It’s a statement of fact. Drsmoo (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Gentlepersons. There is still a large body of evidence to be harvested and placed in an orderly exposition for this page. Let's not get bogged down in extenuating arguments over the utility of errant phrasing in dated sources. etc. One cannot construct an article by reading snippets. I'm sure more cogent objections or challenges might come if one read the several major books and articles listed which cover the whole field, as a minimum.Nishidani (talk) 20:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed – this is the key point. If we keep to the absolute highest quality sources only – peer reviewed journals and scholarly monographs, we will not need to have these debates. The nuance that Drsmoo is rightly looking to ensure is properly captured in this article can be found throughout the main sources – if one looks carefully at their work, they are all balanced in their use of words, just as we must continue to strive to be in our article. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, someone's not listening, dumping in the one thing Satlow screws up on with a misleading opinion, presumably because it is thought important because Satlow is notable and teaches at Brown University. All this means is that, since wikipedia should not purvey false information that Satlow's oversight will have to carry a note on DNA and the law of Return.Nishidani (talk) 07:18, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

What's the basis for "screws up on with a misleading opinion"? Are you still conflating population genetics and DNA paternity testing? A DNA test to determine a parent or grandparent is not population genetics. fiveby(zero) 12:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Don't play games. Satlow says

it has not had an impact on religious law (or the Israeli Law of Return) and remains something of a novelty item in general discourse:

I cited the post 2018 evidence of sources which report the impact of genetic arguments on religious law, practical applications of the Law of Return in administrative guidelines of who qualifies as a Jew for aliya and evidence that it is no longer a novelty in general discourse. Read them. Trying to shift the goalposts gets you nowhere. Satlow's remark is outdated, a fossilized opinion. and only of historic interest for Satlow's views.Nishidani (talk) 12:39, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

You are still confused, “a DNA test to prove Jewish parentage” is not the same as population genetics. Drsmoo (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Sigh. Cyril of Alexandria could be called the patron saint of hairsplitting, as he belaboured heretics with what he thought was the art of Aristotelian logic. Tibetan monks recite a prayer to Manjushri before they engage in rtsod pa, which is their equivalent to pilpul, and what we have here is pilpulling one’s leg.

Population genetics is the plural of DNA testing: the same analytical technique is used for a plurality of individuals correlated or corralled into ethnic groups for their ostensible allele similarities as is used in individual DNA analysis. You ought to know that if you want to contribute positively to this article. Since it seems you don’t. but ‘frenetise insignificance’, it is pointless to take the above seriously, since you don’t appear to have read past page 1 of McGonigle 2015, or even glanced at his discussion of how the Law of Return was amended to extend citizen rights to the zera Yisrael, ‘the seed of Israel’ which means 23 million people could technically become olim, 9 million beyond those who fit the strict halakhic criterion. Were you to trouble yourself to google around for information rather than opinions, you would find that Satlow’s view is outdated, incorrect, misleading. The amendment to the law of Return means simply, if you cannot provide proof of a birth certificate attesting your mother’s Jewishness, if challenged, you do a DNA test to ascertain what is assumed by the scrutiny of a ketubah or whatnot (adultery accounts for 2-8% of extramarital conceptions, depending on the society examined, a factor ignored consistently here).

The DNA test you do individually comes straight from the admixture analysis techniques developed by population genetics.

Drop the hairsplitting. Read up on the topic. Doing so allows one to discriminate between off-the-cuff opinionizing in book reviews and serious scholarship by competent area specialists.Nishidani (talk) 14:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you please quote the section that details how population genetics, and not paternity tests, are now used in the law of return? Drsmoo (talk) 22:48, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Nope. Read the book. One cannot expect everyone else to plough through books, and do one's work. One cannot ignore the several points showing where Satlow is obscure or misleading just to niggle away at one detail that you may think underminds everything else argued. No pilpul then when serious reading and serious commitment to an article's quality beckons. Reread the thread. If you can't grasp the point, fine.Nishidani (talk) 22:58, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect, Satlow isn’t wrong, you are. Drsmoo (talk) 23:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The first principle of seriousness in these matters is to take in that each and everyone of us is liable to error. One cannot argue anything unless the principle of uncertainty is invited to hover over one's judgment. It should become instinctive. That applies also to scholars, but all the more so, to those who would construe and interpret them. I've never seen - it may be a personal defect - you ever backing down from an assertion. But that is neither here nor there. One is entitled to 'stick to one's opinion', but not in the face of public evidence that renders it questionable or immaterial. Please note that of several points I raised about Satlow's passage (and I am an admirer of his scholarship) - the semantic obscurity of the snippet you prize, the question-begging nature of his assertion about the Law of Return, which is challenged by later studies and developments, the fact that his information on the specific theme of population genetics is admittedly anecdotal, picking up things from private conversations with geneticists like Harry Ostrer and Gil Atzmon, one at least of whom entertains a view that numerous geneticists and historians challenge as totally wrongheaded, or testimony that, contrary to Satlow's aside, population genetic conversations do influence public opinion, -all these points you sedulously sidestep, ignore, talk past, and focus on the idea 'population genetics' to press your point that Satlow's wording does not mean what I say it means, or fails to signify adequately. It's like entertaining scepticism about Gregor Mendel's theory because a slight statistical anomaly appears, arguably, to exist in his study of heterozygous/homozygous plants - we call this proverbially, an inability to see the wood for the trees. Or rather, like admiring an old growth forest's aesthetic mass (Satlow's paragraph overall) while overlooking the ominous presence of one or two examples of Ailanthus altissima thriving amid the native trees or the knotweed quietly taking over the undergrowth which forms part of the basal ecosystem of that landscape (analogously, the slipshoddiness of Satlow's generalization here spoils what is otherwise a delightful lecturer-style excursus on the question of Jewish identity).

