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Paris–Nice

Paris–Nice is a professional cycling stage race in France, held annually since 1933. Raced over eight days, the race usually starts with a prologue in the Paris region and ends with a final stage either in Nice or on the Col d'Èze overlooking the city. The event is nicknamed The Race to the Sun, as it runs in the first half of March, typically starting in cold and wintry conditions in the French capital before reaching the spring sunshine on the Côte d'Azur. The hilly course in the last days of the race favours stage racers who often battle for victory. Its most recent winner is American Matteo Jorgenson.

One of the iconic races of cycling, Paris–Nice is part of the UCI World Tour and is the competition's first stage race in Europe each season, starting one day before its italian counterpart, the Tirreno-Adriatico/Race of the Two Seas. It is organized by ASO, which also manages most other French World Tour races, most notably cycling's flagships the Tour de France and Paris–Roubaix. The roll of honour features some of cycling's greatest riders, including French riders Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil and Laurent Jalabert, Low Country riders Eddy Merckx and Joop Zoetemelk who each won the race three times, and Spaniards Miguel Induráin and Alberto Contador. The most successful rider is Ireland's Sean Kelly, who claimed seven consecutive victories in the 1980s.

During the 2003 edition, Kazakh rider Andrey Kivilev died as a result of a head injury sustained in a crash. His death prompted UCI to mandate the use of helmets in all competitions of cycling, except for the last part of a race with an uphill finish. The rule was later changed to require helmets at all times.

The 2020 Paris–Nice was the last international cycling event, as well as the last sporting event in France, before mass gatherings were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Creation
Paris–Nice was created in 1933 by Parisian media mogul Albert Lejeune, in order to promote his Paris-based newspaper Le Petit Journal and Nice-based paper Le Petit Niçois. The race linked the French capital with the fashionable seaside city of Nice on France's Mediterranean coast. It was held in March, at the end of winter, as one of the earliest French bike races on the calendar, immediately following the Six-day racing season on the track.

The first Paris–Nice comprised six stages and was promoted as Les Six Jours de la Route (Six Days of the Road). The first stage ran from Paris to Dijon and, with a distance of 312 km, remained the longest stage in the history of Paris–Nice. As most mountain roads were still impassable because of its early calendar date, the route avoided the Alps and primarily followed the lower Rhône Valley, with the only significant climbs on the last day on the outskirts of Nice. The inaugural edition was won by Belgian Alphonse Schepers, who wore the leader's jersey from the first until the last day.

The race was a success and was continued annually until 1939. Other newspapers from Southern France, Lyon Républicain and Marseille-Matin, partnered with Lejeune's titles to sponsor the race. In 1939, Ce Soir and Le Petit Nice were joined by L'Auto. Maurice Archambaud became the first two-fold winner. In 1940, the race was cancelled for the duration of World War II. Race founder Lejeune was sentenced to death and executed after the liberation of France in 1945.

In 1946 Ce Soir again organized the first post-war race, but although the event was a commercial success, the newspaper dropped its sponsorship and the race was discontinued between 1947 and 1950.

The Race to the Sun
In 1951 the race was revived as Paris-Côte d'Azur by Jean Medecin, the mayor of Nice, who wanted to promote tourism to his fast-growing city and the entire Côte d'Azur. It was organized by weekly magazine Route et Piste. The name Paris–Nice was restored in 1954. The event's status grew in the 1950s from an early-season preparation and training race to an event in its own right, spawning illustrious winners as Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil. In 1957 journalist Jean Leulliot, race director since 1951, bought the event with his company Monde Six and became Paris–Nice's new organizer.

In 1959 the race was run as Paris–Nice–Rome, with a separate classification from Paris to Nice, a second from Nice to Rome in Italy and a third overall. The excessive length of the race — 1955 km in 11 days — was criticized, and the formula was not repeated. In 1966 Paris–Nice was the scene of a rivalry between French cycling icons Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor, whose legendary emulation divided French cycling fans for a decade. Anquetil won his fifth and final Paris–Nice, surpassing Poulidor on the final stage to Nice.

In 1969, the final stage was moved from the seaside promenade in Nice to the top of the Col d'Èze hill overlooking the city. Young Eddy Merckx won the final time trial and won his first of three consecutive Paris–Nices. Raymond Poulidor was once again runner-up; Jacques Anquetil completed the stellar podium in his last showdown. In 1972 eternal second Poulidor ended the Cannibal's streak by winning the final time trial and narrowly finishing ahead of Merckx. The next year, he repeated this feat at the age of 37.

In the 1980s Ireland's all-round specialist Sean Kelly won the race seven consecutive times from 1981 the winning record to date. The Race to the Sun produced several other foremost winners in the 1990s, notably Spanish Grand Tour specialist Miguel Induráin and Swiss Tony Rominger. French allrounder Laurent Jalabert won the race three consecutive times, the last time in 1997, and is still the last French winner to date. In 2000, former cyclist Laurent Fignon took over the organisation of the race from the Leulliot family. In 2002, he sold Paris–Nice to ASO.

World Tour Race
The 2003 race was marred by the death of Kazakh rider Andrei Kivilev after a crash on the second stage. Kivilev did not wear a helmet and died that night as a result of brain trauma. The following day the peloton, led by Kivilev's Cofidis team, neutralized the third stage. Racing resumed the next day, and in the fifth stage to the Mont Faron, Kivilev's friend and compatriot Alexander Vinokourov produced a solo victory and crossed the line holding a picture of his late friend.

In 2005 Paris–Nice was included in the inaugural UCI Pro Tour, but was at the center of a dispute between UCI and ASO just before the 2008 edition. On 7 March 2008, two days before the start, UCI president Pat McQuaid announced that all teams starting the race would be suspended by the UCI. That day, the teams' association (AIGCP) decided by a majority-against-minority vote to participate in the race. The issue was eventually resolved and since 2011 Paris–Nice serves as the European opening race of the UCI World Tour.

In 2012 England's Bradley Wiggins won the race, as part of his build-up to the Tour de France. Wiggins was the ninth rider who won the Race to the Sun prior to winning the Tour de France. In the last ten years, Spaniard Alberto Contador and Australian Richie Porte have won the race twice.

