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To-do: E · H · W · RUpdated 2008-05-22 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Expand : Culture section: Please add East Jerusalem institutions and history Verify : Please add reliable sources for all of the information

Aaronshavit's removal of material from Gilbert

I have no reason to doubt the material. I have good reason to doubt its appropriateness in a page on a major historical city. There is a very long article one could write on intercommunal frictions, with swathes of material on Christian antisemitism, Jewish intolerance, Muslim hostilities. Do we need this. If the Ottomans placed butcheries there strategically to annoy Christians and Muslims (one source) I suppose people are going to strive for balance by harvesting the literature for other material about butcheries and sectarian strife to achieve balance, when the simple thing to do is keep this subtle tilting of edits towards negative stereotypes, off the page. I happen to know a bit about butcheries there, and this immediately came to mind. Neither it nor Jayjg's piece from Gilbert is appropriate in my view. I.,e.

‘The Ashkenazim in Jerusalem form a kind of caste apart, so to speak, and have almost nothing in common with their fellow Jews of the Sephardi rite. Their community is entirely distinct from ours: they have their own revenues, their own tax on meat, their shohetim, their temples, and their schools. They are much more intransigent than the Sephardim for a good number of the latter buy their meat from Ashkenazi butchers, but an Ashhkenazi would never buy meat from a Sephardi butcher: this meat is even considered taref (ritually unclean) according to the interpretation of the law of most Ashkenazi doctors. Concerning the question of instruction, they are absolutely inflexible. From the top to the bottom of the hierarchy, the teaching of any and all profane subjects is declared to be blasphemy against the Law of Moses.. instead of the Bible, it is the Talmud that they scour and scrutinize in all of its parts;. They are still and for a long time to come, the outstanding representatives of the spirit of obscurantism and conservatism.' Aron Rodrigue, Jews and Muslims: Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Modern Times', University of Washington Press, 2003.p.169

This is a Sephardi survey of tensions there, in the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Keeping this material in opens up a bad precedent, gentlemen. Reconsider Nishidani (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, why do you refer to it as "Jayjg's piece from Gilbert"? Jayjg 07:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Since Jayjg has suggested (via edit summary) that Aaronshavit bring this issue to the talk page, perhaps Jayjg would also like to take up the invitation to defend inclusion of this sentence? If no-one is willing even to try defending it, it should go. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The material immediately preceding it is from the exact same source. The source is, in fact, used many times in this article. Material from that very page in Gilbert's Atlas is used in the article. Why, then, is this specific material not appropriate? Perhaps Aaron can explain. Jayjg 07:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That's an odd defence. 'He said this, I'll put it in. He said that, stick that in too. Oh, he's also written this as well, thump it in too'. On memory Sir MG has written over 40 voluminous tomes, I have many of them. But articles are supposed to be written with a laconic tact for the gist. I'm imagining a fork on the history of butcheries (literal) in Jerusalem.Nishidani (talk) 07:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

