Template talk:Judaism

Tomer's idea

I've just started fooling around here, trying to come up with a Judaism template, similar to the templates {{Islam}} and {{Christianity}}... help me out! Tomer ^TALK 09:51, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

This idea was spawned by {{Christianity}} and {{Islam}}

• The "solution" to this is to use the {{Jews and Judaism sidebar}} template, which already has the major Judaism subjects on it. IZAK 05:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy to agree with IZAK, but I fail to see how "Secular Zionism" might fit into any template included in Tanakh...especially when there's an article on Religious Zionism which, as it happens, is not included in the {{Jews and Judaism sidebar}}... (I could bring forth other examples as well...) Tomer ^TALK 06:20, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Firstly, to the non-Jewish world at large anything and everything to do with "Jews" is all one subject, and to them it's all "Judaism", it is mainly deluded Jews who "imagine" that the outside world is making complex decisions about what is or is not "Jewish" "religious" "secular" or whatnot, and to add to the confusion there is Humanistic Judaism that does NOT believe in God which would fit with other secular elements of Jewish culture. Secondly, no template is going to be "perfect" and comprehensive to the point that all bases are covered. Thirdly, I was giving an example of a template that INCLUDES Judaism-related topics which means there ARE various "sub-sets" to that template which deals with "Jew" including the religion of the Jew which has Judaism and Jewish denominations listed on it. IZAK 06:34, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Preliminary thoughts

Interesting idea, but it's HUGE! For many of the linked articles, the template would be far bigger than the article itself. Also, I think you should use the standard article spellings for the links, rather than your preferred ones. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:53, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hej shush.  :-p You'll notice that I used "normal" spellings in the Template as it appears presently. :-p :-p Tomer ^TALK 05:01, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC) and :-p

Duplication of other templates

I fully agree with User:Jayjg's views that "For many of the linked articles, the template would be far bigger than the article itself". But the BIGGEST problem is that Tomer seems to be ignoring the fact that we presently have a number of excellent templates that are more focused and work much better, and his huge new template would undermine their usage. They include:

1. Template:Jews and Judaism sidebar: includes most of the various Jewish denominations and issues about Judaism already. I should know, because I designed it originally as a template so that that it would unite issues pertaining to both Jews and Judaism, and it has served well in that capacity till now. Please look at it carefully and see its scope after a number of users added suggestions to make it more inclusive.
2. Template:JewishHolidays: comprehensivley covers all the Jewish holidays including the New Israeli/Jewish national holidays.
3. Template:JewishLifeCycle: deals with at least 29 various major Jewish life-cycle stages, check it out.
4. Template:Books of Torah: produces links to all five books of the Torah.
5. Template:Books of Nevi'im: produces links to all the books of the Nevi'im (the Hebrew Biblical prophets).
6. Template:Books of Ketuvim: produces links to all 12 books of the Ketuvim.
7. Template:Jewish languages: is extremely comprehensive and has almost 50 links within it to Jewish languages.
8. Template:Israelis: deals with major Israel-related links.
9. Template:Jews by country: Gives us "zillions" of "Jews by country"
10. Template:HebrewMonths: Lists the months of the Hebrew calendar.

So the bottom line is , that Tomer needs to give us some VERY good reasons why his proposed Judaism template would serve us better than the 9 (that I know of here) Jewish-Judaism-Israel-Tanakh-Jewish languages more focused templates that serve us so well at the present time. IZAK 05:35, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I think that this template would be useful on some articles relating to Judaism (that really don't relate to non-religious aspects of Jews). For example, it's fine that the individual books of Ketuvim have their own template, but Ketuvim itself probably deserves this one (plus the other). It would be more appropriate to that article than Template:Jews and Judaism sidebar. But I don't feel strongly on this. – Jmabel | Talk 06:25, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't want to kibbitz too much, but I invite you to read my rebuttal below. I'm not proposing to feed into the argument that Jews and Judaism are disjoint terms, but only to separate between those concepts that pertain specifically to "Jews" as a nation, as opposed to those that deal specifically with those concepts identified as relevant to "Jewish religion"...not to differentiate, but to break up the issues at hand into more readily "digestable" concepts for the non-Jewish reader. Tomer ^TALK 06:45, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

