Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/True Torah Jews

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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 of the debate was Delete. Deathphoenix ʕ 16:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

True Torah Jews

I am nominating this article for deletion, I have not seen any evidence that suggests this organization is notable enough for an encyclopedia article. As I said on the article's talk page, when the only source that refers to an organization is the organization's own website it is probably not very notable. Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

google can find who links to a site. It does not look promising for this website. Jon513 09:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - No valid reason to reomve. Verifiably true, and notable enough.--Irishpunktom\talk 23:21, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - upon further consideration, I think the main problem is verifiability rather than notability. See talk, where I encourage bloger to find other avenues for this content--Leifern 12:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If there are no third-party sources, it's violating WP:V. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not notable. —Viriditas | Talk 00:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Appears to be a personal unverifiable website, nothing more; the web has millions of them. Jayjg (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Fails WP:WEB (rank 504,601). Regurgitating anti-Zionist views from Satmar, Neturei Karta etc. Own level of observance shadowy. Pretty website, though. JFW | T@lk 02:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, fails WP:WEB and WP:V. The fact that the only means of contacting this alleged organization is by a PMB (private mail box), and the fact that there seems to be no human representative named anywhere who is a leader or even a member of this group raises red flags. There's nothing to establish it as being anything more than the personal website of an anonymous individual. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 04:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Btw, if we check whois the website jewsagainstzionism.com registered to, it is registered through third party domainsbyproxy for the purpose of not making public the owner of the site. Compare it with whois jewsnotzionists.org where at least we can see THAT site is publicly registered to the organization Neturei Karta, the admin being Rabbi Yisroel Weiss, the registrant being David Grossman, there's a street address, a phone number, a fax number, etc. But nothing equivalent for True Torah Jews...just anonymous. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 08:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I appreciate the response to my article. I now understand the concern of most editors and I will try to address them one by one. One easy thing for everyone to try is doing a Google search on Jews and the Torah True Jews website comes up the 5th. According to that, it’s a busy website and gets many hits External websites linking to this one: A simple search will find many websites linking to this website. About the concern of membership: It’s hard to verify this, because as stated in the discussion page, the group is like an offshoot of satmar and doesn’t keep its own membership, but as I said there the satmar rabbis defiantly back this group as evident by the letter signed by several satmar rabbis. Another example that the consensus in the street is that this group represents satmar is that recently the grand rabbi of satmar passed away upon his passing the PLO mission in Washington sent a condolence letter to the satmar community and the rabbi’s family it did so by sanding a letter to True Torah Jews and asking them to pass the condolences to the community and the rabbi’s family (the letter was widely circulated in the satmar community and I can post it if only someone here helps me in doing so. To be continued ….. Bloger 00:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment - Positioning on Google means very little. Anyone can buy google ranking or do something like a Google bomb to move their site ranking up. The fact that a letter was sent on the Rabbi's passing says very little as well as well, IMO. If the long time pastor of a 50-person Baptist Church were to pass away, the church would get letters of condolence, but that doesn't make the 50-person church notable. Can you give us an idea of the membership? Even if you don't know exact numbers, do they have five members, five hundred, or five thousand? If that's a question that you can't answer, then I'm not sure that it's a notable subject for an article. As I said before, a condition of a keep, IMO, would be some verifiable evidence that this organization actually has members that can't be counted on one hand. BigDT 01:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment - You did not understand my point. The mission wanted to reach the “satmar” community (which “is verified” to have tens of thousands of members) they used the channel of the True Torah Jews. In my opinion, this verifies that the conventional wisdom in the street is that the True Torah Jews is the satmar anti-Zionist voice in the secular world. This brings me to my point that even though, to someone that is not evolved in satmar, it is completely new that this group is affiliated with satmar, it is the fact. About membership: the group does not keep its own membership satmar is behind the group and that is were they get there funding by making appeals in the satmat synagogues so they do not need independent membership. Nevertheless, they do keep some kind of membership by sending their weekly newsletter that they send to thousands of subscribers. Bloger 02:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Besides the fact that you have not provided any verifiable sources for these claims, you still persist on making illogical jumps. How in the world do you figure that True Torah Jews in the mouthpeice for the Satmar community. You have claimed to found a source that says three satmar rabbi's have said that they support the organization, but even if that is true how do we know they were acting officially on behalf of the entire Satmar dynasty, and how does showing suport indicate that they are part of the the same organization?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment - sending out a newsletter to thousands of people doesn't really mean anything either per se. I voted in a Republican primary almost ten years ago and ever since then, I've gotten newsletter after newsletter from little tiny non-notable conservative groups that nobody's ever heard of. If this group is, in fact, affiliated with Satmar, why not put a section on them in the Satmar article? I have yet to see anything to convince me that this site/organization is more than a few people. BigDT 04:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. For a website / organization to be encyclopedicly notable, it must do more than simply exist. It must have gained significant attention. There's no evidence that that's the case here. Zaxem 05:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The organization does not exist, it is a cyber-fiction. IZAK 05:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, as per Zaxem and especially MPerel. -- Heptor talk 11:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Heptor and Nom. Zeq 20:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Pecher Talk 22:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete I have serious questions whether this organization exists at all. There is no question the Satmar by in large are against Zionism as under a strict definition (it should be remembered they freely work and live in Israel so not under most common definitions they are Zionists).
  • strong delete per above. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I have serious question that they would buy into Zionism = Nazism equation this site makes, that strikes me as much more in keeping with white power organization than Satmar.
  2. More importantly the whole argument is addressed to a secular audience, I've never seen any of their writings that are addressed for the secular.
  3. This website recommends the JPS bible I can't in wildest dreams imagine the Satmar endorsing the JPS.
I think this website is a poorly thought out fraud. jbolden1517Talk 01:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


