Talk:Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism/Archives/ 3

Requested move 13 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. I see consensus to move page to the proposed title. (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans (talk) 11:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

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Zionism, race and genetics → Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism – Better and more descriptive title that matches the article text and the sources more closely, and removes ambiguous and confusing reference to "genetics" which is being used to mean "eugenics" not "molecular genetics" or "Mendelian genetics" given the anachronism of pre-1930s race science. Present title implies an association between "Zionism" and "race and genetics," which can be problematic. Additionally, present title fails to relate the 3 free-floating concepts, whereas the new title exactly relates the racial conceptions of Jewish identity that are being discussed in Zionism as opposed to implying some problematic relation between "Zionism" and "race and genetics" (i.e., discredited race science/eugenics) Andre🚐 17:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC)— Relisting. estar8806 (talk) ★ 02:41, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support. I suggest that editors evaluating this RM read the lead paragraph of this page, with the RM in mind. The proposed new title nails it, in terms of reflecting what the page is about, as reflected, in turn, by the lead paragraph. The proposed rename tracks very closely with the wording of that paragraph – and the existing pagename doesn't. I agree with the nom, that "race and genetics" is a very problematic thing for us to associate with Zionism, without giving more nuance (and the long history of proposals to delete this page reflects, to a considerable extent, discomfort with that awkward language). Anticipating that there may be objections to leaving "genetics" out of the proposed title, I'll point out that, according to this page, genetic analyses were used simply as a more modern tool to examine what was earlier lumped under the term "race", so genetics here are not some sort of separate topic, outside of "racial conceptions", but instead a tool to study race. I recognize that the proposed new title is a bit on the long side. But it takes that many words to capture what the page is about (believe me, there have been endless discussions in this talk, rejecting anything more concise). So if one takes it as given that the page is about what it is about, then this title captures what it's about, as a pagename must. And if one dislikes the complexity of the proposed title, that's really a dislike of having this page, which is an issue for AfD, not RM. In contrast, the deeply flawed existing pagename achieves comparative brevity by way of lumping together, with no real connection, three independent concepts, almost in the manner of a slogan. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

  Adding to my original comment, it occurs to me that editors who come to this discussion without being familiar with the history of this page may be concerned about comments below, about a supposed few editors who supposedly ignore previous discussions. As should be obvious from the current pagename, this page has had a very contentious history. In fact, there are a few editors who walk a line bordering on WP:OWN, who constantly make that accusation, about others ignoring previous discussions. I want to emphasize what I said in the first sentence above: that editors who want to evaluate this RM should read the lead paragraph of this page. Look at how closely the proposed new title matches with that lead paragraph. Then look at how the existing title matches far less well. And see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Opening paragraph, which says all one needs to know about finding the scope of a page. Decide for yourself which pagename really reflects the page scope. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  I hope that whoever closes this will also read, carefully, #Discussion of ongoing RM, below. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support The proposed article name is better, much more in keeping with article subject matter. The current article title contradicts parts of the article which discusses racial identity and historical "race science" which should never be confused with genetics. TarnishedPath^talk 01:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Question Is there a particular reason not to use "Jewishness", as is used in the article? (e.g. Racial conceptions of Jewishness in Zionism) ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 04:29, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Simple answer: it's a weirder word, and "Jewish identity" is used more. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Per Google: "the quality of being Jewish or of having characteristics regarded as typically Jewish". I second Iskandar's comment. TarnishedPath^talk 07:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose the proposer's rationale suggests they have not read the earlier talk page discussions, or the core sources on which this article has been built. Their claim that that article’s …reference to "genetics"… is being used to mean "eugenics" not "molecular genetics" or "Mendelian genetics" is clearly incorrect. The 191 instances of genetic* throughout the article evidence this clearly. A title which incorrectly excises this element of the article is inappropriate. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think it's unfair to assert that someone did not read the discussions or sources simply because you disagree with what they say. Andrevan has taken part in those previous discussions, as have I, so it seems pretty likely that we were both aware of what was discussed. And nobody claimed that "genetics" was being used to mean those things; the concern is that the word can be misunderstood that way when paired with "race". And I've refuted the claim that we must include the word "genetics", in my own comment: genetics are treated by all the sources as a modern method to study "racial conceptions", so they are not a standalone concept that must be included in the pagename, but rather something that is a subset of "racial conceptions". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  The green text in my comment is a direct quote from Andrevan’s post. He used the word mean. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:33, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  What I meant was that no one is claiming that editors are using it to mean that. We can agree that individuals have historically used it with that meaning. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  As we discussed at length, which you can find in the archive by Ctrl+F for the discussion of Mendelian genetics, no conception of modern genetics, nor one of Mendelian inheritance, was ever discussed or considered, but race science and eugenic ideas certainly were. Mendelian genetics was mentioned in passing in one of the sources. There is certainly a more modern contemporary discussion, which probably belongs not in this article, but at genetic studies on Jews and appears to be just a split or fork of that article with a different spin. But that has nothing to do with Zionists that are discussed in the article like Ruppin. Andre🚐 23:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I made it plain in preRFC discussion that I would not accept a title that did not address both race and genetics per the sources, so I will repeat that here. Selfstudier (talk) 22:52, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support Better as it indicates a cogent subject. Drsmoo ( talk) 00:13, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Onceinawhile. This is the nth attempt by some two or three editors to challenge the no consensus outcome of several different formulations successively and exhaustively discussed. The no consensus reflected consistently a majority of editors' views that there is nothing problematic in the existing title, which has excellent source backing. There must be a natural limit to how many times the same challenge is thrown down (attrition) and the same arguments repeated, most of them ignoring the detailed rebuttals concerning inadequate formulations made in the several threads earlier on. Nishidani (talk) 17:42, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  I said this earlier: [1]. There is no consensus that the existing pagename is good. And just because some editors disagree with those "detailed rebuttals", does not mean that they are ignoring them. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  It is obvious there is no consensus in favour of the existing title. This is a good faith attempt to identify is there is an alternative that might find consensus. Two or three editors have consistently, strongly defended the existing title, but a range of other editors have expressed disagreements, but so far no alternative has generated new consensus. Please assume good faith and don't misrepresent the history of this page. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:04, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - per Onceinawhile, this proposal ignores that genetics is used repeatedly in the sources and makes the OR leap that what they really mean is eugenics. This is another title that would change the scope of the article. nableezy - 20:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  What parts of the page would have to be removed? What new content would have to be added? None, so far as I can see. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  There are sources in the contemporary portion that are referenced in the article, but it's a WP:SYNTH leap that it's the same genetics that pre-1948 Zionists were thinking about. The early portion of the article discusses Ruppin and other Zionists who were possessed of pseudoscientific ideas about humanity, in several ways, and then goes on to touch on contemporary academic views on Jewish genetics that aren't related to that at all, and then makes the synthetic leap to say that Ruppin's eugenics/race science is really the same question as what my 23andme DNA test says, which it isn't. It's confusing, obtuse, and probably creates a bad apprehension in readers as to the veracity of the question "are most Jews today descended from Middle Eastern ancestors." As opposed to the consensus on the other article where that particular content belongs. Andre🚐 22:40, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Andrevan, I actually don't agree with you about the SYNTH, because it seems to me that there are secondary sources that discuss the topic as it developed over time (and contrary to rumors, I don't have a secret agenda of getting this page deleted). But that's not an RM discussion. What is relevant to RM is that "Zionism, race and genetics" does not help the reader understand how the page scope evolved over time, whereas "Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism" makes clearer what the continuous thread is. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Well, regardless of whether you agree that the contemporary analyses of Jewish DNA inheritance and admixture, such as Ostrer and the response to Ostrer, aren't related to Zionism or Zionist views on race, which didn't know about genetics, and that Mendelian genetics is mentioned in passing but not relevant to the topic; regardless of one's view on that material, the present title implies that there were Zionist views on genetics, which as we've established, is an anachronism and temporally confusing as a title since genetics would not have meant heredity in the 1930s. Andre🚐 22:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  All of this has been said, and resaid, and restated, and rebutted, and repeated for 3 months. The majority of editors have never voiced a concern about the present title. Two editors alone keep asserting that there is a problem. That is the only problem. One cannot expect editors to keep derailing their working lives on wiki by being called on to return to address an exiguous dissent by two editors alone. The original bone of contention has been gnawed to the point there's nothing left to chew on.Nishidani (talk) 23:01, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  It's clearly more than just two of us. There's never been a WP:Consensus of editors supporting the present title. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Without particularly arguing the merits of your claim, there are already 3 editors supporting this RM, in addition to me, the proposer; maybe that will be the extent of the support, but either way, WP:CCC. Andre🚐 23:44, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  This is simply inaccurate.