I think that if there are different articles on Jew and Judaism, there could well be different Templates as well. The concepts are not interchangeable, and different templates would help clarify the distinctions. That said, I'd like to see as little overlap as possible on these and the Jewish languages templates. As well, there should probably be an Anti-Semitism template as well, since I can think of at least 6 articles dealing with various aspects of the subject. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:32, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • As I hope you're well aware by my edits (not including my sometimes rather abrasive talk comments), it is not my goal to inject my own perspective into Wikipedia articles (as much as I try to persuade others to accept my views on Talk, sometimes with success, other times with abject failuire, which I accept without throwing too much mud...). I did not propose this template as a way to start an argument, but rather as a way to include Judaism templates into articles where the Christians are injecting their templates and where Judaism templates are just as fitting, in certain sections (review my recent edit history), but wherein Template:Jew would be wholly inappropriate. (There is no place whatsoever in the Bible article, for example, for {{Jews and Judaism sidebar}}, but I feel comfortable with where I've reinserted the {{Christianity}}, but was singularly displeased that there was no {{Judaism}} to insert in the Jewish Bible section...and believe me, my POV is that "our" view of the Bible should be far more relevant than that of "dem dere Christians'", yet, I cannot, for the life of me, understand how a template featuring links to "Yiddish" and "Yiddish Typewriter" and "Secular Zionism" has anything even remotely approaching relevance in an article about the Bible. :-p Tomer ^TALK 06:45, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

WRT Jayjg's post: I'd like to point out that, at no point has my proposal ever included an inclusion of Jewish languages in this template (since, while Jewish languages are relevant to Jewish culture and Jews as a whole, they really have, with the exception of Hebrew, Ge'ez and vernacular, nothing to do with Judaism. A noteworth exclusion, that I just noticed myself, is that there is nowhere in the template as I have it currently proposed, any spot for a link to Jew! :-p (This is why I asked for help!) Tomer ^TALK 06:49, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

OK fine, and Aramaic too.  :-p Tomer ^TALK 06:50, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Well, right now the Jew template has a bunch of languages in it, and religious stuff too. This should all be cleaned out imho. Jayjg ^(talk) 08:12, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the Judaism template is a great idea. It will just take some time to sort which links should go on which template so there's no overlap. I'll try to give more feedback on this later. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 09:35, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Tomer's Rebuttal to the points brought forth by the respectable editor IZAK

You bring up a very good point IZAK, but what I'm proposing is not necessarily an entirely new concept, but the subsuming of all of, or parts of, already-extant templates. For example, the Jewish_language template (in the development of which, you might, or might not, have noted, I've played a tremendous rôle...) has a bit to do with Template:Jew and about 1/5 that much to do with my proposed Template:Judaism. The Templates "Books of Torah", "Books of Nevi'im" and "Books of Ketuvim" have only minimally to do with Template:Jew and only parenthetically to do with my proposed Template:Judaism, inasmuch as they are crucial to the understanding of the single link to Tanakh within the "Religious texts" section, under "Tanakh". The Template:Jewish_holidays jingaling is "nice", and so perhaps that section of my proposed template should be pared down a bit accordingly, but I fail to see how the existence of that template should be regarded as jeopardizing my proposal. The Template:Israelis, with all due respect, has almost exactly nothing to do with my proposal. I respect your dissent, but I think that, while I regard "Jewish identity", i.e. the purview of Template:Jew as basically synonymous with Yehaðuþ, I think that every subject presently included in those subjects proscribed by Template:Jew can easily be divided between Template:Jew and my proposed Template:Judaism, my recent argument with you (IZAK), over kosher wine, notwithstanding. Tomer ^TALK 06:34, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

• Tomer, see my response below. (I am not in the least concerned about past debates with you, I have them with people all the time! So cheer up old chap, as they say, no hard feelings at all!) But, what are you saying here, that you would eliminate all the Tanakh/JewishHolidays etc templates? Please give some CLEARER reasons what you are saying and why so. ThanksIZAK 06:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Judaism vs. Template:Judaism