In VaYoel Moshe Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum explicitly declared that the Zionists violated the three oaths, and thereby caused the Holocaust, as well as all violence in modern Israel, as a result: "...it has been these Zionist groups that have attracted the Jewish people and have violated the Oath against establishing a Jewish entity before the arrival of the Messiah. It is because of the Zionists that six million Jews were killed."[1]

How about "An Open Letter to President Bush" for a start, isn’t that addressed to a secular audience [2]

As per the JPS bible, I will have to admit I am not an expert on English translations to the bible if you elaborate more I might be able to answer


Bloger 02:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Comment.

Hi I will again try to address the concerns raised.

About the concern of anonymity: MPerel

It is an understandable concern but one has to take in account that when an issue of such controversy is involved it is understandable why one wants to remain anonymous.

Take for example Rabbi Weiss of Neturei Karta, one can only imagine what harassments he has to encounter, because he is in the public arena on an issue that is so close to so many harts, and is dear to so many people.

It takes a very strong person to be able to withstand such hardship, which this group probably cannot find.

This should also satisfy the concerns of , Heptor (as per MPerel concern)

As per the concern from Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg:

He raises a few concerns with the article:

Concern:1) The only source that refers to the organization is the organization's own website.

Answer: The fact is that there is quite a few referring’s to the group and its web site:

Try for example searching the word JewsAgainstZionism (as one word) in Google this is the result Results 1 - 100 of about 21,000 for "JewsAgainstZionism" for the 621 you can actually see they all are referring to the group’s web site. [3]

Then Try searching the word JewsAgainstZionism (as one word) in yahoo this is the result Results 1 - 100 of about 7,340 for "JewsAgainstZionism" for the 1000 you can actually see they all are referring to the group’s web site. [4]

Now try searching the word TrueTorahJews (as one word) in Google this is the result Results 1 - 89 of about 395 for "TrueTorahJews" [5]

Then try searching the word TrueTorahJews (as one word) in yahoo this is the result Results 1 - 60 of about 252 for "TrueTorahJews" [6]

If this is not “being referred to”, I do not know what is.

This should also satisfy the concerns of DanielZimmerman ,Jon513, Zaxem, Heptor (as per Zaxem concern), Zeq(as per Heptor concern),

Concern 2) Three satmar rabbis, does not necessarily mean the entire community is behind it.

Answer:

Firstly:

The three rabbi’s are not just three picked out of all the other’s, they are of the most senior of rabbi’s each one in there own respect.

Take Rabbi Nathan Joseph Meisels for example he was the chief dean of the yeshiva (rabbinical university) from-----until his retirement in 1982.

The position of chief dean can be characterized as the second in commend of the dynasty, given the fact, that at that time almost 100% son’s of satmar’s studied in this college.

In addition, he was a very close confidant and personal adviser to the Rabbi, Rabbi Joel (of blessed memory) on all aspects and on anti-Zionist issue’s in particular.

In fact, the famous - and one of the most important in regards to anti Zionism - book published by the Rabbi, Al HaGeulah V'Al HaTemurah was written and published by Rabbi Nathan Joseph Meisels.