It is, as often, not a Manichean 'he's right, you're wrong' matter. It is simply that the source you like is visibly, when closely construed, obscure so that the author's point-of-view, thus stated, lacks the requisite lucidity, ergo cogency we should demand of texts we cite.Nishidani (talk) 06:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Not to mention that the quote is dredged out of a book review. Selfstudier (talk) 12:43, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree with that, should use best sources. The "seems to me that while some on the margins" is not something to take from a book review, opinions on that should come from a serious work. But it is incorrect to say that population genetics has somehow been incorporated into the Law of Return based on DNA parentage tests. fiveby(zero) 13:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Any careful analysis of the that phrase -"seems to me that while some on the margins"- would show that it is unquotable because (a) a mere personal opinion on a topic the author is unqualified to speak of by his own admission (b) who does some refer to and (c) on the margins of what discipline? (genetics, historiographt per Shlomo Sand). When no one can determine what an outsider kibitzer here means with such a statement, the implication is obvious. It has no encyclopedic value.Nishidani (talk) 14:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Decline of Jewish race science

Also see #Decline of Jewish race science? above.

Todd Endelman documents the way that the idea of Jews as a race was discredited from the 1930s by its association with Nazi race science, and Jewish support dropped away. For example, the Jewish Health Organization of Great Britain, founded by Salaman, declared by 1934 that "no such thing as a Jewish race in the biological use of the word", and Salaman himself, by 1939, concluded that "the Jews were a group 'united by a common tradition and welded by the reaction of their neighbours into a family' in which 'community of blood' was no greater than that among the citizens of the British Isles. 'Racialism,' as he called it, was 'a component in the complex of factors determining Jewish behaviour, but a weak one compared to the force of a common tradition and a similarity of environment'".

• Endelman's paper, following on Efron's chapter (1994:pp33.) is focused strongly on race and Anglo-Jewish scientists.
• As used this is not appropriate for a generalization about race science +Jews throughout the West.
• The cite is unpaginated.
• We already have touched on the decline of these studies by the 1930s, and that will be presently expanded.
• A stand-alone section with one generalization from one source is an eyesore.
• And misleading. Endelman notes Sewligman and Singer as actively opposing nazi racial theories, but concludes that Salaman persisted in his views into the postwar era.

Nishidani (talk) 12:55, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I meant to expand this section and make it less UK-specific but ran out of time. If you remove it now, I’ll likely try to re-add it in a few weeks with more sources, so would rather leave it perhaps tagged for expansion, but I understand the weekness of current version. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Didn't see this when I edited out. Actually, like antisemitism, race theories varied in their development and deployment significantly from country to country. Even general histories ignore any sense of national nuance, preferring to accept as the benchamark the most extreme case, the Germanic world. So far we have no mention of race theory in the east European/Slavic world though it has a considerable literature. Soon after the height of the political success of K Lueger in Austria, coinciding with Herzl's turn to Zionism, Jabotinsky stayed in Italy for study, and found no evidence that anyone cared if he was a Jew or not. The United States at that time is another example of where we could expand.

By all means expand the English bit. My hope nonetheless is to cut back a fair bit, by tighter précis or just eliminating circumstantial excess or quote bloat, after the full picture is given.Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Bibliography

We currently have almost 80 scholarly works in the bibliography, and we still have some way to go in developing the article. Conscious of an upcoming RM discussion, and considering the experience at the AfD that many editors will come to !vote having just glanced at a handful of sources, I think the article would benefit from some organization in the bibliography. I also think it would help us keep a keen eye on the core sources to ensure that the overall structure and weight of the article matches them. I would propose:

• A Core subsection, containing only those works which describe (to use Sirfurboy's phrase) the whole line of thinking within Zionism, from race through to genetics
• A Pre-state Zionism and race section, containing those works which describe only the race science element (i.e. which, by definition, are time-bound by WWII and/or the creation of the state of Israel)
• A Modern genetics and Zionism section, containing those works which cover only genetics
• An Other works section, for the rest

Please could other editors confirm whether this would be helpful, and if so whether they agree with the proposed categories. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:43, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd rather keep everything alphabetical for easier reference. Havradim leaf a message 01:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Almost all of the sources that deal with research into Jewish origins are focused broadly on the Jewish aspect, with Zionism being a small part. This article combines sections discussing research into Jews with sections discussing Zionism to SYNTH the Jewish research into being about Zionism. This is one of the major flaws in this article. Drsmoo (talk) 03:44, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Please provide a specific example of your claim in your penultimate sentence. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: a gentle reminder to please provide the evidence underpinning your assertion. I am certain you are wrong, but if evidence is there to support your assertion then I will have to change my mind. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:19, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

A large number of sources in this article simply describe genetic or anthropological studies on Jews, and have no relationship whatsoever, aside from maybe/sometimes a reference or two, to Zionism or Race.