  It's true that the most recent RM only had 2 !supporters (but it only had 2 !opposers). However, Selfstudier's proposed move last month had five !supporters, the archive is littered with discussions where editors raised doubts about the name, and the AfD closure a couple of months ago concluded There seems to be a higher level of agreement (if not yet a consensus) that the current title is less-than-ideal, and that perhaps Zionism and racism (currently a redirect to a section of Racism in Israel), or some other expression of these topics, would be a more appropriate title. That can be taken up as a move request. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per Andrevan. Loksmythe (talk) 04:04, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Proposed title is convoluted. The argument that this current article title is linking three separate, unattached ideas together for no reason at all is ridiculous, never mind the same argument can also be applied (more so) to the proposed title. Antiquated racial genetic science is a foundational part of Zionism, see Israeli citizenship law for recent examples. JJNito197 (talk) 08:34, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Israeli citizenship laws are not based in genetics. Can you substantiate your assertion? Drsmoo (talk) 09:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  "Every Jew in the world has the unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen." It is based on the myth of ethnic decent, which is antiquated racial science. How is this otherwise quantified? JJNito197 (talk) 10:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  It is not quantified through genetics. Drsmoo (talk) 12:06, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  You are quite correct that the law is not quantified through genetics stricto sensu. In practice cases where genetic testing can play a role exist. Ian V. McGonigle, Lauren W. Herman, Genetic citizenship: DNA testing and the Israeli Law of Return,' Journal of the Law and the Biosciences 2:2, July 2015 469-478. Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  This was already discussed, that was a paternity test. Drsmoo (talk) 14:19, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I don't understand your point, since DNA paternity testing is based on genetics. Levivich (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  The Israeli Law of Return is based on descent, not genetics. It is based on family tree and ancestry. It happens to correspond with genetics, which is to say, that if I, as a person whose DNA tests say 99% Ashkenazi, were to marry a non-Jewish woman, then that child marry again non-Jewish, that resulting child that has 25%, roughly, of my DNA, they can get Israeli citizenship. However, they do not conduct genetic tests to grant citizenship, but they will accept DNA proof toward the descent required. Other countries have similar laws for hereditary citizenship such as several EU countries. It is not, again, based on genetics, except indirectly. Andre🚐 00:36, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  It is based on the idea of descent, but to call that "genetics" is an anachronistic misuse of the term, and a good reason why "race" or "ethnicity" or "Jewish identity" are better terms than "genetics" for our title. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  (of course most (all?) nationalisms are based ultimately on the myth of ethnic descent, and most nation-states use some form of jus sanguinis in determining nationality, so we don't need a Wikipedia article specifically to tell us this is also true of Zionist nationalism.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:40, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  To be descended from something or someone (unless applied loosely) has ethnic and genetic connotations foremostly. This can be applied ethnically to individuals, communities, clans... the list goes on. If we were to hypothetically apply the same jus sanguins principle to Israel today, what would be the outcome other than what it currently being applied in the modern state? Israel is a self proclaimed, multi-ethnic Jewish state, so why make a comparisons to other countries as if Israel's isn't inherenty unique. Its antiquated regardless. JJNito197 (talk) 19:19, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support - per JJNito197, this is a bit long as a title, but per Tryptofish, it does encapsulate the page subject very well. There has been much discussion of the title, and I doubt this would be the end of the matter, but it constitutes an improvement. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There remains a distinct problem in the linking of race and genetics in the article title, and this proposal removes that whilst encapsulating the article scope. Sometimes improvement needs to be incremental, and this is a distinct step forward. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:22, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Okay. I've been avoiding commenting much because I can see that this is an open invitation to waste everyone's time by repeating, or ignoring, what has been written over three months of relentless attrition by, mainly, two editors who can't accept the existing title.