The 2020 Paris–Nice was the last international cycling event, as well as the last sporting event in France, before mass gatherings came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The race was held with buffer zones to restrict public access and was reduced to seven stages as a response to the worsened situation in the early weeks of March. German Max Schachmann won the overall classification after leading the race since the first stage.

Route
For many decades, the route of Paris–Nice has developed a traditional and recognizable format. The race starts on Sunday, most often with a prologue time trial near Paris, followed by a series of road stages southwards across France. Due to France's geography, the early stages are usually flat and suited for sprinters, before moving further south towards the Provence region. The latter, southern part of Paris–Nice normally contains several hilly to mountainous stages, which are the decisive portions of the race. The final stage on Sunday is either a road stage finishing on Nice's Promenade des Anglais or an uphill time trial on the Col d'Èze just outside Nice. Known as The Race to the Sun, Paris–Nice is often considered a mini-Tour de France, where riders need to be both competent time-trialists and capable of climbing mountains.

Despite this format, some editions occasionally had more unorthodox courses. The 2014 edition was an unusual race with no time trials or summit finishes. In 2015 organizers returned to the traditional format, starting in Yvelines, west of Paris, before moving south. The key stages were the summit finish to the Col de la Croix de Chaubouret in France's Massif Central on stage 4 and the concluding time trial on Col d'Eze. The 2016 edition included dirt road sectors in the first stage of the race and a passage on the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux in the fifth stage.

Starts
Until 1962, the race began in the city of Paris. Since 1963, organizers have usually preferred to start in smaller towns and suburbs on the outskirts of Paris or even well outside the French capital. Most editions started in the Paris region of Île-de-France, including nine from Issy-les-Moulineaux and six from Fontenay-sous-Bois. In 1982, the race started with a prologue in Luingne, Belgium; the event's only foreign start. Four other municipalities outside the Île-de-France have hosted the start: Villefranche-sur-Saône in 1988, Châteauroux in 1996, Nevers in 2001 and Amilly in 2008. The last time Paris–Nice started in Paris was in 2000, with a prologue in the Bois de Vincennes.

Finishes

Paris–Nice has always finished in Nice and has only had three different finish locations on its territory. The seven pre-war editions finished on the Quai des États-Unis (Quay of the United States), before moving to the illustrious Promenade des Anglais (Promenade of the English) in 1946. From 1969 to 1995 the race finished with a time trial up the Col d'Èze, except in 1977 when landslides had blocked the road. The Col d'Èze is a 9 km climb, starting from Nice and climbing to 507 m altitude. It is named after the village of Èze, part of the municipality of Nice. Sean Kelly won the Col d'Èze time trial five times in his seven-year dominance.

In 1996, the finish was moved back to the Promenade des Anglais because of the low number of spectators on Col d'Èze and to take advantage of funding from the city of Nice. In 1996 and 1997 the final stage was a flat time trial in the streets of Nice, won by Chris Boardman and Viatcheslav Ekimov respectively. From 1998 to 2011, the final stage was a road race – usually on a hilly terrain with the climbs of the Col d'Èze and La Turbie – starting and ending in Nice. In recent years the race often returns to a final Col d'Èze time trial stage. Bradley Wiggins set a new climbing record in 2012 of 19' 12" on his way to overall victory.

Jersey colours

Since 2008, the overall leader has worn a yellow jersey. At the creation of the race in 1933, the leader's jersey was blue and gold, evoking the Mediterranean sunny sky. In 1946, the leader's jersey was green. In 1951, the organization opted for a yellow jersey with orange piping; before changing to all-white from 1955 to 2001. In 2002, after the race was obtained by ASO, the leader's jersey was yellow and white, before changing it to yellow in 2008, reflecting the Tour de France leader's jersey. In 2018, the yellow jersey features a white bar (same style as the Critérium du Dauphiné yellow jersey).

The points classification leader's jersey has been green since 2008. It was green from 1954 to 1984, and there was no points classification from 1985 to 1996. The points jersey was pink and purple in 2000 and 2001, and green and white from 2002 to 2007.

The King of the Mountains jersey has white with red polka dots, as in the Tour de France, since the race's takeover by ASO. The classification was introduced in 1952 and the jersey colour changed several times. In the 1970s it was yellow and red; later, it was white and purple. In 1984 the jersey became yellow and blue (the colors of sponsor Crédit Lyonnais); the following year, it was blue. Agrigel became its sponsor in 1990, and changed the colors to yellow and blue.

The best young rider's jersey was introduced in 2002, when it was blue and white. It has been white since 2007.

Multiple winners
Riders in italics are active.

Trivia

 * The youngest winner of Paris–Nice was René Vietto in 1935, at the age of 21.
 * The oldest winner was Raymond Poulidor in 1973, at the age of 37.
 * France holds the record of most wins per nation, but no Frenchman has been victorious since Laurent Jalabert in 1997.
 * Twelve winners on the roll of honour have also won the Tour de France in their careers: Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Jan Janssen, Eddy Merckx, Joop Zoetemelk, Stephen Roche, Miguel Induráin, Alberto Contador, Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogačar. All bar Pogacar won their first or only Paris–Nice before they had won the Tour de France.

title: Paris–Nice


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Simtek

Simtek (Simulation Technology) was an engineering consultancy firm and Formula One racing team. The Formula One (F1) engineering consultancy arm, Simtek Research, was founded in 1989 by Max Mosley and Nick Wirth. It originally was involved in many areas of Formula One, including wind tunnel construction and chassis building for third parties. Simtek Grand Prix, the racing team, was launched in 1993 and competed in the 1994 and 1995 seasons, achieving a best result of ninth place. With large debts and a lack of sponsorship money, Simtek went into voluntary liquidation in June 1995.

Simtek Research
Simtek Research was founded in August 1989 by Nick Wirth, Max Mosley and Donald Hughes, aiming to provide a cost-effective design, research and development service to the highest possible standards. The company was initially based out of an office in Wirth's home with one employee, engineer Darren Davis. The company grew quickly and moved to its own facility, including a windtunnel, on the Acres Industrial Estate in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Simtek's clients included the FIA, F1 constructors Ligier and numerous Formula 3000 and Indycar teams.