The general thrust of the article has been to Synth together a claim that genetic studies of Jews are "Zionist" and inherited from Racial Science, which, while sometimes connected to make a particular argument, are not actually related/the connection is not supported by the body of literature. This has been pointed out repeatedly. Drsmoo (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

We need specific examples please - which exact source is being incorrectly used? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:51, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Drsmoo: I assume that you have accepted that no sources are being incorrectly used, or you would have pointed out examples. You acknowledge above that "Zionism, race and genetics" are "sometimes connected", and then overlay subjective commentary to suggest that the connection is not significant in the literature.

Whether you are right or wrong on the relative significance in the literature, more importantly you are mixing up two of our policies / guidelines:

• WP:SYNTH: You have misread the policy. We have dozens of sources (your "sometimes connected") which state A+B=C explicitly, and none that say the opposite. Your objection is that we are also using sources which say A, and other sources which say B, but that objection has no basis in policy. That is why, whilst you have "pointed [it] out repeatedly", such comments do not get traction. A+B=C is explicitly confirmed by the literature, and your proposed objection would need a major change in policy to be relevant here.
• WP:SIGCOV: This is the relevant guideline about the amount of coverage ("Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material"). But it is only about the notability of a subject and whether an article is warranted. Again, you have incorrectly conflated this question with the question of synth in your statement above (and a number of your other such statements).

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:38, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

”We have dozens of sources (your "sometimes connected") which state A+B=C explicitly, and none that say the opposite.” Both of these statements are demonstrably false. Please list the “dozens of sources” with relevant quotations. Repeatedly asking the same question over and over after being replied to in detail is tendentious. This article is WP:SYNTH, as has been pointed out in detail multiple times both here and on the AFD, including from keep voters. Until you act to address the glaring issues with this article, I will no longer respond to your sealioning. Drsmoo (talk) 15:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Or mine. I see nothing but flagwaving without substance. Selfstudier (talk) 15:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

It is true that some articles (History of Palestine is a perfect example) will benefit from having the bibliography split into subsections, but this article is not one of them. It is generally much easier to have a single biblio listing in alphabetical order. --NSH001 (talk) 06:42, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Drsmoo. Your repeated (well twice) rsponse to legitimate requests for information that will allow other editors to address your flagwaving without substance, as invariablySealioning, is becoming problematical. It is essentially a NPA violation against Onceinawhile, for his attempts at requesting collaboration are provocatively 'spun' as badgering (as you earlier put it) i.e. in your view, WP:Bludgeon, a reportable offense. If, as you say, a statement is 'demonstrably false' and no one else can see it, the onus is on you to prove it. You are shifting the goalposts. Please desist.Nishidani (talk) 16:46, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

”and no one else can see it”. Aside from the many editors on here and the AFD. Nishidani, Onceinawhile claimed there are “dozens” of sources that explicitly connect the disparate elements of this article. You are asking me to prove a negative, I am asking him to substantiate his claim and produce the sources. Drsmoo (talk) 16:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay. If it weasn't self-evident here (which it is) 'no one else can see it'. The AfD is history. If you can't see the obvious point Onceinawhile made, then read the article, and tote up the number of sources which in dealing with postwar genetics in Israel, mention the impact of earlier Zionism. Those sections will be even more strongly documented in a day or two. You are not asking Onceinawhile to substantiate a claim, you are asking him/her to waste time answering your erratic comments rather than work on the article, which still requires several days of intensive work. It ain't collaborative, esp. since your view that this article should be trashed is well known.Nishidani (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

No, most can see it, and little has changed. The claim was that there were “dozens of sources” That support “A+B=C” and connect Zionism, race, and genetics. Having read this article, it is abundantly clear that there aren’t. I am inviting Onceinawhile to substantiate his claim. I anticipate he will not be able to. Drsmoo (talk) 17:15, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• I am for weeding out quite a few sources once the article is in good shape. The bibliography arose in its present shape because many editors at the AfD had no idea of the topic and the scholarly range. The rationale for that - which changes the article from an historic overview to a bibliography compendium, is over.
• Drsmoo. If there has been any principle guiding the selection of sources for consultation it has been one diametrically opposed to what you assert. I have a substantial resource base on Jewish origins, and have used none of that. Your statement is descriptively false. In my own contributions, as as far as I can see, in bibliographic citations by others (I haven't read all of those yet) the material has been added only if the focus is on the next between Zionism+race+genetics. Were what you claim true, we'd have 300 books and articles in there. People who keep bandying the word 'synth' should give evidence by specific reasoned examples of that, or stop the flagwaving-
• I agree with NSH001. Since we don't need all this material, splitting the sources would be unwieldy. A second point. I imagine, given the repeated attempts to AfD it off wikipedia, that6 here will be a determined attempt to (a) break up the article or/and (b) rename it so that some new title will redefine the topic and thereby give excuses for excising substantial parts of the text. So any such bibliuography splitting would be just one more headache.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

I don’t feel strongly but just to note that this proposed split evidences the concern I’ve had all along: that this is essentially two articles that don’t go together naturally: pre-state Zionist race science and contemporary genetics. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Bobfrombrockley: the split above is simply time-based:

• Core = 1890s to 2023
• Pre-state/WWII = 1890s to 1940s
• Modern = 1950s to 2023