  Either you derive the title from the existing article or you change the title in order to have a mandate to change, perhaps significantly or radically the articler we have. The proposed alternative is, once more, inept. 'Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism' (why the plural?) is an example of the latter. At least half of this article is not about 'racial conceptions of Jewish identity' or even about 'Jewish identity' (a genetic or biological profile is only a very small part of 'identity', Jewish or otherwise).

  The article simply states that in its formative decades, Zionism adopted a racial definition of Jewishness. The article then shows how this thesis, formally disowned by science in the world and elsewhere, continued to exercise a formative impact both in Israel and abroad, often as an unconscious ideological bias which inflected methodologies in genetics. This held for many Zioonist and non-Zionists. The focus in exclusively on this specific tradition, not on how Zionism, politically, or via social planning, or immigration policies, or in terms of legal or religious ideas, applies 'racial' ideas.

  So this title can't avoid the implication of trying to engineer a different article. If you both, Trypofish /Andrevan, want a different article, as variously clear from the several titles proposed and disposed of over three months, please write that alternative article. You'll find zero objections to such a new article. The energy wasted in endless argufying would, if used to actually write something for wikipedia, be productive, and not a repeated drag on the time of other editors, the majority of whom for three months have found none of your many alternatives persuasive.Nishidani (talk) 11:41, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  From top to bottom, that comment is a catalog of falsehoods. I won't waste my time rebutting every single point, and I hope that no one else does, either, but I'll trust that uninvolved editors will be able to see what nonsense it is. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:25, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I won't reply to the inaccurate description of the history of this article, as I've already made that point above, but on the substantive points:

  1. At least half of this article is not about 'racial conceptions of Jewish identity' or even about 'Jewish identity' (a genetic or biological profile is only a very small part of 'identity', Jewish or otherwise). True, identity is about much more than biology, but "racial conceptions" of identity foreground biology, and the whole current article is about exactly how that happened with Zionism, both in its early (race science inflected) period and its later period (when genetics replaced discredited raciology).
  2. The article then shows how this thesis, formally disowned by science in the world and elsewhere, continued to exercise a formative impact both in Israel and abroad, often as an unconscious ideological bias which inflected methodologies in genetics. That's an accurate summary of a big part of how this article is currently framed, i.e. as an essay with a strong argument or thesis which it tries to prove by occasionally selective use of sources, exactly the problem with the article as it now stands. (Even including starting with a "literature review", it follows the style of a dissertation, not a Wikipedia article.) The "and genetics" in the title is the justification for this synthetic approach, and needs to go.
  3. please write that alternative article. You'll find zero objections to such a new article. That approach is precisely the origin of the messed up state of the current article, as far as I can see. As the main originators of this article, who have an understandable sense of ownership, have told us on the talk page, it came about because they couldn't get a consensus for their version of Genetic studies of Jews so they set up this fork. Asking people to set up a new fork every time consensus can't be reached is a recipe for a whole series of POV-pushing non-encyclopedic articles.

  BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Look,Bob. How many articles do objecting editors actually write for wikipedia, rather than talkpaging or tweaking? I cannot see any sign of it over the last years. The smearing of it as an 'essay' seems to be simply your subjective term for dislike of it. he last remark above is particularly offensive. There are severe and competent editors here who have never noted anything 'messed up' in the article. It is false that the 'originators' (plural) 'couldn't get a consensus for their version of Genetic studies of Jews and thus set up this 'fork'. Onceinawhile wrote a stub, made a note to the Genetics article which was reverted as irrelevant to a science article. His stub was then subjected to an AdF, based on Synth/OR accusations which were patently silly. Astonished by the extraordinary refusal by many editors to address the evidence, I expanded the stub to more or less the shape it has now. There was no such forking, as you suggest. Throughout there has been a persistent unease, irascibility, antipathy to what numerous academic texts state, that Zionism had a tradition of racial definition of Jews which dragged over into genetic studies of Jews particularly in israel. All alternatives offered have no other function that to bomb that strongly documented linkage out of sight. That is the only perceived function of these repeated challenges - don't link Zionism to either 'race' or 'genetics' or both, whatever numerous books and scholarly articles state, as if Zionism had some unique right to be protected from its own history, unlike every other ideology.

