The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. --Coredesat 04:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Historical persecution by Jews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The first sentence says it all, really. The sheer banality of "There have been incidents of persecution committed by Jews" says volumes. The very first sentence gives the lie to this attempted laundry list of grievances, rather similar to Historical persecution by Muslims - except this one runs out of steam, for a good reason. There's no evidence offered that there's anything to write about: that is, that anyone has actually looked at Jewish persecution as a thread in history, as opposed to isolated incidences of Jewish persecution - which is why Persecution of early Christians by the Jews is somewhat more impressive. I see no reason for this article to exist. There's no reason to think there's anything to write about without descending to unverifiable original research. Essentially, this fails WP:N. Moreschi ^Talk 20:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete As with historical persecution by Muslims - Pheonix 20:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom--Yeshivish 20:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete also historical persecution by Muslims and historical persecution by Christians also should be AfDed - all are POV laundry lists of no value. The topics themselves, may well of value; however, the articles are not. Bigdaddy1981 21:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)(edit conflict)[reply]
  • Comment please visit the Historical persecution by Christians AFD --PEAR (talk) 06:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the topics are of value the articles should be kept and improved, not deleted. Mathmo ^Talk 21:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom and Bigdaddy1981. Fails WP:V and consists of too much OR. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?)} 22:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I understand that this is in the spirit of getting rid of similar articles alleging persecution of others by Christians, persecution of others by Moslems, etc., but this article is sourced, and it doesn't strike me as being anti-Semitic. Should we also delete articles that speak of persecution of Jews by others? I've got Jewish ancestors, and I've always been aware of the patronizing portrayal of Jewish people as pathetic victims throughout history; it's refreshing to some of my kinfolk could kick ass every once in awhile. What's wrong with documenting incidents of persecution by our forebears? We can't be proud of everything that they did. Vote delete if you must, but be sure you're doing it for reasons other than thinking that someone will be offended. Mandsford 23:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I don't think the article is obviously anti-semitic and, as I state above, the topic may be of value. However; this article is nothing more than a laundry list with nothing linking the incidents (aside from the fact that Jews carried out the act) and as such isn't encyclopedic. Bigdaddy1981 00:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete As a full-fledged gentile, I find this article deplorable. Anyone with a basic knowledge of history knows that throughout history the Jews have been smacked around by their gentile neighbors. An article (notwithstanding its attempt to sound scholarly and non-npov) entitled "Historical persecution by Jews" rings of anti-semitism of the highest order. --Truest blue 23:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per Mandsford. ~ Wikihermit 23:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The question should be whether or not the concept of "historical persecution by Hebrews/Jews" is one of any note in the academic/popular world. There is the clear (though disputed) concept that Israelis have and are persecuting Palestinians but the idea that Hebrews/Jews have done so historically is not as established. A couple of isolated incidents over the course of six thousand years of history does not constitute a pattern. --Richard 00:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete These persecutions should be mentioned in articles of that time period (like in Hasmonean Dynasty), but not separately like this, where it looks like an agenda against Jews Corpx 01:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)`[reply]
• Delete this and similar articles (see other AFD from today). It's a breach of WP:NOR because it synthesizes events (Hasmoneans, early Christianity) that are otherwise unrelated. Shalom ^Hello 01:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep It appears well referenced, and is part of a long series of persecutions by people, and of people. Its no more of an agenda than the articles on persecutions of Christians, and by Christians. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Bad faith, POV nomination. Nominator did'nt afD Historical persecution by Christians but did the other two. More so, in the template ((Religious persecution)), how are the Persecution of articles less worthy of an Afd as compared to the Persecution by group? This is not synthesis or original research. Everything is sourced. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 01:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This article is so lacking in scholarship it omits the entire persecution, subjugation, extermination, and/or enslavement of the Caananites during the conquest by Joshua. Edison 02:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom, Bigdaddy1981, et al. --Targeman 02:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Blatent WP:V and WP:NOR--Miamite 03:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete, per User:Richardshusr. This article is composed primarily of minority and unestablished opinions, (that I suspect) violate OR. I also suspect that this article is created solely to advance a POV, as opposed to creating an informative and NPOV article.Bless sins 03:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok then can you say the same about Persecution of Muslims, Persecution of Jews? Why are we leaving these articles aside? --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 03:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, thoe articles have not been nominated for deletion. Nor have I bothered to check the sources of those articles. However, should you nominate them for deletion, and request my input, I shall give it to you.Bless sins 02:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Pile-on delete. OR, inherent POV-pushing, etc., etc. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I recreated this article after its second deletion, but I now think this article should be deleted. The reason is that the recorded events date back to thousands of years ago (e.g "The Hasmonean Dynasty") where the social norms and the life structures were different and such events may have been normal of that historical period(accepted practice of all). Not that we can not define persecution(i.e. against the common practiced law) in those contexts, but I haven't seen any scholarly source have made any investments about it. --Aminz 05:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Have you actually read the sources used in the article? The first one listed refers to these incidents as persecution on page xix, and continues to use the word persecution throughout the book. These are perfectly adequate scholarly sources. JulesH 10:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - those are well-respected, academic sources. Banality isn't a reason to delete. ←Ben^B4 06:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - This article should NOT be deleted because "bad things happened to Jews" or "it was the social norm back then". It could be deleted if articles like "persecution by Muslims" or "persecution by Christians" are deleted as well. The article may be short, but it is well sourced. -Hrothgar19