In 1990 Simtek designed a Formula One car for BMW who were making plans to found a works team. The project was aborted, and BMW instead entered the German Touring Car Championship (Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft) in 1991, the BMW 3 Series cars being run by Simtek engineers. The BMW F1 car design was revived, updated and sold to Andrea Moda Formula to compete in the 1992 season. In 1992, after becoming president of the FIA, Mosley sold his share in Simtek to Wirth.

In 1993, Simtek were commissioned to design a car for the new Bravo F1 team, but the plans were scrapped after the sudden death of Bravo's project backer, Jean-François Mosnier.

1994
In August 1993, Nick Wirth took the decision to enter Formula One with his own team for the 1994 season. Triple world champion Jack Brabham became a shareholder in Simtek Grand Prix, and his son David Brabham was signed as a driver before the end of 1993. Andrea de Cesaris and Gil de Ferran, both carrying sponsorship money, were initially considered for the second seat but negotiations broke down. Frenchman Jean-Marc Gounon was also considered, but already had commitments for the start of the season so eventually 33-year-old F1 rookie Roland Ratzenberger took the place. Charlie Moody, a former Leyton House manager, was appointed Simtek's team manager.

The company secured customer Ford HB V8 engines from Cosworth, and prior to the season starting, MTV Europe stepped in as title sponsors. Wirth's initial design for the 1994 race car included active suspension, a technology used by Williams to win both the drivers and constructors championships in 1992 and 1993. However, active suspension was banned prior to the start of the 1994 season, and so Simtek were forced to revert to a more conservative design, named the S941. This design was heavy, initially included a fully manual gearbox compared to the semi-automatics being used by the frontrunning teams and the Ford HB engine was less powerful than the engines being used by the front-runners. The company employed 35 people, the fewest of any team competing in Formula One during 1994, and only 10% of the number employed by Scuderia Ferrari.

These deficits showed at the first race of the 1994 season. Brabham qualified in 26th and last place while Ratzenberger failed to qualify. Brabham finished the race 12th, but all cars behind him retired. The next race saw both Simteks qualifying but again occupying the back of the grid. Brabham retired early with an electrical failure, and Ratzenberger finished 11th, last of the cars still running.

The next round was the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. During the Saturday qualifying session, Ratzenberger left the track during an out-lap dislodging his front wing. After rejoining the track, Ratzenberger decided the car wasn't damaged, and eager to ensure qualification for the race the next day began a flying lap. At the Villeneuve curva while traveling at 190 mph the front wing failed, causing Ratzenberger to lose control and the car crashed into a concrete wall. Ratzenberger suffered a basal skull fracture, and was killed instantly. A time posted earlier in the qualifying session by Ratzenberger would have given him the 26th position on the grid. His death was the first at a Grand Prix weekend in 12 years. Traditionally, the team would have withdrawn from the event, but David Brabham decided to race on, in tribute to Ratzenberger and in order to raise the morale of a devastated Simtek team. During the ESPN broadcast of the race, it was stated that Brabham was reluctant to race but was encouraged to race by officials who wanted to keep the field full. Only a day after Ratzenberger's death would another driver - three-time world champion Ayrton Senna - be killed in an accident during the race itself. Senna's death marked the second driver fatality of the weekend.

Brabham's decision to continue racing, in part resulted in Simtek making a collective decision to continue racing and "For Roland" was painted on the airbox of the car, to show their reason for continuing. The team only had one chassis to enter at the Monaco Grand Prix, and before the start, a minute's silence was held in memory of Senna and Ratzenberger with the second grid slot painted with the Austrian flag. In Spain, Andrea Montermini drove for the team, but during the practice session crashed heavily. He escaped with only a broken toe and cracked left heel but was unable to race and his Simtek chassis was badly damaged. After another one car entry in Canada, Jean-Marc Gounon became available to the team for the French Grand Prix. He finished the race ninth, the team's best finish of the season, in part down to high attrition but finishing ahead of Mark Blundell's Tyrrell which was still running. Both cars qualified for all the remaining Grands Prix, ahead of the Pacifics, and occasionally also Lotus and Larrousse. Brabham qualified in 21st for the Belgian Grand Prix, ahead of a Lotus, Larrousse, Footwork and Tyrrell car.

Three races before the end of the season, Domenico Schiattarella took over Gounon's race seat finishing 19th. He was replaced for the penultimate round in Japan by another pay driver Taki Inoue, but his race ended after three laps when he crashed into the pit wall. Schiattarella was reinstated for the final round at Adelaide, but both Simteks retired from the race with technical problems.

After a challenging debut season the team finished with no world championship points but, convinced that Simtek could do better, Wirth decided to continue the Grand Prix programme.

1995
MTV Europe's sponsorship commitment was reduced for the 1995 season, but they remained title sponsors to the team. Rather than money, MTV paid Simtek with airtime on their television channel. This airtime was then sold by Simtek to its other sponsors for them to show commercials. Cosworth again supplied engines to the team, with the more up-to-date Ford ED. These were combined with former Benetton gearboxes and Wirth designed a new chassis, the S951. David Brabham was made an offer by BMW to race in the British Touring Car Championship, and accepted. He was replaced by Jos Verstappen, who was seeking more experience after an incident-filled season at Benetton in 1994. The second seat was kept by Domenico Schiattarella for the first half of the season, while Hideki Noda paid a deposit to secure the place for the latter races.

Both cars retired from the opening round, but the second round in Argentina brought much promise. Verstappen qualified 14th for the race and moved up to sixth by the first pitstop. A slow pitstop dropped him down the order and then his gearbox failed the following lap. Schiattarella finished ninth, equaling the team's best finish the previous season. Verstappen's gearbox also failed at the next race in San Marino. Schiattarella retired with suspension failure. Spain brought 12th and 15th-placed finishes for the team, but there were bigger problems behind the scenes. In the 18 months the team had been in existence, they had amassed £6 million worth of debt.