  All this again shows that we are merely doomed, with this last POVish erasure push to go over the same tedious, exhausted soils of prior threads, with their errant inconclusiveness, forcing everyone, yourself included to repeat themselves,and it is a total waste of everyone's time. Nishidani (talk) 21:48, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  My understanding of the origin of his article was based on Iskendar’s comment in a thread on this page: FYI, this page was in part created because material not identical to but related to this page was ejected from Genetic studies on Jews as being too off-topic and hyper-specific. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:13, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Weak Support I don't love this proposed title but it is better than the current one, closer to a real topic, and reflects the strongest parts of the existing article. I don't think it would lead to any substantive material being cut but might lead to a slight refocus of the historically later sections. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Procedural comment. Because discussion is active and opinions are divided, I request that nobody close this discussion for at least several more days. I have also placed a neutrally worded notice at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Uninvolved input would be welcome. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support The current title is unthinkably bad.....a vague combining of three different terms. It doesn't even define a topic. It's more of a vague coatrack for bunch of essays, innuendo and WP:OR and inclusion of anything that anyone wants, unconstrained by having any specific topic. The proposal solves this problem and can be a guide to an article with an actual topic. This would be a big step forward even if the new title might need tweaks after the dust settles.North8000 (talk) 17:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  All said previously at AfD, and many, many times since, didn't hold water then, doesn't now. Selfstudier (talk) 17:07, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  "The proposal solves this problem...", which refers to the proposal in this RM, was said previously at the AfD? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  " The current title is unthinkably bad.....a vague combining of three different terms. It doesn't even define a topic. It's more of a vague coatrack for bunch of essays, innuendo and WP:OR and inclusion of anything that anyone wants, unconstrained by having any specific topic." has been repeated, over and over, by the the title detractors in the AfD and since. I hope this is clear now. Selfstudier (talk) 17:14, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  And yet (need I say this yet again?) there has never been a WP:Consensus that the current title is good. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Or bad. Selfstudier (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. That's what "no consensus" means. And that's why discussion of new proposals is appropriate. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't say they weren't. Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I never looked at this article before and never looked at comments in previous discussions. I wrote "The current title is unthinkably bad.....a vague combining of three different terms. It doesn't even define a topic. " because it was immediately slam-dunk obvious. "has been said by many others before" is a reason to take it seriously, not a reason to discount it. Also, preferences aside, wiki guidance says that article titles should define a topic. The current title doesn't. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:36, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  never looked at comments in previous discussions Do, it's educational. Selfstudier (talk) 17:42, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  No, I am commenting on this RFC, this article and this title, all of which I did read. My point was that I independently arriving at what (per you) many others have said. North8000 (talk) 18:08, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  The RFCbefore will do just as well. Selfstudier (talk) 18:10, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, you'll see lots of other editors who also said that the title is unthinkably bad, or the equivalent. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:49, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Unfortunately for the detractors there were more on the other side. Selfstudier (talk) 18:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  But no consensus. And you were the proposer of one of those previous RMs. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  An attempt at a compromise, which the current proposal is most certainly not. Selfstudier (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think I've tried harder than anyone else here, to get compromise, but there are editors who resist any change to the article that they WP:OWN, as if it were a mortal battle. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  As I’ve said, outside input is needed. Drsmoo (talk) 12:11, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: The proposal is sufficiently ambiguous that it could be interpreted as a fundamental change of scope. The subject, as it stands in not solely about developments "in Zionism"; when we have articles about "X in Y ideology" it often means only the conceptions of the subject as understood within the context of said ideology, and if this page was moved, it could certainly be construed as such. The current topic is about the intersection and interaction of Zionism, race and genetics that is not quite so simplistic, and is as much about Y in X as it is about X in Y, as it were. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:06, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm really surprised that anyone would argue that this page is about "race and genetics" in things other than Zionism. In fact, the editor who started the page has been in favor of "in" language to describe it. Also, you wrote some of the current language in the lead paragraph, which follows closely with the language of the proposed title. In any case, the very fact that anyone could conclude from the existing pagename that the page should include developments about "race and genetics" that were not "in Zionism" is a very strong piece of evidence that we need a new pagename. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:29, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  The fact that there are consistently more opposes than supports suggests the opposite. Selfstudier (talk) 18:32, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Read my lips: no consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Same again here. Selfstudier (talk) 18:44, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Can a move request be paired with an RFC to solicit uninvolved opinions? Drsmoo (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  If there are good reasons (specified in an RFCbefore) to commence an RFC about the title, then that can be done after this RM is closed. I have some difficulty imagining what those reasons might be, however. Selfstudier (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  WP:RM doesn't specifically provide a mechanism for a concomitant RfC, but I certainly agree that this RM discussion would benefit from getting input from previously uninvolved editors, so that it isn't just another iteration of the discussions between the same editors on this talk page. That's why I put a neutrally worded notice at NPOVN, which I linked to a short way above. On the other hand, I think it might be a good learning opportunity for the editors who defend the existing title, if we were to have an actual RfC for the question: Is the current pagename optimal? It would get an overwhelming response of "no", I'm pretty sure, although I feel like it would be WP:POINTy to actually create such an RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  The better question is "Is the current pagename NPOV/neutral" which is what was done here. Selfstudier (talk) 19:09, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know how this RFC (a proposal for a specific new title) will end but possibly acknowledging a few things as baby steps would allow inching forward. In the RFC, the conclusion is that the current title failed even the lower bar of being NPOV which means it would certainly fail the higher bar question of whether the current title should be change or kept. If this specific proposed change fails, perhaps folks here could either stipulate that or rlse actually have that RFC. Followed by a process to pick the new name. Slow but decisive progress is faster than no progress. North8000 (talk) 19:35, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  RMs are already a way of pulling in uninvolved editors, and they are centrally listed just like RfCs. RfCs should not be used for renaming articles, per WP:RFCNOT. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  There were some variants mooted that used turns of phrase such as "in Zionist thought" that I thought were more passable, but "in Zionism", as mentioned above, sounds like the topic is confined solely to internal ideological considerations, whereas the page is about the expansion of ideological considerations out into the wider world. I also more generally think the proposed wording is verbose alongside confusing. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree in part about "in Zionist thought" or "in Zionist thinking", although that would make this proposal even more verbose. As I said in my original comment here, although the proposed title is somewhat wordy, that reflects the chosen subject of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  I have absolutely no objection to that modification if it would help this gain consensus. And I'm open to other proposals. If there is one better, I can withdraw this one. Andre🚐 05:54, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that the qualification about Zionist thought/thinking would help keep the article focused on the topic it has so far focused on (rather than on eg Israel’s state practices), and there does seem to have been rough consensus on this in previous discussions. The downside is of course additional wordiness, but that might be a price worth paying. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose (coming from NPOVN). The central tenet of the move rationale is false, as much of the article deals with actual genetics, not eugenics. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, I wish the OP hadn't framed it that way, but I do think, as I said above, that genetics are contained within "racial conceptions" because the sources consistently treat genetics as a more modern tool that was used to study that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  "Actual genetics" is a scientific field of analysis. "Actual genetics" is not what Nadia Abu El Haj, a Palestinian anthropologist featured prominently in this article, practices, yet she's given equal billing with Harry Ostrer who is at least a tenured medical geneticist. If genetics should remain in the title, we should remove the anthropologists, and actually have a scientific section about genetics. Not pop anthropology weighing in that it's impossible to define Judaism. Genetic research on Judaism is a real scientific field which requires WP:MEDRS standards and credentials which El Haj lacks. Andre🚐 05:51, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  Geneticists are not necessarily the best authors on the history of genetics. Historians of science, historians of racism, and indeed anthropologists are often better for that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:12, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree; but historians of science should cover history of science, and geneticists cover genetics. El Haj is being used for genetic facts to dispute real geneticists like Ostrer. Andre🚐 17:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Also Nishidani is correct that Abu El Haj being Palestinian is irrelevant here; that is absolutely not a reason that she should not be given weight. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  It's relevant here because she's a Palestinian nationalist with an anti-Israel POV. Andre🚐 17:33, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  I.e. So once more, we are being dragged into a proposed title change which the formulator(s) admit is not satisfactory, or poorly framed. That, proposing RMs that are acknowledged from the outset to be flawed, inadequate or not quite to the point has now wasted three months of editors' time.Nishidani (talk) 21:59, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, you suffer so! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Not at all. I don't suffer.. (complete the sentence as you may think fit. My own preferred ending would be an Aeschylean inversion that forms an exception: μάθει πάθος).

