Talk:Russia probing Jewish law as "incitement"

NPOV

This article is a moderately subtle anti-russian article. It has no attempt at presenting what the law in question says, who supported it, why it was brought up, etc. Further, there is no attempt to justify statements about pogroms, stalin, etc. This extremely biased writing, and probably not salvageable. - Amgine/^talk 27 June 2005 19:58 (UTC)

• These remarks are difficult to understand and address. In what way is the article anti-Russian? Please be specific. Are the facts inaccurate? Do you see them as necessarily putting all of Russia in some kind of bad light? Russia, like many other countries, criminalizes certain kinds of communication, such as material that insults religion or foments violence. Similar laws in the USA are not generally disparaged, and mentioning them is not in itself anti-American; nor is it so with regard to Russia. Who "supported" the law (whatever that means) is irrelevant. "Why it was brought up"... generally people seem to have inferred that it was brought up in the instant situation in order to attack Jews, perhaps out of hatred, although there has been speculation about more rational political motives as well. As for "etc.", this is too vague to answer. Please explain what "etc." covers in the above context. I don't understand about justifying "statements about pogroms" (there were none); and there is no statement about Stalin, other than there being no similar public attacks on Jewish holy writs since the time of Stalin. The "blood libel" accusation was in the petition; hence, the link to Wikipedia's article on ritual murder. Please describe where the "extreme bias" is to be found. Simply positing bias when confronting personally upsetting material in a news item impedes the proper function of WikiNews. NPOV is desirable not only in articles but also in criticism. If you cannot make a convincing case for your assertions, please retract them and help this article make it to the Main Page where it belongs. Mpulier 28 June 2005 01:43 (UTC)

I think I have to apologize, Mpulier. I believe I way over-reacted. I am trying to deal with the site being very slow for me, and will go through the article again, but I expect I will remove both dispute tags.

However, one point which causes me trouble is "Russian Jewry". Is this a proper title for a publisher or organization? If so, it should not be separately wiki-linked. If not, it should neither be capitalized nor, in my opinion, is it a neutral term. I'll take a look further, but this is one specific item. - Amgine/^talk 28 June 2005 03:11 (UTC)

Amgine, your contribution to the article led to considerable improvement and I thank you for that and for removing the dispute tags. Your question about "Russian Jewry" is interesting. "Russian", of course, must be capitalized always. Same with Jewry, which is a proper noun. It's different for "Catholic", which must have its capital C when referring to Roman Catholicism, but not when meaning "comprehensive" or "of broad or liberal scope". The term "Russian Jewry" refers to a fairly well-defined collection of people, ranging from non-believers to firm believers. It is this collection, and not particular organizations or publishing groups, that is under attack, as is clear from the wording of the petition (extracts of which are translated into English in one of the article's sources and the original Russian of which may be seen on the Web: [1]). Beyond the narrow legal question of whether the publication of a redaction of the 16th Century work is an incitement to hatred is the question of whether the Jewish religion amounts to a such a conspiracy against Christianity and against achieving Russian national goals (whatever those may be) that all Jewish organizations should be outlawed. This is what the petition asserts. Beyond even this, and pervading the petition (and indicated by a few informal polls) is the question of whether all Jews in Russia, by virtue of their ethnicity, inherently are inimical to Russia and had best be barred from positions of power or influence. Essentially, this is racism, and it seems to be rather well-tolerated in Russia in general even when blatantly expressed. The racism seems to be disparaged and viewed with some alarm by those at the higher, more central leadership positions in Russia, but is being exploited and encouraged for political advantage at the district level and in some circles opposed to the present regime. I don't think that describing matters this way betrays an anti-Russian attitude. Racism and similar attitudes exist and are used in most societies to some degree. Besides, condemning Russia for some notion or practice found there is isomorphic with condemning Jewry. One can be dispassionate and "clinical" in analyzing the situation and yet conclude that being a Jew in Russia carries extra risk of being unfairly persecuted. That, to me, is one of the take-home lessons from the article. Another is some insight on some of the conflicts in Russian society and Russian politics. Yet another involves the complexity of the concept of democracy. Furthermore, I think that American Jewish organizations will soon be reacting publicly to the news item, now that it has been noticed by the Associated Press, and I'm glad to now have some extra background knowledge that will help me understand their response. Wikinews readers may feel the same. Mpulier 28 June 2005 08:10 (UTC)

• Seems as if the consensus now is to remove the tags. If anyone objects they can put them back. Paulrevere2005 28 June 2005 03:38 (UTC)

Sources

The sources used in this article are particular dubious. Both are considered rabidly right within Israel, and are generally considered unreliable and untrustworthy outside Israel. - Amgine/^talk 27 June 2005 19:58 (UTC)

• Haaretz is a mainstream rag that, compared with the press in the USA is centrist, like the Jerusalem Post, which wrote: "Arguing that Jews were to blame for anti-Semitism, the authors of the letter want Jewish groups outlawed based on legislation against extremism and fomenting ethnic discord." A more complete and reliable source is an article (I've added the citation) by Lev Krichevsky, the on-the-spot Moscow Bureau Chief for the Jewish Telegraph Agency, JTA, with extensive experience in Russia [2]. According to his article there has been a lot written about the 'letter of 500' in the mainstream Russian press, including Izvestia. The Izvestia supplement for 9 February reported on a poll in St. Petersburg about banning Jewish organizations there (only 51 percent of respondents opposed such a ban). According to another of Krichevsky's articles [3] 30 percent of those responding to a late-January radio call-in poll said "yes", that Jews' participation in politics and business should be limited by law. Yet another of his articles [4] notes that on 4 February the Duma passed a resolution against the original letter signed by 20 of its members by a vote of 306 to 58, but failed to name the legislators who had signed. Other publicity about this affair is described in the UCSJ Bigotry Monitor, Volume 5, Number 6 for February 11, 2005 [5]. Absent a conspiracy theory or some demonstration that every one of the additional sources mentioned above are "rabidly right" it is reasonable to conclude that the material in the main article proposed for WikiNews is factual and that the additional sources newly appended to the main article remove enough unbiased doubt to allow this article to be mainstreamed in WikiNews. Mpulier 28 June 2005 01:19 (UTC)

• I have added an English translation of the petition published in Rus Pravoslavnaya. That should clinch the authenticity of the meat of the article, as should sourcing an Associated Press dispatch that just was provided to the New York Times. Mpulier 28 June 2005 02:41 (UTC)

NPOV? Sources?

The story might have a tinge of POV, but it is valid. The only source I could find in 2 minutes of searching was in Russian (here) but it does confirm that there was a letter, and there was some case etc. -- IlyaHaykinson 28 June 2005 01:30 (UTC)