At Monaco, neither driver completed a lap of the race due to another gearbox failure on Verstappen's car, and the marshals failing to recover Schiattarella's car after the first aborted race start. Following the race Wirth wrote, in one of his regular Usenet newsgroup postings, that "a major new backer of the team, with whom I had signed a contract before the season, has finally pulled out and left a large hole in our finances". Wirth frantically tried to convince potential sponsors to come forward, threatening to shut down the team if none did so. In the event a sponsor could be found, existing sponsors MTV, Russell Athletic and Korean Air pledged to increase their own sponsorship commitments. The team did not appear at the Canadian Grand Prix, but were not fined by the sports commercial rights holders, FOM, for their absence. The CEO of FOM, Bernie Ecclestone agreed that the team entered the championship intending to compete in 16 races and as the championship was extended to 17, they were permitted to miss one race.

Negotiations with the potential backers and sponsors failed, and the companies that would pay for Hideki Noda to drive the Simtek were severely affected by the Kobe earthquake. Prior to the next race, Simtek Grand Prix went into voluntary liquidation and the receivers, Touche Ross, were called in. The collapse of the Formula One team also forced Simtek Research to declare itself bankrupt. In total, 48 jobs were lost and with the team unable to be sold as a going concern, Simtek's assets were auctioned off.

Complete Formula One results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Simtek


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User talk:Apex1

Headline text
Societal Change Needed Everywhere!(SCNE)

Hello Friends Everywhere : We are a group of people from everywhere who would like to help make a positive difference in the world society today!

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Please help us to do this work! Thank you sincerely Rick Park apex11@myway.com

title: User talk:Apex1


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Ron Blomberg

Ronald Mark Blomberg (born August 23, 1948), nicknamed "Boomer", is an American former professional baseball player and minor league manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a designated hitter, first baseman, and right fielder. He played for the New York Yankees (1969, 1971–1976) and Chicago White Sox (1978), and was the manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League (2007). He was the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball history. He batted left-handed, and threw right-handed.

Over eight seasons, Blomberg compiled a .293 batting average (391-for-1,333) with 52 home runs, 224 RBIs, 184 runs, 67 doubles, and 8 triples in 461 games. He added a .360 on-base percentage and a .473 slugging average. For his career, he hit .304 against right-handers, and .304 with two out and runners in scoring position, as well as .325 when the score was tied.

Early and personal life
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Blomberg is Jewish with roots in Romania.

Blomberg enjoyed the attention he received in New York because he was Jewish: "To be able to play in front of 8 million Jews! Can’t beat it.  I lit everyone’s candles for every bar mitzvah in the city.  It was like I was related to everyone.  They named a sandwich after me at the Stage Deli!"

Through 2010, he was seventh all-time in career batting average (behind Hank Greenberg, Ryan Braun, Buddy Myer, Lou Boudreau, Phil Weintraub, and Kevin Youkilis) among Jewish major league baseball players.

High school
Blomberg attended Druid Hills High School, earning four letters each in baseball, basketball, football, and track, and graduated in 1967. He was chosen for the Parade All-American teams in football, basketball, and baseball, the only person ever chosen for all three teams.

He received 125 basketball scholarship offers, and John Wooden of the University of California at Los Angeles came out to meet him in person. Roger Couch, Blomberg's basketball coach, said: "Blomberg is the finest basketball player I ever saw — high school or college." He also received 100 football scholarship offers.

Blomberg was selected by the Yankees with the first overall pick of the 1967 amateur draft, and signed for $75,000 ($0 today). He attended DeKalb Junior College part-time, and later majored in psychology at Farleigh Dickinson University.

Minor league career
Blomberg played in the minor leagues from 1967 to 1971. In 1971 he was hitting .326 with a .565 slugging percentage for the Yankees AAA team, the Syracuse Chiefs, when the Yankees called him up to the major leagues.

New York Yankees (1969–1976)
Blomberg made his major league debut on September 10, 1969, two weeks after his 21st birthday. After going 3-for-6 in his first season, Blomberg was out in 1970 with injuries. In 1971, he hit .322 for the parent club in 199 at bats. In 1972, he hit a career-high 14 home runs and 22 doubles in 299 at bats.

Blomberg was a natural hitter who had a remarkably quick bat with tremendous power. Many felt that he should play every day but manager Ralph Houk platooned him, hampering his ability to develop into a star player. Blomberg was the first major leaguer to bat as a designated hitter in a regular season game. On April 6, 1973, at Fenway Park, he was walked by Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant on five pitches with the bases loaded in the first inning,  and the bat he used is in Cooperstown's Hall of Fame. Blomberg finished 1973 with a healthy .329 average, .395 OBP, and .498 SLG in 301 at-bats; he hit .351 with runners in scoring position.

In 1974, Blomberg hit .311, and .338 with runners in scoring position. He was injured in 1975, and missed all but one game of the pennant-winning 1976 season. He tore his knee in the 1977 exhibition season when he hit the outfield wall, and missed that season too. "I had four knee and two shoulder injuries," he said. "Still, I gave 120 percent. I lived in Riverdale, and when I was injured, people came up to me and waved to me and hugged me." He became a free agent at the end of the 1977 season.

Chicago White Sox (1978)
The White Sox signed Blomberg as a free agent for $300,000 in 1978. He played his final game for the White Sox on October 1, 1978, at 30 years of age.

Honors
Blomberg was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.

In 2007 Blomberg received the city of Atlanta’s Phoenix Award from Mayor Shirley Franklin for his outstanding service and achievements, both as a professional athlete and citizen through his charitable works in Atlanta and throughout the country.

Blomberg twice was voted the most popular person in New York.

Managing career
Blomberg managed the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the 2007 inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League. He skippered his team to a league-leading 29–12 (.707) regular season won-lost record, as well as to the IBL Championship. Blomberg had previously declined an offer from the Yankees to manage a team in their minor system.

Being in Israel, Blomberg said, “was the greatest thing — just one notch below playing for the Yankees.” In the league they were obliged to have at least two Jewish players on each team, and Blomberg had two Orthodox Israelis on his. When they asked for time out to say Mincha, he was taken aback. Then he saw the crowd joining them to daven behind the food concession. “It was the greatest rush of my life,” he said. “I was in the Holy Land, near King Solomon’s tomb. I knew I was protected.” But when the team still lost the game, he demanded: “You said your prayers — so what happened?”

Scouting
Blomberg is a scout for the New York Yankees in the Atlanta area.