Rabbi Mayer Weberman, was the only English speaker at most anti-Zionist demonstration called by satmar, which makes him the face to the media or the press secretary if you will, when it comes to satmar, the media, and anti-Zionism.(a clip from one such speech can be heard here [7]

In addition, until recently (when he fell ill) Rabbi Weberman was the official censor of the satmar boys & girl’s school’s, censoring all - secular studies - books for Zionist and adult content.

Rabbi Abraham Leitner, probably one of the most revered and respected student’s of the Rabbi, Rabbi Joel (of blessed memory) still living among us. . (A clip from one such speech can be heard here [8]

Therefore, instead of taking ten’s of signatures from all the satmar rabbis the group chose the most senior in respect to the satmar battle with the Zionists state. And by that scale, these three rabbis’ were picked to sign the letter.

So my point is it’s not three random signatures that can be dismissed as not being the mindset of the entire community. It is as if the three most senior cabinet members of the white house sign a proclamation, you con rest assured that this is the holding of the entire cabinet.

Secondly:

As I wrote before, an example that the consensus in the street is,- that even though TTJ isn’t per se a mouth piece of satmar - this group is the de-facto satmar podium on anti Zionism, is that recently the grand rabbi of satmar (Rabbi Moses of blessed memory) passed away, upon his passing the PLO mission in Washington wanted to reach the “satmar” community (which is verified to have tens of thousands of members) and the rabbi’s family to express there condolences they used the channel of the True Torah Jews and asked them to pass the condolences to the community and the rabbi’s family (the letter was widely circulated in the satmar community and I can post it if only someone here helps me in doing so).

In my opinion, this verifies that the conventional wisdom in the street is that the True Torah Jews is the satmar anti-Zionist voice in the secular world.

Thirdly:

The grand Rabbi’s of satmar both Rabbi Aaron and Rabbi Zalman leib Teitelbaum are active supporters of the organization. Rabbi Aaron has proclaimed in the Talmudic journal published by the satmar yeshiva in K.J. that everyone is to see that this organization succeeds in there work and he made it a necessity that everyone gives at least $20 to the TTJ.

Rabbi Zalman leib Teitelbaum personally attends fundraising diners made by the TTJ.

In addition the TTJ is regularly featured as news and in editorials in both “Der Yid” (the official newspaper of the Rabbi Zalman faction in satmar) and Der Blatt” (the official newspaper of the Rabbi Aaron faction in satmar)

Fourthly:

As you watch, the clips and slide shows on the website of the TTJ from the numerous demonstrations called by satmar, you will - in almost every instant - come across a sign with the TTJ web site plugged and even sometimes the banner behind the head table was dedicated to the TTJ group (B.T.W. in one such instance Rabbi Zalman can bee seen seated on the head table that the banner featured the TTJ.


In addition, as I have said before the funding for TTJ comes primarily from satmar by making appeals in the satmar synagogues (which – BTW - can only be done with the approval of the congregation)

The above should also satisfy the concerns of BigDT, Leifern, Jayjg ,

Another fact that would make the TTJ notable is the expensive website the ads it takes out in the biggest newspapers and radio station’s which add up to ten’s of thousands of dollars yearly this can only be achieved with a strong financial backbone such as financial support of satmar.

As per the matter of membership:

The group does not keep its own membership they get there funding (for what membership is primarily needed) by making appeals in the satmar synagogues and diner’s maid by satmar’s.

Nevertheless, they do have some membership by sending their weekly newsletter that they send to thousands of subscribers.

And the point that BigDT raised sending out a newsletter to thousands of people doesn't really mean anything:

You say yourself that it came upon you by voting that sets up a data base of conservative thinking people that might be interested in getting conservative literature, but the TTJ does not have such a date base available to them, the only way the TTJ sends an e-mail is by people subscribing to there newsletter on there website.

Moreover, one cannot be sending newsletter’s out every week to thousands of people with such highly controversial content, when one can with the touch of a button, block and report it to be spam, and within a month or two your list goes down to none.

Given the above, the fact that they send out thousands of newsletters, and are not blocked is significant inRegard to the support they have

The others I cannot satisfy since they did not say why they think it should be deleted.

This is my case, the defense rests, and the decision is in the hand of the jury.

P.S. I would like to ask all participants to thoroughly read what I wrote and rethink the position taken.