  Nishidani (talk) 23:21, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support The proposed reformulation describes the subject matter of the article better. Admittedly, the concept of "genetics" does overlap with the idea of racial biology, which is what this article is about, i.e. defining Jewishness by race and biology, as opposed to shared history, religion and culture. However, as mentioned by other users in this discussion, the word "genetics" has become a loaded word since the last century and has acquired ulterior meaning that would be misleading if adopted as a heading in the context of this article. It is also a narrow, specific concept that fails to capture the full content of this article, which is really about defining the identity of a race by biology. The proposed reformulation squarely captures the theme of this article, and should be preferred. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 12:26, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism" is a different topic than "Zionism, race, and genetics." Anyone can go ahead and start the "Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism" article, but I don't see the benefit of changing the scope of this article rather than starting a separate article about racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism. In general, the content should be changed to match the title, not the other way around.

  Some of the sources for the article "Zionism, race, and genetics" are about Zionism, race, and genetics (e.g., Kirsh 2003); others about Zionism, race, and genomics (Baker 2017); others about Zionism, race, and eugenics (Falk 2006); others cover more than one of the above (Abu El-Haj 2012, Falk 2017). Genes, genetics, genomics, and eugenics, are all covered by the word "genetics" in this article title, which is why I think it's the right title for an article about Zionism, race, and genetics/genomics/eugenics/etc.

  There are multiple sources about Zionism, race, and molecular genetics, such as McGonigle 2021, Ostrer 2012, and, you guessed it, multiple works of Falk.

  (If this sounds familiar it's because I literally just copied and pasted my previous comments from earlier discussions.)

  Students who don't do the reading shouldn't try to participate in the class discussion. Same for editors who haven't read any of the sources. Levivich (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  Am I right that some of the sources are about Zionism and race but not about genetics, eugenics, genomics or molecular genetics? BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:38, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know about all the sources in the world or all the sources in the article, but all of the sources I mentioned are about all three. Levivich (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  We already have an article about "Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism". It's this one, right here. All one has to do is read the lead paragraph to see that. But the lead paragraph is not the lead paragraph that someone should write for a page on "Zionism, race and genetics", so anybody who wants to have a page on that should go and write it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  But those aren’t all of the sources in the current article. Race is the consistent thread. Some of the content about race is ALSO about genetics, genomics or eugenics but not all of it, while ALL of the content is about race. Better to keep race in the title and remove the confusing third word. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:04, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  In context, no, not all the sources are about genetics in the same way, and it's misleading in my view. El-Haj is about the anthropology of genetic studies and analyzing the sociology of geneticists. It's a history of science, not a hard science, topic. Falk has a unique position as a historian of science but perhaps not a really great historian, but he is a geneticist. His writings are overweight, in my view, in the present version. I have not read and I do not know about McGonigle. Anyway, a source like El-Haj is about genetics in the same way it's about science - loosely. We may as well call the article Zionism, race, science, and genetics, humanity, Earth, and people, politics. And practically all of the material which is historical does not deal with genetics or the question of heredity of Jewishness, but rather the racial ideas underpinning Zionist thought, e.g. the entire portion about Doron, Morris-Reich, Avraham, Hart, Kiefer, Efron, Leff. Maybe the article should be called: "History of Zionist racism." I would further add, that Ostrer is not about race, or about Zionism! It's a work of genetics about Jewish genetics.Andre🚐 22:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  1. "The anthropology of genetic studies and analyzing the sociology of geneticists" is "about genetics." But here's a quote, from page 4:

     I examine three distinct moments in science and politics: race science, circa 1900, that relied on cranial measurements and phenotypic differences; population genetics, circa 1950, based primarily on blood group data; and genetic history, starting in the 1990s, which examined genetic differences at the level of the nucleotide, focusing on mitochondrial DNA and the Y-chromosome ... What cultural understandings of the (Jewish) self and what range of political projects—distinctly American, decidedly diasporic, and committedly Zionist—is genetic historical inquiry making possible and how?

  2. Ostrer 2012 -- well, there are at least two Ostrer 2012s. This paper, which is about Jewish genetics, and doesn't discuss Zionism. But I was referring to the book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, which is the Ostrer 2012 that is discussed in the Wikipedia article along with Abu El-Haj at "Zionism, race and genetics#The genome era: 2000 to the present". That book most certainly covers Zionism, race, and molecular genetics, as I said, and here's a quote, from page 220:

     ... Are recent discoveries fragmentary and half-truths? I think not, because the molecular genetic studies of which Sand is critical have set the bar higher for discovery, reporting, and acceptance than the race science of a century ago—less standalone observation with more replication and more rigorous statistical testing.

     The stakes in genetic analysis are high. It is more than an issue of who belongs in the family and can partake in Jewish life and Israeli citizenship. It touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel ...

  3. McGonigle 2021, p. 35:

     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.

     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.

     (Note he cites Abu El-Haj 2012.)

     Page 65:

     I surely had gained access to a rich site where the melding of Zionist ideology and molecular genetics would obtain in ethnographic richness.

  For the umpteenth time, these books are, indeed, about (1) Zionism, (2) race, and (3) genetics, including (3a) molecular genetics. Levivich (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that Ostrer's book addresses Zionism briefly; I agree that El Haj mentions DNA; I agree that Osrer's book also addresses race science; I agree with your analysis of McGonigle, which closely tracks with the article and the text, as I said, I have not read McGonigle. He's also not a geneticist; he's an anthropologist and Middle East scholar again. And I accept that he does cover the "history of genetics." I would accept "Zionism, race, and the history of genetics." What about that? Andre🚐 00:26, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Or how about this: "the history of racial and genetic conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionist thought." Boom. Andre🚐 01:39, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  It's not just Jewish identity. Zionism, race, and genetics is also about Palestinian identity. I dropped a Falk 2017 quote about that in another thread on this page on the subject. Levivich (talk) 01:56, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I'll buy that. "The history of racial and genetic identity in Zionist thought" Andre🚐 02:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Briefly? I guess that's a matter of opinion. The words "Zionism" or "Zionist" appear a dozen times or so in Ostrer 2012 based on text searching. Granted, it's not a huge portion of the book, but I'd say more than "briefly."

