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. John254 03:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel Sperber[edit]

Daniel Sperber (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This person is totally not notable either as a rabbi or as a noted scholar. The sole purpose of this article is to use him in order to promote an agenda of ((Jewish feminism)) by User:Shirahadasha the creator of this article who is singularly devoted to promoting one agenda: Getting Orthodox Judaism to change its views and rules regarding the roles of men and women. This article violates WP:NN, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, and fails WP:BIO because it's only here to promote the extreme Modern Orthodox views of an editor in violation of WP:COI. IZAK 09:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In fairness to User:IZAK, I would actually agree that religious/rabbinic scholarship and academic scholarship can be regarded as somewhat different fields, and it is definitely possible to be notable in one but not the other. Tova Hartman's notability is exclusively as an academic and an activist -- no-one's claiming she's a notable religious scholar in the rabbinic-studies sense. Mendel Shapiro's claim to notability is as a religious scholar plus his press coverage -- he doesn't have much notability as an academic. Daniel Sperber has some notability in both worlds. His notability in the academic world is especially clear, so discussion has focused on that area simply because it's most obvious. Best, --Shirahadasha 04:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Shira, now can you imagine if you really made it clear to the world that being educated in Judaism at university still leaves one a total am ha'aretz in Torah Judaism. IZAK 07:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that your general argument is that the fellow is an ignoramus because he cant provide a set of begats that stretches back to Abraham. Your assertion that an academic cant understand Judaism would only make this fellow more notable for attempting it. John Vandenberg 08:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As the Torah Judaism article indicates, the term is generally associated with Haredi Judaism. All of these individuals have notability, if any, only in the world of Modern Orthodox Judaism, academia, or the general media. No-one is claiming that they have any notability in the Haredi world or that this world regards them as reliable scholars. Hope this helps. Best, --Shirahadasha 14:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, no, he is not an ignoramus (about Judaism), it's the majority of people reading and commenting on the article about him, to be quite blunt. I was encouraging Shira to do a public service on Wikipedia by not constantly leading people on who do not have the required backround to fathom who and what does and does not count in the world of Judaism. By way of analogy, if you had a bunch of shoemakers who knew nothing about serious music vote on the merits of a whether someone should be called a notable musician, and then you told the shoemakers that the musician in question was also a professor, and then the shoemakers go ahead and nod their heads and go kluk kluk and mutter that presumably the musician must be notable because he is a professor and got a prize from some banana republic and that ergo he must be a notable musician -- would be pathetic, ludicrous, and comical, and that is exactly what is happening here, if you see what I mean. P.S. Your comment about "begats" only proves my point, so watch how you phrase things, 'cause your slip is showing... IZAK 11:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your insinuation that only people with the "proper" background ought to comment on AfDs is what is ludicrous. Wikipedia is a public encyclopedia, not an in-depth scholarly tome only permitted to the properly screened cognoscenti. As such, the verification standards are readily grasped by all. If you cannot defend (or refute) the notability of a subject to the satisfaction of the laymen who use this encyclopedia, perhaps it should be left to someone more qualified or articulate than yourself. (Come to that, I rather doubt that you were required to prove your Judaic knowledge to a board of Torah scholars before you were permitted to make related Wikipedia edits.) Ravenswing 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ravenswing, you are also missing my point. One can only judge an editor by his or her proven track record on Wikipedia. Noone has to go in front of any boards for anything to write in Wikipedia. But, if say, one was to pop into subjects on Wikipedia one knew little or nothing about and then on the basis of one's ignorance of the subject make misinformed statements or edits, as evidenced by what one writes and the way that one writes it, and if one then adds insult to injury by sitting in judgment deciding on the validity and notability of that subject (when it may be totally bogus and useless as understood by experts in that field -- not just on Wikipedia) then one would surely make a laughing stock out of oneself, or worse. Now, back to this subject of Daniel Sperber. He was only dredged up and written up by User:Shirahadasha to promote a POV "Jewish feminist" agenda because on his own merits Daniel Sperber, while being a very learned man, is in no way shape size or form recognized or regarded as an authority in Jewish law and is therefore totally not notable as a rabbi. Many rabbis have taught at universities over the years, and that does not make them notable. The question about the Israel Prize is a side point and misses the mark of what is happening here, it's a decoy if you will to avoid facing the real tough questions here, and it has no bearing on his standing as a rabbi since rabbis are not "measured" by the "prizes" they receive from secular governments or from anyone. IZAK 08:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not "missing" your point; your points are quite obvious and easy to grasp. Where you are going wrong is in indulging in the most common error of any debater: presuming that failure to agree with you can only stem from a lack of understanding. As it stands, you are now stridently maintaining your POV against unanimous opposition. Whether or not you believe yourself to be the ultimate arbiter of Judaism on Wikipedia, you've failed to convince a single other editor of the merits of your position. You've certainly convinced me that your opposition is founded far more in attacking Shirahadasha than in the actual merits of this article. Ravenswing 19:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Waxing lyrical about the injustices of this man being considered notable DOES NOT HELP. Read "notability" and find an argument to delete on that basis. No other basis for deletion is appropriate here. AFAICS nobody here has an agenda except yourself, as everyone else has been determining whether the person meets the appropriate and simple criteria in "WP:N". Go read WP:N! Please note that nobody has claimed he is a notable rabbi ... everyone else is merely deciding whether he is a notable person based on the criteria set forth in WP:N. The consensus by the comments on this Afd is that he meets those criteria due to multiple media references; thems the breaks. As far as I can see, the only reasonable logic that can be used to promote this articles deletion (based on WP:N) is if the sources that have been provided to date do not provide sufficient evidence that he received the Israel Prize in 1997. i.e. you dont believe the article is factual. John Vandenberg 21:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, you caught on more quickly than I did that what IZAK's harping on isn't that the fellow's not notable, but that he's not notable in the field of Judaism. Demonstrably the Israeli government disagrees (and I rather consider the Israeli government a much more authoritative source than a pseudonymous Wikipedia editor), but it's all irrelevant as hell. Wikipedia'd be a pretty empty encyclopedia if articles needed to be vetted under WP:N for their specific importance to the Jewish faith. There's no doubt some message board somewhere where IZAK can more properly debate the subject's credentials, and this discussion should go there. Ravenswing 01:51, 24 February 2007 (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.
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