Writing
In April 2006, Blomberg's biography, Designated Hebrew: the Ron Blomberg Story was released by Sports Publishing. It was co-written by Dan Schlossberg, the author of over 30 baseball books, including The Baseball Catalog, and host of the syndicated radio show, BallTalk. The book discusses Blomberg's life leading up to his major league career, his playing days as a Yankee, and his Jewish heritage.

In 2021, Triumph Books published The Captain & Me, Blomberg's second book. It is subtitled On and Off The Field with Thurman Munson. Dan Epstein, a well-known baseball writer, assisted Blomberg, and Munson's widow wrote an introduction. Blomberg is using the book to advocate for Munson's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Summer camp
Blomberg has been running a summer baseball camp for kids at the New Jersey Y Camps since 2006. He also ran a baseball day camp in Paramus, New Jersey in the 1970s.

Philanthropy
After his retirement from baseball in 1978, Blomberg worked with numerous charitable organizations, most recently the Israel Cancer Research Fund, where he serves as honorary chairman and spokesperson.

title: Ron Blomberg


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Formia

Formia (ancient Formiae) is a city and comune in the province of Latina, on the Mediterranean Lazio coast, Italy. It is located halfway between Rome and Naples, and lies on the Roman-era Appian Way.

Mythology
According to the mythology the city was founded by Lamus, son of Poseidon, who was the king of the Laestrygones.

History

Formiae was founded by the Italic population of the Aurunci. It was called Formiae (derived from Hormia or Ormiai, after its excellent landing) by ancient authors.

It appeared for the first time in history in 338 BC when, after the Latin Wars, it received the Roman status of Civitas sine suffragio as it remained neutral, together with the city of Fondi. Throughout antiquity the city of Caieta was also part of the Formian territory.

It became a renowned resort during the Republican era for rich Romans to build elaborate villas and Horace called it "the city of the Mamurrae" as the rich and noble equestrian family of Mamurra had stong interests there, including the villa-estate nearby at Gianola, which can still be seen. The impressive remains of Roman villas still stretch along the coast from the fishponds in the Nuovo Porto to Gaeta.

Cicero had a villa there. He was assassinated on the Appian Way just outside the town in 43 BC and his monumental tomb can also still be seen. The villa attributed to Cicero, now in the Villa Rubino, includes an elaborate nymphaeum and rooms decorated with frescoes and stucco. The hotel Villa Irlanda contains a cryptoporticus with stucco of the monumental villa of Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul 56 BC), stepfather of Augustus. Villa Caracciolo has a large court surrounded by rooms. Many marble sculptures have been removed from these villas, the majority of which are in the Museo Nazionale in Naples, notably a fine pair of Nereids riding on sea monsters.

Remains of an amphitheatre and theatre can be seen. The enormous underground cistern dug 15 metres below ground was probably the biggest roman urban cistern in the world until the Piscina Mirabilis was built at the end of the 1st c. BC.

Sextus Julius Frontinus (40 – 104 AD), “Curator Aquarum” of all the aqueducts of Rome, had a villa in Formiae in which Aelianus met the emperor Nerva.

The city was the site of St Erasmus's martyrdom around 303 AD, during the persecutions of Diocletian. St Erasmus later also became known as Saint Elmo, the patron saint of sailors. Paulinus of Nola and Therasia stopped at Formiae on their journey back to Nola after visiting Rome at Easter 408. There they read Augustine's letter 95 addressed to them.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the city was sacked by "barbarians" and the population moved to two distinct burghs on the nearby hill, which were under the rule of Gaeta. Charles II of Anjou built a fortress in the maritime burgh, Mola di Gaeta. The other burgh was known as Castellone, from the castle erected there in the mid-14th century by Onorato I Caetani, count of Fondi.

The two villages were united again in 1863 under the name of Formia. The reunited city was badly damaged in 1943–44 in bombing operations and the Battle of Anzio.

Geography
Formia lies on the Tyrrhenian Sea, in southern Lazio, close to the town of Gaeta and next to the borders of Campania region.

The municipality borders with Esperia (FR), Gaeta, Itri, Minturno and Spigno Saturnia. It includes the hamlets (frazioni) of Castellonorato, Gianola-Santo Janni, Marànola, Penitro and Trivio.

Main sights
The most famous monument of Formia is the mausoleum traditionally identified with the Tomb of Cicero: it is a 24 m tower on the old Appian Way, enclosed in a large 83 by funerary precinct.

Other sights include:
 * Tower of Mola
 * Tower of Castellone
 * Roman cistern, one of the world's largest. Similar to the structures in Constantinople and in the Domitian's villa of Albano, it dates from the 1st century BC.
 * Remains of the so-called Roman Villa of Mamurra at Gianola, partly destroyed in 1943, including the cisterns of ‘Maggiore’ and of ‘36 columns’, aqueducts, cryptoporticus and thermal baths. At the centre of the villa at the highest point of the promontory was a grandiose octagonal building also known as the Temple of Janus, which was flanked by two wings and two porticos sloping down towards the sea. Nearby at Porticciolo Romano are the remains of its fishponds. Five busts of male heads dating from the 2nd/3rd century AD have recently been excavated
 * Many remains of Roman villas along the coast
 * Roman buildings in the town
 * Church of San Giovanni Battista e Lorenzo, known from 841. It was almost entirely destroyed during World War II. It houses a panel by Antoniazzo Romano (c. 1490)
 * Church of San Michele
 * Church of San Luca, known from the 15th century. It has a recently discovered crypt with frescos of Episodes of the New Testament and Madonna del Latte.
 * Renaissance monastery and church of Sant'Erasmo. It was erected on the alleged site of the saint's martyrdom.
 * Archaeological Museum.
 * Regional Park of Gianola and Mount of Scauri.
 * Formia War Memorial, with the large bronze sculpture Sacraficio by Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge

Sport
Formia is the seat of the National Athletics School of the Italian National Olympic Committee, founded in 1955. Athletes such as Pietro Mennea and Giuseppe Gibilisco trained here. Formia is also a hub for cycling events of various types; road cycling and mountain biking All of which gives access to Parks in Gaeta and Formia; Parco Monte Orlando, Parco Regionale Riviera di Ulisse, Parco Naturale dei Monti Aurunci, and Tours to Rome via the Old Highway. Formia also has great water sports to enjoy; windsurfing and sailing.