You haven't responded to my question above. Jayjg 07:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually I did. Is the art of reading so totally consigned to desuetude? 4 hundred years of Ottoman history 21 lines, 10% on the tannery and slaughter-houses as an insult to Jews and Christians. The tanneries of Jerusalem, like those in Hebron, have a long history (Jerusalem's goes back at least to Ge hinnom, and like all tanneries and slaughter houses were primarily located where spring water sources were abundant. The location here is not 'Ottoman' but goes back to a legend about Saladin's insult to the Crusaders' palace, pre-Ottoman. You'll find this vignette all over 19th century literature, written to rouse outrage among evangelizing Christians and Jews abroad. It was if anything aimed originally at the order of the Knights of St.John. By all means make a fork and write the history of butcheries and tanneries in Jerusalem. That in an article on a city boasting 4000 years of history, one finds room for one 'Turkish' insult to infidels is interesting, but creates a precedent for the numerous insults, structural and otherwise, hurled by all 3 communities at each other. You are opening up a can of worms. Delete it, clamp down that lid, or invite all to dig up (I've quite a bit on these things, but refuse to edit this material in) stuff to make one or other of three congregations look bigoted. They all were, and often still are.Nishidani (talk) 09:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I see no response to my question of 07:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC). As for "the numerous insults, structural and otherwise, hurled by all 3 communities at each other", from the 7th century until the 20th, Jews were in no position to "hurl insults" at their rulers, Muslim or Christian. Jayjg 15:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh that. You adopted the edit. I thought things like that were obvious. As to the other it's all in the 'until' and your unfamiliarity with a certain vein of literature. But I will not harp on the point. The point you refuse to respond to is, what is 10% of the space on 400 years of Ottoman rule doing dealing with tanneries and slaughterhouses that were there before the Ottomans? Why showcase this in the history of a city which is so thoroughly documented that one has trouble covering important details in a short space. (The answer is obvious, so you needn't reply). Nishidani (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings on whether or not the material should be in the article per se. I do have strong objection to people removing it for completely bogus reasons, including the reasons given in Aaronshavit's edit summaries. Regarding my "unfamiliarity with a certain vein of literature", Comment on content, not on the contributor.Jayjg 15:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually I did comment on content, the content of your reply. The edit on the page has Christians and Jews under Ottoman rule both subject to noisome vexation. I gave my reasons for removing it (plenty of intercommunal friction). I did not speak of rulers, now you introduce them. The text speaks of a shared victimhood, you reply that the Jews were in a singular position, under both Christian and Muslim rule. The point is we are talking of an edit on Jerusalem which has Christians and Jews suffering from Ottoman planning, not Jews suffering from Muslim and Christian oppression. This is getting silly. You still will not explain to me why 10% of the brief Ottoman period of rule should be associated with an anecdotal vignette on abattoirs that was a topos of 19th.century Christian and Jewish travel literature. This and WP:Undue are sufficient grounds to elide the text. Irrelevant to a brief article on Jerusalem.Nishidani (talk) 16:21, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it appears I will have to repeat myself to an extent. I take issue with non-policy based deletions of relevant, properly sourced, reliable material, which describes all of Aaronshavit's deletions. I also take issue with irrelevant quotes (e.g. the one from Rodrigue), and silly insinuations (e.g. that Jews "hurled numerous insults" at their Muslim rulers). I also take issue with personal comments, like the one about my "unfamiliarity with a certain vein of literature". It was a comment about the contributor, not the content: stop denying it, and don't do it again. However, I do not take issue with the sole actual policy based objection, that of WP:UNDUE. Jayjg 18:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, my habit is to look at the material an editor deletes, and make my own independent judgement on the material. I don't care who the editor is, and am not influenced much by his explanations. This material was (a) properly and (b) reliably sourced but (c) irrelevant. Whatever Aaronshavit's reasons for deleting or yours for preserving the material, my reason for suggesting it be deleted are that simply it is 'irrelevant'. Could I request the courtesy to not distort my words in such a way as to make me, suitably 'rephrased', appear anti-semitic. For the record:-

(a)'three communities hurling insults at each other' is one thing, I said it.</ br>

(b)'Jews 'hurled numerous insults' at their Muslim rulers' Your twisting of (a) </ br>

as to WP:NPA, if my colleague is not familiar with certain historical details, and I point to several, and he persists in not showing familiarity with these and other details, I do tend to suggest he or she read up the relevant literature, and I do hint that the person is not familiar with the literature. You challenged me once on this, said I was wrong, and when I cited Maimonides to show you were indeed unfamiliar with such material . .This is a civil prod, not a personal attack. I have large gaps in my knowledge, and if anyone pulls me up on these lacunae, I am invariably grateful, and take the reminder as a prompt to work harder, which is what we should all do. But enough of this. The material is irrelevant, aleatory, violates WP:Undue. I leave it to the community of long-time editors to determine for or against delete, since I do not edit here.Nishidani (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The material is quite obviously relevant to the topic; it's about Ottoman zoning policies in Jerusalem, and it's in the Ottoman section in the Jerusalem article. I have no idea what you're talking about re: Maimonides, nor do I care, since that truly is "irrelevant". The only argument you actually have is WP:UNDUE, which is a valid one. Jayjg 19:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That is obvious and yet ignores the point. Relevance has two senses. Everything in the historical record of Jerusalem or anywhere else is 'relevant' to the topic, that goes without saying. The problem was noted by Borges. Were historical writing commensurate with the facts of history, it would be impossible, for it would require a space of inscription coextensive with the dimension of historical time. One has to select, with severity. Much did occur under Ottoman rule, and there is no mention of it. Why mention this, of all imaginable things to cull from the literature? That is why my raising WP:UNDUE implicates, automatically, 'relevance' (not to a comprehensive history of Jerusalem) but to an extremely synthetic overview of the city such as is required by Wiki rules of article composition. Nishidani (talk) 20:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