  Abu El-Haj does way more than "mention" DNA. Look, p. 120:

  In the case of Jewish origins, evidence of Jewish peoplehood is sought against the background of a now longstanding commitment, first articulated by Zionist activists and scientists over a century ago, to the idea that contemporary Jews are direct descendants of an ancient people that originated in ancient Palestine and to the belief that that fact can be—indeed, will be—substantiated on the basis of biological data, once it is properly read and understood. That is the conception of Jewishness that has been sought and reproduced in what is now over a century of the near continuous study of the biology of the Jews. And that origin story, which need not be couched in the Divine, is continually recuperated and reiterated in a variety of ways in genetic historical research today. I begin with the choice to privilege Y-chromosome evidence in narrating Jewish history.

  In an article published in November 2001, Harry Ostrer ...

  What then does the genetic evidence show? Recognizing that “older single-locus studies” have been divided “on whether Jews have had significant admixture with non-Jewish populations, including possible mass conversions,” Ostrer explains the limitations of such studies, including the possibility of alleles (genetic mutations) under selection. By way of contrast, “although by religious law Jewishness is a maternally transmitted trait, studies of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal polymorphisms provide strong evidence for both matrilineal and patrilineal transmission, and many generations of endogamy” (891). In other words, genetically speaking, patrilineal transmission and not just matrilineal transmission—evidence of a sustained endogamy—has characterized Jewish history. But what about the question of origins? What about the origin of the Jewish people in the Middle East during the Bronze Age? Ostrer focuses on the Y-chromosome evidence: Jewish populations share thirteen common Y-chromosome haplotypes with non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations, “indicating that the original Jews might have arisen from local peoples and are not the offspring of a single patriarch” (891). He then discusses the discovery of the Cohen modal haplotype and explains that it may have originated during the “First Temple Period” in Jewish history (thereby presuming the biblical account to be historical and not mythical), rooting Jewish origins in the ancient Near East here via the priestly line. There is no specific mention of mitochondrial studies, whose historical conclusions in 2001 remained “divided.”15 It is the Y-chromosome evidence that tells the story of “a genetic link among Jewish groups,” as the section on the “maternally and paternally transmitted trait” is named (891)

  And pp. 189-190:

  Modal haplotypes are measures of relative frequency: the CMH can be modal at 50 percent—its reported frequency among Cohanim—because i190 / Chapter Five is found at a higher rate than among “Israelites,” who are the comparison group; the CMH can also be “modal” at 10 percent for Israelites if it is found at a lower frequency in non-Jewish populations. Moreover, the Cohen modal haplotype is found on the Y-chromosomes of Jewish men who do not believe they are Cohanim, and it has been identified on the Y-chromosomes of non-Jewish men as well. As such, the Cohen modal haplotype is not a test for whether or not a particular man is a Cohen any more than it is a test for whether or not a particular Lemba man is a Jew. For that matter, it cannot be used to determine whether or not the Lemba as a group are Jews. Genomic facts of generational connection and halakhic traditions of both priestly status and of Jewishness are and must remain distinct, researchers insist.

  But let us keep in mind the entangled origins of religion and race in nineteenth century thought, an entanglement especially robust with regard to Semites in general and Jews in particular (Anidjar 2008; Masuzawa 2005). And let us keep in mind the merging of biology (as race, as population), religion, and nation in Zionist thought and the Israeli nation-state (see chapter 2). What, then, in the wake of genetic historical evidence, is the relationship between genealogical and religious answers to the question of who might be a Jew?

  Assuming for the sake of argument that it has been resolved that the CMH is the (or a) modal haplotype of the ancient Hebrew population, does the presence of the CMH in the Lemba population (at the “right” frequency) make the Lemba Jewish? ...

  This is what you call "mentions DNA"? These are just two example passages, there are many more in this book. If I quote more, I'm going to run into copyright problems. It's not about just the history of genetics... he argues about whether or not there is genetic evidence for a Jewish race. He argues with Ostrer directly. This Abu El-Haj/Ostrer debate has been commented on by other scholars, as I've quoted from.

