User talk:Mirfog

Claim at Baal keriah

Hi!

I've reverted your edit as the information added is not found in the source. In fact, I'm pretty sure sources could be found to the effect that the original practice is very rare outside the Yemenite community.

Can you please elaborate on your rationale for the edit?

Also, please have a look at Wikipedia:No original research, one of our basic policies, and Wikipedia:Minor edit, which explains when and when not to check that box.

Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 03:50, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi,

There was no source for the practice being rare, either - that speculation is itself unfounded and is stated as fact on multiple pages, with no source. I couldn't find any source indicating that the oleh not reading his aliyah is the default in a majority of communities - in fact, I couldn't find any indication that it happened in any communities except for Ashkenazi Orthodox ones. If you look at the talk page for this article - https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Aliyah_(Torah) - you can also see someone else expressing confusion about this apparently wide-spread practice... that neither of us have ever observed. They also pointed out that the assertion that a reader is present in "most" communities needs a source.

In over 30 years of going to shul at the very least twice a week, and attending various Sephardic, Masorti, Reform, Liberal, and non/multi-denominational synagogues in Europe, I have never once encountered the practice of having someone else read the portion instead of the person being given aliyah. Every time I have received aliyah, I was expected to learn to leyn the Torah portion

So I went digging, and what I found was a lot of discussion online, exclusively from from [Ashkenazi] Orthodox sources, which assumed that this was common practice and needed no explanation. I couldn't find any sources indicating that this is common in heterodox communities, however. Given that the only evidence indicating the existence of this practice comes from one specific Jewish movement, it seems far more intellectually accurate to say that it is only common within that movement.

The source I provided indicated that it is a practice in specifically Orthodox communities (Chabad, a large movement which is sometimes called ultra-Orthodox, has a great degree of influence in the Ashkenazi Orthodox world, especially in the US - which is why I used them as a source). An admittedly better Orthodox source could be this one which discusses the [Orthodox] Halacha around baal korei again this is specifically Orthodox communities.

So, fundamentally, there is this assertion that "most" Jewish communities around the world don't have the oleh read their portion.... with the only evidence for that being from one specific Jewish movement. There's no evidence that any other movement does this

I hope that makes sense Mirfog (talk) 16:51, 13 October 2023 (UTC)