This article should be deleted even if the two other articles are not deleted. This is not because "bad things happened to Jews" nor because Judaism when practiced by ordinary people could not be abused into persecuting others, but because historically for thousands of years, Jews were not in power and therefore state persecution by Jews or in the name of Judaism could not happen.

The two other articles can potentially exist but I think only if original research and abitrary definitions of persecution are strictly avoided and a good number of sincere editors watch and join in their discussion pages. --Aminz 10:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Well sourced, notable concept. I quote from the introduction of the first book in the references section:

It seems, therefore, that monotheistic religions in power throughout history have felt it proper, if not obligatory, to persecute nonconforming religions. Thus, it is not surprising that medieval Islam should have persecuted non-Muslims, just as medieval Christianity persecuted Jews (and also Muslims), and as Judaism - briefly in power during the Hasmonean period (second century BCE) - should have persecuted the pagan Udemeans, forcibly converting them to Judaism. (emphasis mine)

That persecution is an important enough phenomenon that it should be discussed in the introduction of texts like this really suggests that it is a valid subject for an article on Wikipedia, which is free to cover subjects much more broadly than a general textbook like this one. JulesH 10:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I first re-created this article based on such points about monotheistic religions but I've been recently reading a book about the religion of semite people(it includes Jews, Arabs and some other ethnicities) that in a way qualifies this quote. According to the book, the gods of ancient semites were mostly the gods of that particular tribe. They don't care about how their tribe deals with other tribes (justice, for the gods, is a point of concern only when an issue comes up between the tribe-members). In contrast with the religion of their neighbor tribes, Judaism stands out in its much broader concept of Justice.

In any case, these are all theories. Cohen calls the incident of the Hasmonean period "persecution" because he wants to advance a particular theory. In fact, were this understood as persecution in its historical context, its record should have been somewhat removed by the Jewish scribes. I can't see this has been the case.

The best place to discuss these theories are articles like Monotheism and Tolerance etc etc but not here. --Aminz 11:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete this article as well as the other similar articles as per nom and Corpx. accusing the nominator of bad faith is simply out of order. ITAQALLAH 15:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - WP:OR forbids novel narratives, such as this article. This just ties a bunch of supposed cases of persecution and presents this as a unified phenomenon. The Behnam 18:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I see nothing here that implies any such thing. Can you point me to the text in the article that suggests this? JulesH 18:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, not enough here for separate article -- anything useful can go in Hasmonean, etc. NawlinWiki 18:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Well sourced, notable concept. Mathmo ^Talk 21:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Although theoretically a valid topic, there is simply not enough information to warrant keeping it. --Hemlock Martinis 22:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. --Folantin 07:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This article is not more than a sum of its (few) parts. Also delete all other "persecution by" articles. Beit Or 18:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This article appears to have been recreated to prove a point; its creator now agrees that it should be deleted. The real trouble is there is no relationship at all between its two sections, "The Hasmonean Dynasty" and "Jewish persecution of early Christians" besides one that we're imposing upon it here. Other articles with the same shortcoming should also be deleted.Proabivouac 21:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, the sparse sources used appear to be a "synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position", one of the definitions of original research. In fact, none of the sources provided indicate a historical trend of persecution by Jews, the theme the article attempts to put forth. --MPerel 05:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Fails WP:N, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT. Xihr 16:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional Delete - Articles that allege horrific things about a race or religious people are not encyclopaedic, and they all should be deleted. This one is no more worthy of deletion than any others alleging racial or religious bias. They all should be deleted. If the others remain, then this one should be kept too. Otherwise its demonstrating an unreasonable bias. 123.2.168.215 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete "Historical persecution by <religious community>" is always POV. Who defines who is religious? --Raphael1 03:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and merge with Persecution of early Christians by the Jews. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment, interesting. Muslims, Christians, Hindus have all persecuted more than Jews (as a function of population if nothing else), but, I am not sure how much persecution much take place to make it a valid article. I would definitely feel very odd about deleting this article while keeping the others, but this article clearly needs help. I tend to think that there is more POV in removing a religious community--saying that they have not persecuted enough to deserve such an article... and I think problems with how the article are written can probably be fixed if the consensus is that persecution by X articles are accepted. User:Grenavitar 00:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.