One of the problems with Tomer's new template is that he seems to want to "squeeze in" the entire universe of issues relating to Judaism, and at some point one needs to ask Why do we need such a huge template if we already have Category:Judaism that serves on the level of comprehensiveness that Tomer seems to want for the proposed Judaism template? Another major problem is fitting in all the various branches of Judaism "interpertations" of the the Jewish faith. It will convey a false impression of Judaaism by conveying too broad a spectrum of links. IZAK 06:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IZAK, I agree with your basic assessment that it's too-damn-broad-ranging, which is why I solicited feedback to begin with. I think I've been pretty clear in my rationale for having proposed this project, from the very outset. If I wanted opinions only favorable to my own, believe me, I wouldn't have solicited yours, nor those of a couple others with whom I've recently argued. That said, there is one overriding fundamental problem with your argument (in this section of discussion), and that is this: <weasel_term>many</weasel_term> readers seldom read all the way through an article unless they're doing research on the specific topic at hand, and so including Category:Judaism at the bottom is all well and good, but does not serve the mere browsing reader (which I'd be so bold as to guess includes the vast majority of wikipedia readers, nor does it adequately serve those who are looking for genuinely related articles. As I've stated earlier, a template linking to "Yiddish Typewriter" does not so well serve either the casual reader, nor the research-oriented reader of Tanakh. I'm not interested nearly so much in encompassing as much of the Jewish universe as possible into a single template (although that's a criticism that strikes me as being far more legitimately leveled against Template:Jew than against my proposal...), as I am in encompassing the widest range of lead articles as possible within a template that deals with the religious aspects of Jewish identity. That said, I'll ask you, once again, to try to quell your woefully misbegotten prejudicial ideas about my Jewish identity, as you've once again expressed them in the previous <replace with>TOP</replace with> section of this talk page. Tomer ^TALK 07:09, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Specifically, I refer to your comments in Template_talk:Judaism#Tomer.27s_idea. Tomer ^TALK 07:12, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

• Tomer, why do you think those comments are about you? Why on Earth do you always want to personalize a discussion by twisting the meanings of my words and imagine I am addressing only your "ideas about ... Jewish identity"? There are bigger issues at hand here! Do you have a "complex" or something as they used to call it in the olden days? You seem to think that you are doing us all a great favor by "allowing us" to have this TALK on a "Talk" page of all places... well, believe it or not, you and I are not the subject here, so kindly stop making remarks that lead these discussions into personal childish bickering rather than "facing the music" of a full-blown intellectaul debate, which is the way of Judaism after all. Oh, and you are not the only one around here who is capable of being "abrasive", so let's focus on the discussion/s sha'nt we?!IZAK 07:22, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shan't we indeed. Thank you for clearing the air. Tomer ^TALK 07:56, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Template usage

Tomer, nu, you don't invite me to the template talk? I agree with Jayg and IZAK (or at least as much of the discussion as I read and discounting the angry bits) that the Jew template should be predominent on articles that have bearing on the Jewish people as a nation/ethnicity/historical group. But I agree that a Judaism template would be useful for the random religious articles, which do not currently have any template to serve as guidance between things like various holidays or religious texts. My suggestion is that we use the Jew template everywhere it is apporpriate (and actually include a new line in it linked to "Judaism Religious Practice Template" or "Judaism Guide" that would link directly to this template). We should then consider the new template for all the other orphaned articles. Of course, we need to trim it down substantially first.

One way to do so would be to discipline ourselves to use no more than two lines per heading, and collapse the rest into linkable headings. For example, we link religious texts to Rabbinic Literature and eliminate: Kuzari, Chumah, Mishneh Torah, Tur, Shulkhan Arukh, Tosefta, Berurah, Rabbinic works, Tanya, and Piyyutim. (Subject to consensus, of course). And we cut the holiday list down to the five major ones plus Shabbat, maybe with an extra link to "minor holidays." This is just too comprehensive, maybe we should even include a few words of explanation next to links for non-Jews "day of repentence" etc.

--Goodoldpolonius2 02:50, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey. I didn't mean any offense. Welcome to the fray.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 10:11, May 2, 2005 (UTC)