Transportation
Formia itself is one of the most important transport hubs of southern Lazio. The Rome–Formia–Naples railway passes through Formia-Gaeta railway station, from which visitors and residents may travel by bus to Gaeta, Minturno, Spigno and other local towns.

Ferries and hydrofoils connect Formia to Ponza, Ischia and Ventotene.

Twin towns - sister cities
Formia is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇹 Ferrara, Italy
 * 🇫🇷 Fleury-les-Aubrais, France, since 2004
 * 🇧🇦 Gračanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
 * 🇸🇪 Haninge, Sweden
 * 🇮🇹 Santeramo in Colle, Italy

People

 * Antonio Sicurezza, painter
 * Vittorio Foa, politician
 * Amadeo Bordiga, politician
 * Dino Fava, professional footballer
 * James V. Monaco, songwriter

title: Formia


text:
Honorius Augustodunensis

Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080 – c. 1140), commonly known as Honorius of Autun, was a very popular 12th-century Christian theologian who wrote prolifically on many subjects. He wrote in a non-scholastic manner, with a lively style, and his works were approachable for the lay community in general. He was, therefore, something of a popularizer of clerical learning.

Life
Very little is known of his life. He says that he is Honorius Augustodunensis ecclesiae presbyter et scholasticus, but nothing else is known. "Augustodunensis" was taken to mean Autun (Augustodunum), but that identification is now generally rejected. However, there is no solid reasoning for any other identification (such as Augst/Augustodunensem praesulem near Basle, Augsburg/Augusta Vindelicorum in Swabia, or Augustinensis, from St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury), so his by-name has stuck. It is certain that he was a monk and that he traveled to England and was a student of Anselm's for some time. Toward the end of his life, he was in the Scots Monastery, Regensburg, Bavaria, probably living as a recluse.

Works

Among Honorius's works are:
 * Elucidarium: a survey of Christian beliefs (written in England). It was translated frequently into vernacular.
 * Sigillum sanctae Mariae: a set of lessons for how to celebrate the Assumption, together with a commentary on The Song of Songs, which he sees as being principally about Mary.
 * Gemma animae: An allegorical view of the liturgy and its practices.
 * A commentary on The Song of Songs, (preserved in a manuscript from c. 1170).
 * A long commentary on the Psalms.
 * Speculum Ecclesiae, a collection of sermons.
 * Clavis physicae, the first part (1-315) is a summary of the first four books of Johannes Scotus Erigena Periphyseon (De divisione naturae), the second part (316-529) is a reproduction of the fifth book.
 * De luminaribus ecclesiae: a bibliography of Christian authors, which ends with a list of twenty-one of his own works.

His most important work was the Imago mundi, an encyclopedia of popular cosmology and geography combined with a chronicle of world history. It was translated into many different vernacular languages and was popular throughout the medieval period. It contained, among other things, a scheme for the operation of guardian angels.

A major scholar of Honorius is Valerie Flint, whose essays on him are collected in Ideas in the Medieval West: Texts and their Contexts (London, 1988). See also her study of Honorius in Constant J. Mews and Valerie I. J. Flint, Peter Abelard; Honorius of Regensburg (Aldershot, 1995).

title: Honorius Augustodunensis


text:
Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was a political party in the United Kingdom. It grew out of the Kibbo Kift, which was established in 1920 as a more craft-based alternative for youth to the Boy Scouts.

Development
The organisation was led by John Hargrave, who gradually turned the movement into a paramilitary movement for social credit. With its supporters wearing a political uniform of green shirts, in 1932 it became known as the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit and in 1935 it took its final name, the Social Credit Party. At this point C. H. Douglas, the originator of Social Credit and the ideological leader of the group, disavowed the Greenshirts as he did not support the establishment of a political party based on his ideas. The party published the newspaper Attack and was linked to a small number of incidents in which green-painted bricks were thrown through windows, including at 11 Downing Street, the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The leadership stated that they had formed the party after a series of independent candidates, espousing various forms of Social Credit, had sought election and they feared that this proliferation of interpretations could lead to the ideological message being confused and weakened.

The party stood a single candidate in the 1935 general election, Wilfred Townend, who polled 11% of the vote in Leeds South. Despite this lack of success, Hargrave was invited by William Aberhart to take an advisory post in the Government of the Province of Alberta, Canada, that had been formed by the Social Credit Party of Alberta. There were an additional two Independent candidates who stood advocating a National Dividend; Reginald Kenney in Bradford North and H.C. Bell in Birmingham Erdington.

The party began to decline when political uniforms were banned by the Public Order Act 1936. Its activities were curtailed during World War II, and attempts to rebuild afterwards around a campaign against bread rationing had little success. Hargrave stood again in the 1950 general election, but after he gained only 551 votes, the party disbanded itself in 1951.

In 1976, C. J. Hunt, treasurer of the Social Credit Political League, formed a new party under the old name. This short-lived group was based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where it was active in local politics.

Monetary reform supporters
Notable supporters of Social Credit or "monetary reform" in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s included aircraft manufacturer A. V. Roe, scientist Frederick Soddy, author Henry Williamson, military historian J. F. C. Fuller and Sir Oswald Mosley, in 1928-30 a member of the Labour Government but later the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Rolf Gardiner had published articles by both Hargrave and Douglas in his journal Youth although this was during the 1920s and he had no formal links to the Social Credit Party.

In the early part of its existence Lord Tavistock had been loosely associated with the party although he would later lend his support to the British People's Party, as a result of which that group espoused elements of Social Credit.


text:
Talk:San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago

Untitled
I just removed obvious advertising links from this section. The Wikipedia is not for advertising.

Is San Fernando larger?
Is San Fernando larger than Port of Spain? The opening line of this article indicates that. I was unaware of that.

-daryn

 * Yes - 55,000 versus 49,000 (see Regional Corporations and Municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago). Guettarda 04:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Adding images and so forth
I've been fairly quiet, taking pictures here and there throughout Trinidad and Tobago, and I'll be adding them as I can. Ideas/thoughts can be stuck on my talk page. What I am going to try to do tomorrow is get a picture of 2006 High Street similar to the same 1890 shot. I *believe* this might be possible from the bottom of High Street near where Medford Gas Station used to be, BUT the buildings have become somewhat taller so... I'll just do my best. Sorry for my 'absence'.