"Relevance" is about original research, WP:UNDUE is about a neutral point of view. You have confused the two. Anything from a reliable source the directly discusses the history of Jerusalem is "relevant"; however, much, perhaps most of it does not belong in the article. One may exclude the information because it gives undue weight to an aspect of the history of the city, one may exclude the information because it is too detailed for an over-view article. Those are UNDUE arguments, they are not "relevance" arguments. Jayjg 20:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It would appear that if Aaronshavit removed the passage using an edit summary referencing WP:UNDUE there might not be an objection. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces

I'm getting a not found error on the links to this. Anyone know where it's moved or got an alternative source for what it sibstantiates? In particular, I was wanting to verify when the Romans recaptured the city. An anon has changed the date in a recent edit.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Transportation section

The section has 2 issues I can see:

• It says that the light rail will be completed in January 2009, which is wrong. The date should be August 2010, AFAIK. The problem is finding an up-to-date source.
• It makes no mention of the only current rail connection to Jerusalem, the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway.

I would correct these things myself, but due to the status of the article they should be immediately sourced and I can't look for sources right now. -- Ynhockey 07:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the light railway thing. The section already mentions the Malha station, isn't that enough? -- Nudve (talk) 08:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

"Jewish-Roman wars" section not consistent

Which was it, then? Jews banned until the 7th century, or the 4th century?

71.233.197.161 (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Archaeological history of Jerusalem

"The Bible Unearthed" 2002 is a highly regarded book by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman on the archaeology of the Biblical period. It is cited a very respectable 82 times according to Google Scholar. www.amazon.com gives it a very respectable 111 reviews, of which 75% are 4star or 5star. Most of the things they say were mainstream in 1999 according to this mirrored Haaretz article by another top Israeli archaeologist, Ze'ev Herzog.

Jerusalem in 10th century BCE p.142 "finally to understand why Jerusalem and Judah are so poor in finds in the tenth century. The reason is that Judah was still a remote and undeveloped region at that time. ... The land was overwhelmingly rural - with no trace of written documents, inscriptions, or even signs of the kind of widespread literacy that would be necessary for the functioning of a proper monarchy. ... Jerusalem itself was, at best, no more than a typical highland village. We can say no more than that ... about five thousand people scattered among Jerusalem, Hebron, and about twenty small villages in Judah, with additional groups probably continuing as pastoralists. ... in the tenth century, their rule extended over no empire, no palatial cities, no spectacular capital. Archeologically we can say no more about David and Solomon except that they existed"

Jerusalem and Judaism 7th century BCE p.2 "Henceforth, Jerusalem's Temple ... would be recognized as the only legitimate place of worship for the people of Israel. In that innovation, modern monotheism was born ... The built - up area of Jerusalem in the seventh century BCE covered an area ... about half the size of the present Old City of Jerusalem. Its population of around fifteen thousand ... hardly more than a small Middle Eastern market town ... Yet Jerusalem had never before been even as large as this."

David and Solomon's empire p.132 "As far as we can see on the basis of the archaeological surveys, Judah remained relatively empty of permanent population, quite isolated, and very marginal right up to and past the presumed time of David and Solomon, with no major urban centers and with no pronounced hierarchy of hamlets, villages, and towns." and on p.238 "monumental inscriptions and personal seals - essential signs of a fully developed state - appear in Judah only two hundred years after Solomon, in the late eighth century BCE. Most of the known ostraca and inscribed weight stones - further evidence of bureaucratic record keeping and regularized trade standards - appear only in the seventh century ... now clear that Iron Age Judah enjoyed no precocious golden age. David and his son Solomon and the subsequent members of the Davidic dynasty ruled over a marginal, isolated, rural region, with no signs of great wealth or centralized administration."

