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 keep. (non-admin closure) Randykitty (talk) 17:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Halachic state (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This page was created back in 2007 by a user who disappeared soon after. It's had very few edits, and even those haven't supplied the article with any sources. Not that are any. This is a polemic written by one person and has nothing to do with anything real. There's been an edit or two each year for the past few years, in most cases just to remove one of the more ridiculous claims in the article. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 16:57, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• redirect? I get a lot of book hits but none of them talk about the subject at length. I have to think there's someplace in articles on Zionism or the like where this can be pointed but I don't see the material to write an article per se. Mangoe (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, the guy who started this is like a lot of people I know. Every time Israel does something that isn't 100% secular, or there are coalition discussions where the religious parties flex their muscle, some people start crying Halakhic state. It's like "the sky is falling". It isn't really a thing. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 04:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but we have an article on Chicken Little, even if we don't have a discussion there of whether the sky is falling. Isn't there some place where we explain what the phrase means? Mangoe (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning towards redirect to Halakha. There are certainly references[1][2][3][4], but they tend to assume people know what the phrase means (I guess it's fairly obvious if you know what Halakha means). I'd say this could be treated in the article Halakha; with a little more sourcing it could be merged. Redirecting might encourage people to add info to Halakha. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:37, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:41, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment -- This is on a conceptual Jewish state. It might be what certain orthodox Jews would refer. However Halakha seems to be a law code (I also did not know what it meant). That is something slightly different. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep because: 1 This is an important "Jewish" counterpart of the topic about an Islamic state that is part of a very serious debate within politics about the role and goals of religion and Jewish Law aka halacha in the Jewish state of Israel's internal affairs (it helps to explain what underlies the controversy and the goals -- from a religious POV -- relating to much of Israel's Law of Return and issues relating to Who is a Jew? are about), but even more, it is a genuinely encyclopedia topic of what the religious goals of Jewish groups are (as Islamic law would be for Muslims), and it cannot be ignored or wished away. 2 This is an important topic within the context of the Haredim and Religious Zionists in Israel versus the secular side that opposes it. That an article has been relatively "dormant" on WP and its creator is now gone does not "devalue" it, on the contrary the fact that so many editors have seen fit to work on it and keep it is testimony to its enduring current importance since 2007 [5]. 3 It is an important concept, notion and political idea of religious origins/goals that underlies what Orthodox Jews in Israel are working to achieve and what the secular forces are trying to prevent. Sure, the article can use more of a WP:NPOV but the topic is very WP:NOTABLE and there are plenty of WP:RS that prove that it is 100% WP:V that basic googling reveals see "halachic state" (with a "c") and "halachik state" (with a "k"). 4 Thus see such articles as: i At Home Abroad; People Of The Law? (Anthony Lewis writing in the New York Times, 1999: "'Deep down,' said Mordechai Kremnitzer, professor of law at Hebrew University, 'many, though not all, want a halachik state'"; ii Barkat meets with haredi councilmen over parking lot fiasco (Ynetnews, the online division of Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, 1999: "If the latter is true than why are they calling for a Halachik state? The parking lot is NOT in their neighborhood."); iii Religious Affairs: Whose Afraid of a halachic state? (report in the prestigious Jerusalem Post, 2009); iv The Kingdom of Judea vs. the State of Israel (The Forward: "The time has come to establish a Halachic state in Judea and Samaria! It is time for the 'Kingdom of Judea!' The mind reels...", 2008); Here's a comprehensive presentation of the topic, 2003: Op-Ed: A Halachic State Arutz Sheva/Israel National News, a media source that speaks for Religious Zionism: "The simple acknowledgment that we should be a halachic state will be music to HaShem's [ God's ] ears..."; and quite a few well-sourced articles, op eds and discourse on this important topic that simple googling uncovers. v Furthermore, just by utilizing WP's features right here on this page, one can discover serious works of scholarship that refer to this topic: "books" yields 266 book sources and "scholar" yields 50 scholarly sources. Efforts should go into incorporating all these into the article, and not into looking for excuses to delete that seem to border on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. IZAK (talk) 08:40, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The term is mentioned frequently in Israeli public discourse vis a vis the relation between religion and state. --Shuki (talk) 21:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The article describes a very real phenomenon, either as an aspirational goal or a feared destination, depending on one's perspective in the Israeli religious / secular divide. The available reliable and verifiable sources support the existence of an article about the concept. Alansohn (talk) 05:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as per Shuki . --Yoavd (talk) 13:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.