Like every single sociology article on this encyclopedia, some sources cover the whole relevant time period, others focus on just part of it. The suggestion that the time periods don’t go together naturally is provably incorrect, as every single one of the “core” sources confirm that they do, and no known sources question the continuity. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:44, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Bob, the sources disagree. Nothing that occurred post 1945 is comprehensible unless one has a thorough grasp of what preceded it. I consider the pressure to split it as, objectively, reflecting a perception that race theory in Zionism is best left as an historical artefact, and wholly unrelated to modern Israel, in the face of abundant (Israel, diasporic and otherwise) scholarship which emphasizes continuities in this as in all history. History has no clean breaks.Nishidani (talk) 12:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

It’s like arguing that the article Taxi should only cover motor vehicles. The requirement to get from A to B without owning a vehicle was met by different modes of transport in history, with clear continuity despite horses and cars looking very different. So our article covers them together. Likewise, the requirement to get from A to B with respect to Jewish biological origins in Zionism was met by different modes of science, one outdated and the other modern, but also with clear continuity. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:13, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

An analogy closer to this article would be "Republicans, horses, and taxis" where the article cites some sources that discuss politicians and horses, some that discuss politicians and taxis, some that say specifically Republicans did such and such with horses, some saying taxi drivers are influenced by Republican policies, and some articles that say taxis are related to horses conceptually. Drsmoo (talk) 01:26, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, right. Did you ever note how dishonest Tolstoy was in entitling one of his books, War and Peace? I mean, the blighter then goes on to delude us all by mentioning Egyptian metempsychosis, the nobility of facial wrinkles, moves in chess, the quality of women's breasts etc.etc.etc. things that disappoint readers who, looking at the title expect to read only about guns, artillery. hussar manoeuvres or breaks in the action when silence falls and no one shoots. They do the same thing with the life of Herzl, and instead of focusing on what he did day by day, divagate about financial crises in Hungary, fashion in Paris, the court of the Turkish sultan, politics in Vienna, schmisse, a chap called Dreyfus, all sorts of claptrap. Shocking.Nishidani (talk) 07:44, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Drsmoo: thanks for the good idea. An article on "Republicans, horses, and taxis" will work well - I have checked the highest quality scholarly research, and as you can see from the below, this is a well studied and notable topic:

Scholarly quotes on Republicans, horses, and taxis:

1. Oxford Bibliographies, 2015: ...contemporary taxis often travel similar routes to earlier horse-cabs. Republican politics significantly inform historical and contemporary taxi literature, at times explicitly and more often implicitly in the questions that scholars ask.
2. Falk 2017: there is no other example known to me like the Republicans’ of an intensive effort to travel around urban areas in shared vehicles
3. Weitzman 2019: …[the study] aimed to expose the assumptions and biases implicit in taxi research and to critique the way it has been used politically and culturally by Republicans… From what I have read, this view of taxis and their historical relationship to horse-cabs, a perspective that stresses the lines of continuity between the two fields, is common among the anthropologists who write about taxis.
4. Ostrer 2012: the taxis of which Sand is critical have set the bar higher for travel than the horse-cabs of a century ago. The stakes in taxi travel are high… It touches on the heart of Republican politics.
5. Burton 2021: In contrast to the rest of the region, the history of taxis in America has been relatively well studied. Historians and anthropologists have critically examined how the horse-cabs in early-twentieth-century, and their relationship to Republican politics, reverberate within the taxi industry from the 1950s to the present
6. Abu El-Haj 2012: Looking at the history of Republicans through the lens of urban shared travel brings into focus a story long sidelined in histories: Republicans invested in horse-cabs as they forged an understanding of urban travel and fought to found the Republican party. By the mid-twentieth century, urban shared vehicles, although not with horses any more — had become standard for many Republicans, and, in significant ways, this commitment to such vehicles framed membership of the entire Republican party
7. Kohler 2023: In the American context, taxis are mainly criticized as being designed in the framework of a “Republican narrative", as doing the same thing as horse-cabs, or both.

I hope the above illustrates the point clearly. All these quotes, in their original form, are currently in this article for your inspection. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:51, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

History has no clean breaks. But articles have to, otherwise we have only one article to cover all of history. You have to think about where the logically coherent place for an article to end and start is. This imho is still two articles with an enormous amount of editorial effort going into the stuff that links them, even though that’s marginal to both of the two relevant bodies of literature. (I won’t speculate now what the pressure to create one article reflects.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:14, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

No need for two articles if there is a cohesive whole that is not of excessive length. Selfstudier (talk) 13:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Bob, 11 days ago you claimed:

the overly capacious title brings in genetics and forces the article to yoke this period of high race science together with a much later genetic debate, which has implications for Zionism but is very marginal to Zionism’s story.

There is no 'enormous amount of editorial effort' involved in 'yoking' these themes together, and, though you personally repeat that race and genetics is marginal to Zionism, that, I must infer, reflects the kind of Zionist history you are extensively familiar with. I can understand that because I know some of those general histories you allude to, and I too never noted in them any significant mention of this tradition. But I noted the silence as I followed scholarly developments over the past 2 decades. Almost all major Zionist histories have been produced by scholars working from within a Zionist framework understandably (from Nahum Sokolow down to David Cesarani, Walter Laqueur etc.etc) The effort consists simply in mastering what has become a voluminous development in post-Zionist scholarship, which openly allows that the story of Zionism has traditionally ignored the issue of race (though it focused intensively on the antisemitic environment out of which Zionism emerged. Antisemitism was to its lethal core 'racist' and grounded on a pseudoscience that had enormous traction for the first formative 50 years of Zionist thinking. And it is not we editors who link this to genetics in Israel: a dozen strong technical studies highlight the nexus between demographic calculations, Jewish population genetics and planning after Israel was founded. The connection is not contrived, it has simply been established by numerous scholarly sources which are bringing to light this consistent strain in Zionism. I think you will see this more clearly as the decade by decade survey of the continuities thickens, which I, for one, hope to do shortly (the only delay has been unusually dense social obligations here). Nishidani (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