  You continue make these misrepresentations of the sources, and I keep posting quoted debunking those misrepresentations. I really, really think it's time for you to stop talking about sources you very obviously have not read. Levivich (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, you're talking about Nadia Abu El-Haj right? she is female. You haven't "debunked" any "misrepresentations." We're discussing the sources. Nobody is claiming to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything and be able to quote all page and lines where everything takes place. We're trying to get at an improvement to the article title. Yes, El-Haj talks quite a bit about concepts such as Y-chromosomes or Cohen modal haplotypes, but, she isn't qualified to opine on those topics scientifically, and a lot of that is outdated already. It's true that a good portion of her material is dedicated to rebutting and attacking Ostrer. That doesn't mean it actually has "genetics" in it. By which I mean - actual genetic science. I'm not trying to split hairs: this is policy. She's a social scientist, so her domain should be about the history of genetics, not technical data like the frequency of haplotypes. Whereas Ostrer, is not really a historian. That's why I referred to his work as the genetic work, i.e. his actual genetic study - we do not need to go into his book much, since again, it's more a "popular" history work in my view, since he's not a "serious" historian and El-Haj is not a serious geneticist. Andre🚐 01:53, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  So now you're saying what I just quoted isn't "actual genetics?" It doesn't matter what you think about Abu El-Haj's qualifications; her work is cited and discussed by RSes in the field, including by geneticists like Falk. And in no way are Abu El-Haj's qualifications relevant to this RM. Even if you take Abu El-Haj out of the article, it's still about Zionism, race, and genetics, because of the plethora of other sources. Levivich (talk) 02:01, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Please check out WP:MEDRS. Several formal systems exist for assessing the quality of available evidence on medical subjects. Here, "assess evidence quality" essentially means editors should determine the appropriate type of source and quality of publication. Respect the levels of evidence: Do not reject a higher-level source (e.g., a meta-analysis) in favor of a lower one (e.g., any primary source) because of personal objections to the inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions in the higher-level source. Editors should not perform detailed academic peer review. Genetics is a medical subject. Andre🚐 02:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Genetics is not a medical subject, medical genetics is a medical subject. To quote from the Wikipedia article on medical genetics: Medical genetics differs from human genetics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, while medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. Maybe there's some aspect of Zionism, race, and genetics that has to do with medicine, but I don't think I've seen it. Generally, race science, genetic inheritance, and the categorization of humans by their genes, isn't BMI because it's not medical. It doesn't have to do with health or medical care. It's biology (well, plus politics), not medicine. Levivich (talk) 03:45, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Read the corollary. Information that is not typically biomedical may still require high-quality sourcing if the context may lead the reader to draw a conclusion about biomedical information, as can occur with content about human biochemistry or about medical research in animals. For example, if a disease is caused by low activity in a particular enzyme, then information about the enzyme's activity levels is treated like biomedical information. More generally, information which (if true) would affect or imply conclusions about biomedical information is typically itself treated like biomedical information. Genetics, Tay-Sachs, are Jews a race, etc. This is close enough to medical. 23andme and Ancestry show health traits. Genes determine hereditary disease. Andre🚐 03:50, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, but the attempt to apply this guideline here is tenuous at best. The focus here is clearly not genetic disease or medicine, even if those things are briefly mentioned. It feels like this is roughly 100% more about excluding El-Haj than it is about actually applying the guideline. Drop the stick? Iskandar323 (talk) 03:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Currently, the RM has more support than opposition, and is being relisted. But I am happy to withdraw if we can come to a compromise. Andre🚐 04:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Pretty sure the bottom of the barrel has been thoroughly scraped now, to go along with the thoroughly flogged horse and no-one has managed to come up with a better title than the current one. Selfstudier (talk) 10:39, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  This comment doesn't add anything constructive to the discussion. There's no consensus for the current title, and at least 6 or 7 editors trying to change it to something better. I had about 4 or 5 other ideas in the discussion which, if any appear palatable, I'm open to. "The history of racial and genetic identity in Zionist thought" seems like the best one to come out of the last round. How does it strike you? Andre🚐 17:36, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  At the risk of repetition, There's no consensus for the current title or against it either. Do feel free to scrape the barrel/flog the horse some more if you feel it is not yet empty/not quite dead. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Your, and other editors', continued statements that good faith constructive discussion is somehow unwelcome, unwanted, flogging a dead horse/scraping the bottom of the barrel, is incivil. Please desist. Let's focus on topics, not editors. Andre🚐 17:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  To Iskandar's point about El Haj, to me these issues are linked. Currently we have what amounts to a POVFORK in the genetics section. We have to fix that text, and the title is part of the problem because it implies this article is a scientific genetics article, not a history of genetics, article. Andre🚐 17:40, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  A POVFORK of what? Selfstudier (talk) 17:42, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Of Genetic studies on Jews, as has been stated by others, where there are similar studies discussed as to those in this article, such as Ostrer. Andre🚐 17:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Raised at AfD and not upheld. Selfstudier (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't participate at the AFD. WP:CCC. Let's engage on the merits of arguments. Continuing to bring up ad hominem, and discussion of other threads, is sophistic argument. I know you're capable of better than that. I'm fine with genetics continuing to stay in the article and the topic, and making it something that's not a POVFORK. But that means high sourcing standards. Andre🚐 18:03, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  Somewhere higher up in this wall of text, the argument was made that the page is, to some extent, about Palestinian identity, and therefore, the page scope is not limited to Jewish identity. I think it's worth pointing out that, in this page, Palestinian identity is dealt with in the context of excluding Palestinians from having a Jewish identity, but not as an exploration of Palestinian identity in itself. Consequently, it's entirely contained within "Jewish identity". Part of defining "Jewish identity" is defining who does not have Jewish identity. Thus, that argument actually supports the proposed title change. On the other hand, the existing pagename suffers from the issue that I raised earlier in Talk:Zionism, race and genetics/Archive 7#Zionism, and which race?. As long as the pagename is about some sort of intersection of Zionism and race and genetics, then there is potentially no limit to the amount of race and genetics about Palestinians that would fall within the page scope, because all it has to do is be related to Zionism. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support. The current subject of this page is difficult to define. It reads like a POV content fork of several other pages. However, anything related to real science (as opposhed to bashing and politics), i.e. genetics should be placed to page Genetic studies on Jews, not here. The renaming and refocusing this page will do just that. Yes, the renaming will change the scope of the article, but I think the scope of this article should be made more narrow by excluding genetics. Mixing science with pseudoscience and politics seems to be a bad idea, at least for this "subject". I would probably vote to delete this page on AfD. My very best wishes (talk) 01:24, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  You literally cannot have a POV fork from several other pages. nableezy - 01:58, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Of course you can, expecially if other pages are also POV-forks of each other. My very best wishes (talk) 02:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Please read WP:POVFORK. nableezy - 02:25, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  OK. This is a content fork created to enforce someone's POV. Does it matter? My very best wishes (talk) 14:29, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, and youre still wrong but if it didnt take after this many tries I dont think its worth my trying again. nableezy - 14:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Whatever. Just to clarify, we do have pages Race and genetics, Genetic studies on Jews, Racism in Israel and huge section Zionism#Characterization_as_colonialist_and_racist. This page looks to me as a strange mish-mash of the above. My very best wishes (talk) 14:48, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  We have already dealt with the "The point is that the article scope is synthetic and stitched together" assertion. Selfstudier (talk) 14:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Then you must not have read it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . nableezy - 14:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  I appreciate the support, but nothing in this proposal would exclude genetics. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:35, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  ) Nice try, not buying. Selfstudier (talk) 14:44, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  You appear to be trying to bait me into incivility, but it's not going to work. I've explained this very clearly already in this thread. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:59, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Nope, just not buying your assertion which I also have explained previously. Selfstudier (talk) 15:02, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Given that I'll be taking a break from this page voluntarily or otherwise, would it be helpful for me to withdraw this RM so someone can start a fresh one without anything taking us off track? Andre🚐 14:53, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Bit late now, too many replies and more than half way, may as well see it through. Selfstudier (talk) 15:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm ambivalent. The result of you doing that is that other editors will construe it as proof of "consensus" for the status quo, and will accuse anyone who tries again of being tendentious. It's already off track, and absent a decisive act at AE, anything in the future will also go off track. It might be best to let this play out until it closes naturally, and AE closes however it closes. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, the references to genetics are unavoidable. I striked through a part of my comment. My very best wishes (talk) 18:18, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