Bloger 23:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - several things: (1) The google hits look to be self-generated. I lost count of the number of JewsAgainstZionism hits that were from the comments section of blogs. Just because someone has time on their hands doesn't make them notable. Are there any references to the organization from a mainstream media site? (2) The fact that some Rabbis agree with the objectives of the organization and that some of their quotes and audio clips are on the site doesn't mean that the Rabbis are a part of the organization. Plenty of Baptist churches quote John Wesley, for example, but he was most certainly never a Baptist. (3) The newsletter is email? Good grief - then it really doesn't mean anything.
I respect your views. But I haven't seen any actual, verifiable, evidence that the organization/website is more than just a few people. If you could find mentions of them in the mainstream media (not blogs) or some kind of reference to their actual, registered membership, that would be something convincing. Again, this is not a vote on their worthiness to exist or the correctness of their views ... it is just an attempt to establish a consensus on whether or not the organization is notable enough for a WP article. I haven't found any evidence that it is. BigDT 00:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment

Thank you for taking the time

It may be that many hits are from blog commenting, but there are 21,000 sittings according to Google. And I do not think, you think that a few people did all this.

With so much time on there side you don’t think they would try to get some attention from any notable media outlet, for crying out loud people with much smaller issue’s and much less time on there side get signifying more attention.

The truth is TTJ isn’t in the market for good looks all it does is trying to get there massage across and according to there web director (you can contact him just like I did by e-mail) they get thousands of hits a month and that satisfies them.

About the rabbi’s you missed the point all I was trying to say is that for example if the pope, the secretary of state of the Vatican and cardinal Edward Egan of New York sign a proclamation on something doesn’t this mean that a significant amount of people in the catholic religion think the same way?

The same way when rabbi’s in the position of the ones mentioned take a position on anything it carries the thinking of a nice majority if not all of satmar.

And about the newsletter it’s not only e-mail the reason I spoke about e-mail is that e-mail is blocked very easily and the fact that thousands of people let this in there inbox and don’t spam it means a lot in my opinion

Bloger 02:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. – Although I’ve edited Wikipedia in the past[9], I’m not sure about the rules here. However, if being a die-hard Wikipedia reader qualifies me to vote then I offer this:

I’m a Satmar member who can attest to the fact that this organization takes its philosophy from the teachings of the Satmar rabbi Joel Tietelbaum, and its financial support from his today’s over 120,000 (according to latest news reports) followers.

I now recall a morning in the summer of 2005 as I entered the main synagogue in Kiryas Joel, a Satmar village in upstate New York with 15,000 residents. I met a huge poster stating: Support True Torah Jews. I followed a call from Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Kiryas Joel, to support this organization. I took out my wallet and found my last twenty dollars. I made my donation and walked away with an empty wallet.

It’s possible that the three above mentioned rabbis serve as an editorial board, but they are certainly not “the only” rabbis behind True Torah Jews.

One should not expect as many Satmar internet users to notice this discussion as Zionist do, since Satmar educates its members to refrain from internet as much as possible. This vote will probably be decided by two types of voters; the ones who are truly unaware of, and the others who are truly biased against True Torah Jews.

In the recent 6 months, I’ve come to rely on Wikipedia as my encyclopedia. It will be devastating to learn that I was only reading the side of the story allowed by interest groups. I will be shocked to see an article deleted because some people, who can’t tolerate criticism against the Zionist cause, are better positioned on Wikipedia. Finally, it will also be informative to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that the list of Israeli targets for censorship now includes Widipedia, with quite some success!

User:67.139.62.77, you can certainly comment here, however this is NOT A VOTE, it is an discussion to talk about this issue. Please don't assume that the posters here are biased. Try to see it from my perspective. I have never heard of this organization. All I have to know that is exists is its own website and a few anonymous poster. Letters by rabbis might show that this exists but it does demonstrate what it does, or how big the organization is. We are not looking for a thousand links to it's website but to one link to a real news source talking about what this organization is and what it does. We are not making these rules up because we are biased. You can read the rules yourself WP:N, WP:V, and WP:WEB and then you will understand our objections. Jon513 15:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’m sorry; I got carried away. I looked up the Verifiability rules. This is what I came up with as, in my opinion, relevant to the article in question:
"Self-published sources, and published sources of dubious reliability, may be used only as sources of information on themselves, and only in articles about them.”
When I look back to the current version of the article I see that it describes in TTJ’s words what it claims to be doing; this article is about TTJ and TTJ only. It doesn’t even make the claim that it is supported by Satmar, although it is. The article doesn’t give clue about the magnitude of its followers. It is only stating that there is this website making such and such claims.
I also think that Blogger made a good point that the level of support that TTJ enjoys from the Satmar rabbis can be evident by watching footage on TTJ’s website. In Blogger’s words: “As you watch, the clips and slide shows on the website of the TTJ from the numerous demonstrations called by satmar, you will - in almost every instant - come across a sign with the TTJ web site plugged and even sometimes the banner behind the head table was dedicated to the TTJ group”
Perhaps Blogger can give us a link to the footage.