You may be right Nishidani in your interpretation of the history but what you’re saying here suggests your agenda is to right great wrongs and revise the false histories promoted by the mainstream scholars who suffered from too much Zionism. The article is increasingly becoming an original essay in historiography, which may be interesting and well researched but is not a Wikipedia article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Agenda? 'right great wrongs'!!! Was SlimVirgin running a feminist agenda when she did a massive amount of source reading and wrote/rewrote from top to bottom Female genital mutilation? It is almost twice as long as this, with 3 times the notes. When she radically overhauled and brought up to snuff both 1948 Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle and Killing of Muhammad al-Durrah I might differ with her choices and relative emphases, but I didn't challenge. Sarah was privately a 'pro-Zionist'.She was always a scrupulously fair content editor, a rare thing. She wasn't '(re)(w)right-winging a great wrong'.

That caricature alludes to our page on tendentious editing. Really Bob, I'm sure a moment's reflection will remind you that historical writing year by year is constantly revising recent scholarship by expanding on something neglected in traditional accounts of this or that. A strong tendency in the transition to power of the later Protestant ascendancy in England wore its conservative Anglican and secularist bias on its narrative sleeves for centuries until people like Eamon Duffy, from a different religious background, came along and upset the applecart, by documenting in detail what the mainstream narratives ignored or underplayed, the massive cultural and social devastation on the medieval Catholic world the new men wrought. Read Macaulay et al., and there's hardly a hint of it. Your point ignores what I wrote in the overview: scholars who for two decades have worked to repair the silence in 'mainstream' histories about the interconnected themes of 'Zionism, race and genetics' are not 'righting great wrongs'. They are simply exploring what earlier scholars missed, and wiki peons like me simply 'write the wrong' (the glaring lacuna in earlier books that consistently ignored the material, or relegated it to a footnote). In many southern US states, Republicans are ridding school libraries of textbooks that, reflecting the revisions of traditional American narratives of the country's 'heroic' past, development and founding, mention the institution of slavery, and the ethnocide of the Indian wars which were given short shrift. 'That stuff is just catering to the wrong voting constituencies. It's offensive to a lot of poor white folk's American dream!'

It is now an integral part of mainstream Zionist scholarship to re-examine the records of the past dwelling on details that upset common traditional perceptions of 'the miracle', and there is no writing of great wrongs involved when we update articles to cover new scholarship. Wikipedia does not censor, it looks at the state of the art encyclopedically, and dutifully updates its knowledge base.Nishidani (talk) 08:14, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Brief version. The gravamen of any split proposal of the kind which, in the logic of things, will be advanced eventually must lie in showing that the numerous high quality sources linking zionism, race and genetics provide no warrant for writing such an article. Nishidani (talk) 15:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

A core source: Noa Sophie Kohler

We have not used Noa Sophie Kohler's works yet. But this article in the bibliography is an excellent summary of this entire topic. One of the clearest we have. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

It has been used. The quote in the lead with “being designed or interpreted in the framework of a "Zionist narrative” is from this article but is incorrectly attributed to a different article. The article is also an “Opinion paper” as opposed to a research paper. Drsmoo (talk) 02:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

In case of any confusion, an “opinion paper” in a peer reviewed journal is a very different thing to an “opinion piece” in a newspaper. The Journal of Anthropological Sciences, one of the world’s most prestigious anthropological journals, holds opinion papers to the same academic standard and peer review process as its “research papers” – the only difference being that the former does not need to include new primary data, and can be a review of existing scholarship. Most journals publish such papers without specifically calling them opinion papers; this is simply a way of differentiating between primary and secondary types of publication. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:16, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Drsmoo. If you note an incorrect citation, and know the real source, the proper thing to do (this is a collaborative enterprise) is either make a corrective edit yourself or alert others who will fix it. Otherwise it just looks like one is storing ammo for later, to machinegun the credibility of the article by a bulleted list whose issues could have been addressed collegially during the work in progress. Kohler's paper is not an 'opinion' unless you underwrite the idea everything is opinionable if the writer is not a nuts-and-bolts scientist. Most of the genetics papers written by scientists, several articles by scholars doing the history state, make historical assumptions for which they have no scientific evidence, and overviews like Burton,. Kohler. Azoulay, Lipphardt etc., serve to contextualize the science in the cultural, national, historical milieux in which they were written. Nishidani (talk) 07:39, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Not about “ammo”, just 1RR. It happens to be particularly funny given the meme going around about reading all 8000 pages.Drsmoo (talk) 12:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Nothing to do with IR. Any editor of any persuasion, if notified of an attribution error, would do the edit. It's obligatory. Facinated that there's a meme circulating about someone having read 8000 pages on this. Could you tell me who has managed that remarkable achievement? It's over 4 times what my slow brain has tried to take in these last two weeks or so, or did I miskey 8 for 2? Nishidani (talk) 12:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Criticism and responses

I have moved the section that prefaced the overview as originally drafted, to a section of its own.