I have 944 pictures at present of San Fernando related things here under a CC 2.5 sharealike license. Feel free to use them. --TaranRampersad 15:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Query
I'm looking at the Utilities section, and I'm thinking that this should be merged into the main Trinidad and Tobago article since no cities vary, and it does not look like they will for the forseeable future. Of course, if we're working off of a template, I might have missed something and would appreciate getting pointing in the right direction. Thanks. --TaranRampersad 00:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I copied the overall structure from an Aussie city (I can't remember which one right now). While it will be invariant, I don't see anything wrong with including it in all long-form articles for completeness - after all, it's only a paragraph, and it might be interesting to a reader who doesn't want to dig through the whole TT article.  Guettarda 02:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:City of San Fernando for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:City of San Fernando is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:City of San Fernando until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 13:27, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago


text:
User talk:IZAK/Archive 2

Wikiproject
IZAK, with "WikiProject" I mean a WikiProject, an organised effort to improve the quality of a particular group of articles. I am one of the instigators of WikiProject "Clinical medicine". Please see on that page if you think the "Jewish" Wikiproject articles would benefit from a similar approach. JFW | T@lk  19:43, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Category names
Hi IZAK. Categories such as Category:Jewish history (Spain) seem to have natural parent categories, i.e. Category:Jewish history and Category:Spanish history. However the title seems to favour one parent over the other. Is it your intention that the categorised articles are more about Jewish history than Spanish history, or can I suggest the naming convention Category:Judaeo-Spanish history? (Sorry, this is not an offer to recategorise the articles, not at the moment anyway.) Also, categories still seem to be in Category:Experiments, but I've recently been removing parent/grandparent categories where they seem redundant, e.g. removing Category:History & Category:European history where the article/sub-category already has Category:Spanish history. --Zigger 18:01, 2004 Jun 17 (UTC)

Hi Zigger: Thanks for asking. I am focused on Jewish history to be sure, but I understand perfectly what you are saying in terms of Wikipedia as a totality. So your suggestion is actually helpful. However, since Jewish history is long and complex I try to keep the categories to the various eras clear, devoting some categories to major time periods. The history of the Jews in Spain is long and complex and would eventaully contain many article no doubt. But I don't see the problem with putting Category:Jewish history (Spain) with either Spain or Jewish. I am not sure what you mean by Category:Judaeo-Spanish history? Does it mean a combination of both Spanish and Jewish history as it happened in Spain to the exclusion of the Arab/Islam or Christian-Catholic history in Spain? I am not sure what you mean. The category Category:Jewish history (Spain) could also have been called "Category:History of Jews in Spain" or "Category:Jewish Spanish history". But if what you mean is to place the same contents and subject of Category:Jewish history (Spain) into less prejudicial nomenclature such as "Category:Judaeo-Spanish history" as you say, then it's just semantics and may be no problem at all. I have been focused on Jewish history so that it runs from Category:Jewish history to sub-categories like Category:Ancient Israel and Judah Category:Jewish history (Greek and Roman) and Category:Jewish history (Russia) etc Do you think that they should also be re-worked? . Best wishes. IZAK 18:54, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I understand the fine sub-categorisation you have done with Category:Jewish history (Spain) as an example. It also seemed useful as a sub-category of Category:Spanish history. It just looked unbalanced in the visual sense that Category:Jewish history has a sub-category of Category:Jewish history (Spain), while Category:Spanish history has a sub-category of Category:Jewish history (Spain) instead of Category:Spanish history (Jews and Judaism).  My view is that the same applies to the Category:Jewish history (Russia), while Category:Jewish history (Greek and Roman) could be split perhaps.  I have no preference for alternative titles, and wasn't suggesting any different population of the sub-categories, so semantics it is.  I wish I had a bolder solution to all the category issues ...  -- Happy wikipediating --Zigger 19:43, 2004 Jun 17 (UTC)

Category:Jewish philosophers (Secular)
Hi, I just wanted to write concerning some recent refinements that you've made to the Category system with regard to "Jewish philosophers."

I'm a bit concerned about the sub-category of "Jewish philosophers (Secular)". Not because I don't understand the impulse--it's worthwhile to make a distinction between, say, assimilated convert families such as the Wittgensteins or the Poppers, on the one hand, and a religious Jewish philosopher like Maimonides or Martin Buber on the other. But I'm not sure that the "(Secular)" subcategory is the way to do what you want to get done here. Wittgenstein is a case in point: while Ludwig Wittgenstein was never a religiously observant Jew, for many parts of his life it's just plain false to describe him as a "secular Jew"; he was, during many different parts of his life, passionately religious (but as a Christian, rather than as an observant Jew), and even in the years when he could not sustain his faith in God, he still thought in deeply religious terms and grappled untiringly with religious questions.

I don't have a ready answer for what a better way to make the distinction you want to make would be. I'm a little inclined to think, though, that unless and until we can come up with a better way to make that distinction, we revert to putting all of the people currently under Category:Jewish philosophers (Secular) back under Category:Jewish philosophers in order to avoid possible misrepresentation. Let me know what you think. Thanks, Radgeek 08:46, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Radgeek: You are absolutely right that there is no easy solution. However, to class someone who even went so far as to cling to Christian philosophy as a "Jewish" philosopher, regardless of his parentage is logically and religiously absurd. It's falacy to think that what such a person is espousing is called "Jewish" even though it may not be "secular". Perhaps, we can refine it even more to "Category:Philosophers (Jewish ancestry)" ...This is a tough challenge. Best wishes and thanks for the observations. IZAK 21:30, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi again Radgeek:I have given lots of thought again to your concerns. There is a "solution" for now with Wittgenstein...one can have him simply under Category: Jewish philosophers since he is not specifically "secular" he can be place simply in Category:Jewish philosophers, and this can be done for any "Jewish philosoper" who need it. IZAK 16:25, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi IZAK,