[10] The Forth picture is the one with the head table back banner for TTJ

Bloger 18:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • DELETE DELETE DELETE! This article is not up to Wikipedia's standards of verifability. Just because I put up a website doesnt mean that Wikipedia should have an article on it. -Reuvenk[T][C] 19:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. At the request of Bloger, I’ve read his/her appeal to reconsider my vote and this is my response. First, Bloger, I do appreciate your efforts here on behalf of the article and I echo what BigDT said, that "this is not a vote on [TTJ's] worthiness to exist or the correctness of their views ... it is just an attempt to establish a consensus on whether or not the organization is notable enough for a WP article." My concern about the anonymous nature of the website still stands, since for whatever reason the website owners have for remaining anonymous, this factor alone unfortunately still makes it fail WP:Verifiability, one of the three WP non-negotiable policies. If TTJ were really a mouthpiece for Satmar, there would need to be some official statement from Satmar or even something in the media verifying this, we can't just assume. Since the anti-zionist views don't appear dramatically different from Satmar, it doesn’t make sense to me that Satmar would feel the need to be anonymous about it if it were indeed their mouthpiece organization. Now, what I have found, however, on a little further investigation, are a few names associated with the website that I’ve been able to glean from some blog sites (these aren’t verifiable sources as far as WP is concerned, but they do shed some light for our discussion here on who is behind the website). Three names keep popping up variously as "founders" of the group: Mark Elf, Tony Greenstein, and Roland Rance, basically bloggers with an anti-zionist slant. None of these three individuals appear to be religious Jews (which precludes them as representatives of Satmar), though there seems to be some possible loose association with the British Socialist Workers Party. All I can find so far is data that points to the website belonging to one or a couple of individuals, an extension of their blogs really, and while the site is certainly interesting, it doesn’t meet WP encyclopedic standards for notability. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 06:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi and thank you for responding:

Firstly, as I said before the TTJ isn’t per se a mouth-piece of satmar – nevertheless because satmar doesn’t have an anti Zionist platform for the outside of satmar - meaning Jewish non satmar’s and non Jews - this group has become the de-facto satmar podium on anti Zionism in the world of non Yiddish - so to speak –, this can be seen thru several thing sited above,for one the satmar rabbis, the banner on the head table for TTJ by an official satmar demonstration, as I linked above.

This brings me to my second point:

Should it be the fact, that the TTJ is run – or for that matter in any way associated - to non-religious Jews, or even more, to a left wing socialist movement, you can rest assured not only wouldn’t you find any satmar rabbi signing a proclamation for the group, but also not in any circumstance letting the group grab any publicity on an official satmar event, given that satmar is not a political opponent to the state of Israel, but rater a morel opponent of it, in fact should the world - and for that matter Evan the Arabs - miraculously unanimously become supportive of Israel, it wont affect satmars opposition to Israel not one iota, moreover satmar has always maintained the position to not be seen in any way having an association with people or groups like the ones you mentioned, so much so that when a group like the Neturei Karta - which is an orthodox Jewish group and even has the same fundamental for opposing Israel like the one of satmar – but because they associated themselves with the political apposition to the state, satmar very openly and aggressively disassociated themselves from them.

Thirdly, as I said before the TTJ is regularly featured in the two Yiddish newspapers “Der Yid” and “Der Blot” that are the official newspapers of the two satmar factions (the Aron’s and Zalmons).The question is would it be considered a verification of TTJ works and structure if it is spelled out in the above newspapers?

If yes, I would be more than glad to present such writings and let the Yiddish speaking and reading editors here, confirm the content.

However I would need more time to do just that, since they don’t publish the newspaper on the web I would need to contact them, go to there office and get a hold of the articles.

17:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Bloger 17:40, 17 May 2006 (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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