• The move is provisory. It just didn't function, piling that material on top of the overview, which must be synthetic, and not hogged by quotes from two or three sources, without a narrative context.
• To me, the succession of quotes at the outset, dealing with critical views of the subject, looks unbalanced. There is no counterpart per NPOV. I know that is difficult because so much of the critical material is, indeed, critical, rather than approving or endorsing. But readers should be given an historical outline of how this issue came about, all of its complexities, and the predicaments unenviably faced by Jewish scientists down to the 1930s, Zionist or otherwise (I hope to expand on that in the relevant history section) before we get to developments in the postwar period.
• I'm not for long quotes from a single authority in the body of the article, as if that were the last word.
• At the end of the sequence (1) history to 1945 (b) 1948-1960s (c) 1970-85 (d) 1985 to genomics down to the present time, we can introduce a section on criticism and responses. Kohler's article, for example, is an attempt to provide a rationale or defense (it more or less acts as a channel for the Atzmon/Behar approach, which is fine by me) of the use of genetics to define Israeli or Jewish peoplehood. And there are several other sources with a similar purpose, from Efron and Endelman for example.
• This is just how I feel of course. Essentially it reflects a drafter's sense of neat orderly exposition free of piling quote on quote. The primary aim should be to paraphrase sources to give a rounded historical overview. Now, that's filled the adbreak, I must get back to The Charge at Feather River. All woik and no relaxation makes a dull Jack like me even duller.Nishidani (talk) 20:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Some stuff taken out. Can be reconsidered if thought cogent or indispensable

• Zangwill in 1909 asked, "Whoever heard of a religion that was limited to people of particular breed? Of divine truth that was only true for men of dark complexion?"

Nishidani (talk) 03:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Rubstein, Amnon. "The lie behind 'genetic citizenship'". www.israelhayom.co.il. Retrieved 2023-07-27. The truth becomes clear in the article, which does not refer to Israel's Law of Return, but discusses one young woman who asked to participate in the Taglit-Birthright Israel program, which offers free trips to Israel to young Jews around the world...There is no proposal to amend the Law of Return to include genetic testing.
• The name is wrongly transcribed. It is Rubinstein. Amnon Rubinstein has the credentials to speak about law,even at the venerable age of 87, but IsraelHayom is not a respectable RS. This is barrel-scraping, and falls far short of the quality standards applying here.Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

References

A discourse emerged

Can somebody find a better word than “discourse” in the opening sentence. What does it even mean? BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The second para of the history says "....notable proponents of the idea of a Jewish nation-race included...", I assume that the discourse (discussion, debate, argument) was between them at least. I understand discourse to mean that but if you want to summarize the body differently, go for it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:54, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Would "In the late 19th century, a discourse emerged in Zionist thinking seeking to reframe conceptions of" → "Beginning in the late 19th century, Zionist thinking sought to reframe conceptions of" work? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

That’s much more understandable. But it might overstate the case: the “discourse emerged” formulation acknowledges a slow and partial process. I wonder about “some Zionist thinkers sought” or “a current of thought within Zionism emerged which sought”? BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:59, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

tryptofish's suggestion is worth keeping alive.My editing practice is to write nothing without a source at hand, several preferably. So altering language requires a grounding in sources. 'Some' isd a weasel word. Any familiarity with Herzl and his time, and his collaborators, will tell you that discourse at that time was thoroughly saturated by concepts of race. Nishidani (talk) 17:05, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

As discussed above with Drsmoo and in addition mentioned by Sirfurboy, the first and second paras likely both need some work for a final version. Selfstudier (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Sources...

Doron

The very first source from Joachim Doron, doesn't even mention anything about Jewish identity, race or genetics. It's all about Zionist "Self Criticism". The only thing that comes close to what the article was trying to say was The Zionist "self-criticism" that necessarily attended the longing for a "new Jew" has been forgotten or even deliberately suppressed. I'll be checking the other sources soon, and removing the one from Doron unless someone can explain to me why it was referenced to support the statement Many aspects of the role of race in the formation of Zionist concepts of Jewish identity were rarely studied or long forgotten, overlooked, made invisible or deliberately suppressed until recent decades. Crainsaw (talk) 18:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Wrong. For race see Doron p.188 & n.40, p.191, n,51, p.203 (twice); Jewish identity is mentioned on pp.171(thrice), 189,194,195,201; it was referenced to support 'forgotten' in the passage you cited, because the source states:

The Zionist “self-criticism” that necessarily attended the longing for a “new Jew” has been forgotten or even deliberately suppressed over the last generation.'

All of the following sources support the selection of those adjecives. "Zionist self-criticism" is Doron's awkward euphemism for what the text shows, that it deals with Zionist criticisms of other Jews, esp. those who do not subscribe to Zionism. The reason why all of these sources are mustered in an overview is to explain to the reader that the topical thematics spanned in the article have been until recently, subject to scholarly neglect, and Doron gives four reasons for that. It is a necessary preliminary because numerous editors here appear to have never heard of this intertwined issue. Nishidani (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I find it odd that a Wikipedia article start with a historical account of the scholarly works about the topic the article is ostensibly about. That aside, Doron is given a very important status as groundbreaking in the literature. However, according to Google Scholar, the article has only been cited a dozen or so times. The journal describes him as a Lecturer in history at Kibbutz Teachers’ College. I can’t access the article but I’m curious if it is really as important as the article currently suggests. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Morris-Reich

Neither does the Morris-Reich article mention Zionist concepts of Jewish identity were rarely studied or long forgotten, overlooked, made invisible or deliberately suppressed until recent decades., the only thing it says is attempt to explain why parameters that were interwoven with race could nonetheless transfer relatively easily into later paradigms of Jewish demography that turned their back on race., that's incredibly vague has nothing to do with Zionism (Zionism=/Jewishness), and "Jewish demography" doesn't represent a scholarly, government or media "suppression". Crainsaw (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Again, wrong. Your assumption is that the several sources mustered for each of the adjectives noting scholarly neglect, appended at the end, should each contain the whole sentence. That is ridiculous. Perhaps you want me to shift the sources each to their adjective in the sentence?