Solomon's temple p.140 "the bit hilani palaces of Iron Age Syria - which were supposed to be the prototypes for the Solomonic palaces at Megiddo - appear for the first time in Syria in the early ninth century BCE, at least half a century after the time of Solomon. How would it have been possible for Solomon's architects to adopt an architectural style that did not yet exist?".

I'm no expert on any of this and don't plan to edit, but there is a lot more of the above available to anyone interested in improving the article. PR 15:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It is a respectable source and yet very debatable. Its theory is not fully accepted in the Biblical archaeologist community. In any case, there is a common error saying that Finkelstein and Silberman deny the existence of the Jewish temple or the existence of the kingdom of Judah. In fact Finkelstein and Silberman acknowledge the common theories about the ancient Near East from around 700 BCE onwards. Their alternative historical account concerns three centuries, from around 1000 BCE to around 700 BCE. DrorK (talk) 17:32, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of the name Jerusalim

Why the hyphens in the triliteral root slm? Akkadian being commonly used by many peoples of the ANE we occasionally find it used by speakers whose background in other language groups gives rise to dialects of Akkadian. Certainly in the Amarna letters we have people writing in semitic Akkadian from the lands of Egypt, Hatti, Hurria, Amurru, Syria, and elsewhere whose prefixes, infixes, suffixes, gramatical markers, reduplicatian, ergativity and sDmf find their way in to the words but not so far as I know into the roots. Using hyphens in a root is not kosher Rktect (talk) 13:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

In any case, everything in the section needs proper referencing to authorities who make each claim. This is a bit of a minefield. I've made a couple of changes, added a couple of references, and found this which we can't use but is interesting: dougweller (talk) 17:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Kendraa

She is in history right now! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.128.202.82 (talk) 17:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Etymology section

As often noted, this section ranks as one of the scrappiest on the page. I suggest it be reworked somewhat along these lines.

Two hieroglyphic texts dated to the 19th.and18th.centuries BCE, one on a ceramic bowl, the other on a terra cotta figure, which mention a r()w-u-š()l-m-m, transcribed as either Rušalimum or Urušalimum, are commonly thought to be the first historic references to the city. These form part of the Egyptian Execration Texts, where Egypt’s enemies were named only to be cursed.. The name recurs in the Akkadian cuneiform as Urušalim, in the Amarna tablets datable to the 1400-1360 BCE. The name 'Jerusalem' is thus variously etymologised to mean 'foundation (Sumerian yeru, ‘settlement’/cf. Semitic yry, meaning ‘found’) of the god Shalem', 'dwelling of peace', 'founded in safety', or 'Salem gives instruction' (Semitic yrh: 'show, teach, instruct'). The god Shalem has a special relationship with Jerusalem. . Others dismiss the Sumerian link, and point to yarah, a Semitic/Hebrew term meaning 'to lay a cornerstone', yielding the idea of laying a cornerstone to the temple of the god Shalem, who was a member of the West Semitic pantheon (Akkadian Shalim, Assyrian Shulmanu), the god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection.

Once something like this is worked on, one can then provide a brief sketch of the many folk etymologies that sprang up later.Nishidani (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Gudrun Kramer, A History of Palestine:From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2008, p.22.
2. In G.Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren (eds.) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, (tr.David E.Green) William B.Eerdmann, Grand Rapids Michigan, Cambridge, UK 1990 p.348
3. These figure among the so-called Sethe texts published by Kurt Sethe in 1926. See Jane M.Cahill, ‘Jerusalem at the Time of the United Monarchy:The Archeological Evidence’ in Andrew G. Vaughn, Ann E. Killebrew (eds.),Jerusalem in Bible and Archeology:The First Temple Period Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta 2003 pp.p.21 n.38
4. ANET pp,.487-489
5. Marten H.Wouldstra, The Book of Joshua, William B.Eerdmanns Co. Grand Rapids, Michigan (1981) 1995 p.169 n.2
6. G.Johannes Bottereck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry, (eds.) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. tr David E.Green vol.XV p.48-49 William B.Eeerdmanns Co.Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge UK 2006 pp.45-6
7. Meir Ben-Dov, Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002 p.23.

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