  Got it. I'll leave it open. I do want to say though that I favor a better title and I withdraw any suggestion of changing the scope of the current text that I made or implied. I favor keeping the text and scope as-is, and changing the title. Andre🚐 15:13, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  As do I, even if other editors insist on not buying it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support. The current title is awkard; in practice, the article only talks about genetics in the context of relating it to race. More importantly, "X, Y, and Z" titles aren't good because they provide no information about how these things intersect and therefore fail to adequately describe the topic; the article as a whole is how the racial component of Jewish identity is conceptualized under Zionism, with discussions of genetics just serving as a facet of that (as part of a larger dispute over how race is defined) rather than the central topic. Race itself is a tricky and complex topic but it reasonably encompasses everything here; clearly it has a genetic component, but it doesn't make sense to insist that every article about race be titled "race and genetics in X". The fundimential thrust of the sources (even most of the ones that talk about genetics) seem ultimately fall under the umbrella of race. And of the sources that aren't mostly about race, many of them also don't seem to mention Zionism, which makes their use here WP:SYNTHy - the vague title seems to encourage that sort of synthesis or aimlessness, since it's not clear which of the three words mentioned in the topic is central or how they're supposed to relate. --Aquillion (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm afraid you've lost me there. No title, single, double or triple, ever 'adequately describe(s)' the topic of an article or book. Titles just announce the general subject matter to be treated.It is odd that you read the article as conceptualizing 'the racial component of Jewish identity'since no such thing exists, except as a construct of some veins in Zionism.The ‘fundamental thrust' of the article is about race and and its inflection of modern genetic studies of Jews. Alternative titles that drop genetics disappear half of the article and therefore can't 'adequately describe' the article we have.Nishidani (talk) 23:24, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Alternative titles that drop genetics disappear half of the article and therefore can't 'adequately describe' the article we have. I don’t see why thus would be the case. Only parts of it not relating to race would potentially disappear. Which part of the article is that? Definitely not close to half. BobFromBrockley (talk) 01:37, 26 October 2023 (UTC) [edited 27 Oct BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:33, 27 October 2023 (UTC)]

  Only. It relating to race would potentially disappear

  Bob, could you clarify that phrasing? 'Only. It' is totally opaque .Nishidani (talk) 16:51, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

  sorry typo. Will edit. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, thanks. So with the proposed name change

  Only parts of it not relating to race would potentially disappear

  So you accept what I have been arguing all along:

  That the change of title would significantly affect the existing article’s core content. I think wiser minds than mine weighing in did mention earlier that using a change of title to create a warrant for substantially repurposing the article to a different topic focus is bad practice. You earlier said that the postwar genetics history was ‘fascinating’. It runs to 3,550 words and is the heart of the article, the race theory being well known background, if rarely mentioned in mainstream Zionist histories. It is the postwar genetic story, containing high quality source matter that, so far, has found no place on wiki articles, that is the focus of the article. The proposed rewording’s desire to expunge ‘genetics’ when that is the centerpiece of the text therefore is potentially destructive of the whole article. Looks like I’m to go awol for some indefinite period per AE, so that’s all I can say. I am disappointed that a month’s intensive labour to create new content (not an essay) from a fascinating recent debate in predominantly Israeli scholarship can risk being gutted merely over an ostensible diffidence about a neutral three words. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  So you accept what I have been arguing all along No. To the extent that the genetics material is the "centrepiece" of the text, then I would say that it shouldn't be the centrepiece; giving it excess weight is part of what skews the POV. But I (and most other !supporters of a move) have said that we don't think a move means a significant change of content, probably nothing more than a tightening (which I think would be required with the current title, especially given the article is 144Kb long) and expansion of some under-developed sections (also necessary under the current title).

  I am opposed to any "gutting". I am not sure I started off thinking this, but after some there has been editing over time to remove material from the genetics section that didn't fit, I now believe that (at least a version of) this section is relevant to the story of Zionist understanding of race, even if not the main part of the story. (Of course a more focused article on something like "Zionist approaches to genetics" could tell this part of the story in even greater detail, instead of needing tightening.)

  the race theory [is] well known background, if rarely mentioned in mainstream Zionist histories To me, being well-known material is not a reason something shouldn't be at the heart of a WP article, and being rarely mentioned is not a good reason a WP article should cover something. In fact, almost the contrary. Once again, WP is a general encyclopedia. It is not a repository for essays on rarely mentioned topics, which should be published in scholarly journals to fill that gap. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: In a recent comment, one editor wrote Titles just announce the general subject matter to be treated. I don't think this is a good description of how we find article titles. The need for an article should come first, not the fact that there is something interesting to be written about or that a topic has been neglected in the literature. The second most important criterion for article titles is "Naturalness": The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Editors !voting here need to imagine a reader searching for our three word title, or another article to use the title phrase in a link. (Personally, I find it hard to imagine.) They should ask, What is the topic that needs an article? (Personally, I think it's obviously something like "Zionist attitudes towards race". The proposed title is a cumbersome variation on that. I think we should move to a phrase like that, that someone might actually search for, and the proposed new title is an imperfect step towards that.) If what people are looking for is in fact two different things - something like "Zionist attitudes towards race", and something like "Zionist approaches to genetics" - then we should be renaming and splitting along those lines. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:27, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  If what people are looking for is in fact two different things - something like "Zionist attitudes towards race", and something like "Zionist approaches to genetics" - then we should be renaming and splitting along those lines No, we shouldn't, it's just fine where it is. Selfstudier (talk) 13:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  Can you clarify Selfstudier? Do you mean readers are not looking for those two different things, or that if readers are looking for two different things it's fine because they find both here? BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:48, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  I am sincerely fed up to the back teeth with the endless slicing and dicing and trying to come up with ever more arcane reasons why the existing title is somehow wrong, it isn't, it's just fine and there is nothing to "clarify". Selfstudier (talk) 13:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  What I'm fed up with is editors who oppose the RM telling editors who support the RM that those supporters actually know that the proposal would supposedly change the page scope and gut the page as it exists, when the supporters are clearly saying that this is not what they believe. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  We are both fed up, then we agree on something. Selfstudier (talk) 15:05, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support and split. To the extent that there is discussion of actual molecular genetics, this should be its own article. BD2412 T 20:30, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. The current title has the form "A, B, and C" where each of those three is a huge topic in itself. Such a title tells me nothing about what the article is really about. The proposed title is specific and tells me what the article's about. For our readers, who want to know from a title whether or not it's an article they'd want to read, that's a good reason to prefer the move to a new title. NightHeron (talk) 21:26, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.