Amos Morris-Reich writes:

(1)Why did Ruppin not express his reservations of Günther in the privacy of his diary, but, on the contrary, describe the conversation as a pleasant encounter? Ruppin's description of his meeting with Günther, the leading theoretician of race in Nazi Germany, was published in the German edition of his diaries (edited by Schlomo Krolik) but was omitted in the English edition (edited by Alex Bein). In the English edition an entry for the date of the meeting appears but without the passage relating to the meeting with Günther. The Hebrew volume (also edited by Alex Bein) entirely omits the entry for this date. Although Bein and Krolik displayed extreme sensitivity toward Ruppin's complex positions on the "Jewish Question" and the "Arab Question" in their impressive editing of his diaries, memoirs, and letters, the reader will search in vain for a reference to Ruppin's complicated and ambivalentpositions on "race".pp.1-2

(2)Certain aspects of Ruppin's legacy were studied thoroughly and comprehensively. There is no common agreement, however, on the significance of race for understanding Ruppin's work. Two important studies published in recent years almost completely overlook the racial aspect in his work. In the index to Arthur Goren's comprehensive biography of Arthur Ruppin, published in 2005, the word "'race" appears on three pages of the almost five hundred and fifty page book. Goren regards the term as marginal to Ruppin's work as a sociologist, a remnant of early twentieth century anthropological views from which Ruppin never freed himself. In an important retrospective article that appeared a few years ago marking the centennial publication of Ruppin's first book on the Jews, Sergio DellaPergola, probably the most distinguished Jewish demographer in the world today, and in a way the "grandson" of Ruppin, almost completely passed over the racial aspect of Ruppin's work.' Amos Morris-Reich pp.4-5

In short Amos Morris-Reich notes the suppression in both the English and Hebrew editions of this crucial evidence which the German edition scrupulously prints.Nishidani (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The pages which were linked go the Morris-Reich article were 4-5, and is "almost completely passed ocer the racial aspect" a deliberate suppression? I'd say this is a classic example on Synth. If one "Distinguished" scholar looks over something, doesn't mean other scholars do, other scholars still talk about it. Crainsaw (talk) 04:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Nope. I'm sure you know Horace's adage:parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. All you are asking for, in technical terms, is that I add pp.1-2 to the Morris-Reich note. You could have done that yourself. And, the elision from both the Hebrew and English editions of fundamental information about Ruppin's encounter with the foremost Nazi racial theorist of his day qualifies as a suppression of evidence. Perhaps it wasn't 'deliberate' though were it not it would certainly be a case of an extraordinary coincidence. But the words 'deliberately suppressed' are straight from Doron. There is no WP:Synth. I won't challenge your removal of 'long'. That's a fair call, though I disagree with it for a simply stylistic reason: preface a long list of adjectives with an adverb like 'rarely' cannot avoid extending the sense of 'rarely' to all of the adjectives, as opposed to the first one. ' The semantic function of 'long' in 'long forgotten' is to break that connotative drift ('long' refers to Doron's remark about what scholars withheld themselves from stating for a generation, 23-30 years, in the postwar years). 'rarely studied,' with out the 'long' can suggest 'rarely forgotten, rarely overlooked, rarely made invisible or rarely deliberately suppressed.' But people don't worry about the fine points of grammar these days and probably won't get the twinges of anxiety someone with my unfortunate background get in seeing such things. Nishidani (talk) 07:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Have you read the German or Hebrew version? Do you have access to them? How do we know their discussion was about the role of race in Zionism? Why is the conversation kept in the the Hebrew and German additions, when Hebrew is the official language of Israel, so surely any suppression would also be present in the Hebrew edition. As for the stylistic part, we should also remove the statement "made invincible" from the last sentence since it's more or less a synonym for forgotten, overlooked or suppressed. Crainsaw (talk) 10:19, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

This is the definition of Synth, A and B therefore C, A is a conversation between Ruppin and Günther possibly about Zionism and race (I haven't read the other versions), B is it was ommitted by Bein in the English version, and now your claim or assumption "C" is that the ommition means a deliberate suppression. Crainsaw (talk) 11:21, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm getting confused here, point to the SYNTH in the article, please. Selfstudier (talk) 11:46, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

The confusion is Crainsaw's.

You have misconstrued both Morris-Reich and my paraphrase of it. He states that

• the German edition faithfdully conserves Ruppin's description of his meeting with Günther
• The English edition conserves the date of the encounter, but without the passage
• The Hebrew edition entirely omits the entry for this date.

So when you write:-

Why is the conversation kept in the the Hebrew and German additions, when Hebrew is the official language of Israel, so surely any suppression would also be present in the Hebrew edition.

I.e. the passage is not 'kept in the German and Hebrew editions' but is missing in both the Hebrew and English editions.

That shows you completely misunderstand the plain English of the secondary source, which is a highly reliable one.

'Made invincible' is not the same as 'made invisible' which might be better put, stylistically, as 'rendered invisible'. 'Ommittion' is I guess 'omission'.

I've written about 1,000 articles for wikipedia, using scholarly sources invariably. The one area, and even there only on very 'controversial' articles, where anyone mputed an WP:Synth violation, was in the I/P toxic zone, and I can recall only 3 cases in the first years of a 17 year effort, where the challenge had some merit. I know synth like the back-of-my hand, and Onceinawhile already answered you in replying to Drsmoo above. Please don't waste our time with pointless and unfocused niggling. I have a huge load of rereading to do to ensure the article is comprehensive and consistent with the best principles of wikipedia editing guidelines.Nishidani (talk) 11:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for messing up the occasional word or sometimes not reading properly. But my point still stands, A and B therefore C is synth, and A is a conversation between Ruppin and Günther possibly about Zionism and race (Has anyone read the German version called Arthur Ruppin: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen?), B is it was omitted by Bein in the English version, and now your claim or assumption "C" is that the omission means a deliberate suppression or it being overlooked without the source saying that. I'm not trying to be toxic, I'm just asking you where you got the "deliberately suppressed" or "overlooked" from? Crainsaw (talk) 17:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

In the article, the expression "deliberately suppressed" is from Doron, viz

"The Zionist "self-criticism" that necessarily attended the longing for a "new Jew" has been forgotten or even deliberately suppressed over the last generation, primarily for four reasons:·" Selfstudier (talk) 17:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

That's my question, why are we even citing Morris-Reich if his article doesn't even support the sentence where it is citied? Crainsaw (talk) 17:51, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a tendentious reading of Morris-Reich. He says that two important editors and two important authors neglected the specifically racial dimension of Ruppin’s views, while others didn’t neglect it.

The authors who he says neglected race here all obviously looked at “zionist concepts of Jewish identity”, so it doesn’t support the sentence at all. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:47, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, Bob, that's balderdash, There is nothing tendentious in this context of negelect of a topic, to refer to Morris-Reich's observation that the major Hebrew and English critical editions of Ruppin's works omit/suppress/underplay his racism, as do 'two important studies' that 'almost completely overlook the racial aspect in his work'. If you read (downloadable) Bloom's 2011 monograph (414 pages) Ruppin's obsession with racial science is on every other page. That editors omit/edit out a crucial passage, and major experts on him work to the time of Morris Reich's writing almost wholly 'pverlook' what lies at the core of Ruppin's thinking is obviously congruent with the sentence.Nishidani (talk) 22:47, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Impacts and McGonigle

The "Impacts" section content didn't really seem to match the section title, so i went through McGonigle's Genomic Citizenship. He took an ethnographic look at concepts of citizenship, nation, and genetic in Israel and Qatar; "a book about the relationship between science and identity". He provides an overview and survey much in line with other sources. There's some possible content there, but probably better sources available. His work is looking at NLGIP, talking with geneticists and others to see if the reality matches the rhetoric and mythological imaginings.

• As an ethnographer, I was disappointed by my experience at the NLGIP. In the context of the wide circulation of gene talk and the potential biopolitical role of genetics in Israeli society, I had expected the NLGIP to be replete with research and discourse concerning the genetics of Jews. I was expecting to find work on the genetic nature of the Jewish nation and perhaps also on the genetic basis of a return to Zion. But these expectations were not met. It turned out that the NLGIP is tightly woven into the fabric of Israel’s burgeoning secular technoscience. It is concerned with an unmarked global science and the imagined move toward a future era of precision medicine. The Zionist pioneer at the NLGIP is, rather than a religious-nationalist fanatic, the secular humanist scientist pushing the boundaries of global biomedical progress forward. This is the Zionism of twenty-first-century secular global modernity—in Tel Aviv, global scientific hotbed.
• Ultimately my expectations for the biobank were supplanted: although the work I observed in the lab depended on certain racial or ethnic categories, I could not identify a clear moment when the framing national context swayed the research in a particular direction or became an identifiable influencing factor in scientific reasoning. This is a crucial ethnographic finding that has relevance for the methodology of studying science and society. It also problematizes the idea of a local “site” when studying the globalized discourses of science. I found that the discursive social life of genetics and Jewish identity vastly exceeds the science that underpins it. In fact, it raises the question of whether credible biological science underpins the imagination of genomic citizenship at all. The “National Laboratory,” I realized, was somewhat like a genetic Holy of Holies: a hollow, empty symbolic space to which is attributed a powerful truth value, coordinating a set of mythical beliefs about the nature of the Jewish nation. Inside the labs, however, there was no Jewish essence to be found. Not only was there no research focus on Jewish origins or the genetics of the Jewish nation, but the work of the biobank and the labs I visited focused predominantly on contemporary trends in biomedicine and an unmarked global rush to precision medicine.

There is other possible content: resistance to genetic and biological concepts of identity, the 2018 rabbinical courts, etc. So why was it that the particular content was chosen from this source? There are now some 13 quotes in the text 55 in footnotes and 11 in citations. Looks like a real failure to read and summarize sources, and a lot of quote mining to belabor a particular POV. fiveby(zero) 19:01, 30 July 2023 (UTC)