I do think it's important to make a note of, for example, L.W.'s Jewish ancestry--because, even though he spent his whole religious life wrestling with the questions involved in Christian faith, the Jewish origins of his family are extremely important to understanding his life--both in the way that the cultural situation of assimilated Jews in fin-de-siecle Vienna shaped his intellectual development, and also in the way that he and his family were tangled up in the terrible events following the Anschluss. (Much of this also applies, mutatis mutandis, to thinkers such as Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, etc.) Thanks for the consideration you've put into this, and I think this way is a good way to deal with it for the time being. I will also try to think some more about it and see if I can come up with a way of sorting these things out. Cheers, Radgeek 17:27, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Category:Religious_law
Hi again IZAK. I noticed that you have blanked-out Category:Jewish law, and all its articles have been moved to other categories. This was a sub-category of Category:Judaism as well as Category:Religious law, while the latter is a sub-category of Category:Religion as well as Category:Law. Did you have some objection to Category:Religious law as part of the category tree? --Zigger 18:03, 2004 Jun 18 (UTC)

Hi Zigger: I have no problem with Category:Religious law as the category tree at all, (just wasn't thinking about it when I made the edits). "Category:Jewish law" is still there and going strong, just combined as Category:Jewish law and rituals because "Jewish law" as a field combines and laps over both the areas of Laws and rituals. For some people "rituals" means the "lesser" laws that may be based on "customs" but are widely observed and known, for other people "rituals" actually means the laws themselves. So at this point to avoid confusion it's fair to have one category for both "laws" and "rituals" as they are both the same in essence just vary in degrees. All articles from "Category:Jewish law" and "Category:Jewish rituals" are to found in one convenient place at Category:Jewish law and rituals. Things were not moved to "other categories" as you say above. Thanks for your interest. P.S. I have just added Category:Jewish law and rituals toCategory:Religious law. IZAK 21:41, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks IZAK. I just wanted to check your plans for the category before doing any more unilateral changes and intersecting your efforts again. I wrote "other categories" as plural because I was too lazy to check every article I'd edited -- and there is no easy way to find every article that has been in a particular category. -Zigger 00:43, 2004 Jun 19 (UTC)

Jewish Autonomous Oblast
IZAK, I am not into categories all that much, but I believe that the article on Jewish Autonomous Oblast was assigned into a wrong one. This is an article on existing administrative division of Russia, even though most of the article's content is about its history. If it is possible to put an article into multiple categories, please think about doing so.--Ezhiki 22:05, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Ezhiki, Thanks for your observations. Thanks to you I have spent quite some time on creating Category:Subdivisions of Russia (it's not completely finished) and you will see that Jewish Autonomous Oblast is firstly the category of Category: Autonomous Oblasts of Russia . However, due to its connection with the history of the Jews of Russia it is also fairly a subcategory of Category:Jewish Russian and Soviet history. Thanks for your input. IZAK 01:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

'''OK, Now I just finished putting all the Category:Subdivisions of Russia into their respective sub-categories. What can you do, I have a soft spot for Russia !''' IZAK 04:27, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

26. Your comments on my talk page
Sorry its taken me a while to respond. I've been a bit too busy for WP lately, plus ever since the software changed I've had some strange problems working while logged in. (I'm not logged in now for that reason.)

Thanks for your comments. I'm going to try to contribute to the more technical articles on topics that I have some background in, but which stay "below the radar" of current polemics. I think that is where I can add the most, as opposed to topics that seem to spark heated debates and edit wars. I really do see the latter as one of the downsides of Wikipedia, something which will probably always plague the project.

By the way, I do this it would be a good idea to have an official Wikiproject for Judaic studies, and some official collaboration between the people who want to work on such articles. Kol Hakavod for all your efforts in the area. -- Dovi

request for help...
I have posted on Requested articles/Social Sciences and Philosophy a new category called History of New York (Jewish & Knickerbocker). There are some Jewish people listed there. I thought you might be interested in initiating some of those articles. Cheers, Kingturtle 01:30, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Template:Russian federal subjects
They look fine to me... how about making the font size a bit bigger? Right now it's 70%. -- ran 02:51, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

 * I've changed it to 80%. -- ran 03:06, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Now it's very good, I can see it. Very good! IZAK 04:24, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Categorization
Hi, I feel you are going a bit over-the-top with categorization, lets remember to keep it all lean, smooth and up to the point. For instance the Gleichschaltung article should be a part of the “nazi germany” category which in turn should be a subcategory of “nazism”--GeneralPatton 04:06, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

RFC
Check out WP:RFC/Simonides  ←Humus sapiens←Talk 23:54, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hassidism: naming convention
Hi, IZAK, could you please have a look at my proposal at Talk:Hasidic Judaism and let me know what you think? --Kpalion 10:55, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Field Marshals of Nazi Germany
Hi, this catagory seems uneeded since there is allready a temolate box --GeneralPatton 07:18, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi GenPatton:The process of Categories is different to the "temolate boxes" (isn't it "template" boxes?), as "Categories" connect with a far LARGER group of other categories and subcategories. Thus Category:Field Marshals of Nazi Germany is a SUB-category of Category:Nazi Germany which in turn is a subcategory of Category:Nazism which is in turn a subcategory of Category:German history which in turn is a subcategory of Germany. So as you see the process and phenomenon of CATEGORIZATION on Wikipedia is different to what template boxes can accomplish as the template boxes are very LIMITED whereas the concept behind categories is to connect things on a far greater scale and at the same time starting off with specific subcategories such as Category:Field Marshals of Nazi Germany. Thus someone looking at the Category:Germany can have the option of looking for any number of subsequent legitimate subcategories, which CANNOT be done by the placing of template boxes on pages alone, altho they are helpful. IZAK 07:29, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks, i get it now. You have a great point. --GeneralPatton 08:24, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Links to Neo-Nazi sites
By the way, somebody has been inserting links to http://www.third-reich-books.com/ and http://www.pzg.biz both of whom are commercial sites selling neo-nazi items that are being run by Gary Lauck and his Neo-Nazi network http://www.nazi-lauck-nsdapao.com/ that is considered a terrorist organization in most EU states. Keep an eye for those links. --GeneralPatton 07:33, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I certainly will be on guard as best I can. The Neo-Nazis should learn from what happened to the Third Reich that they can NEVER win, so why don't they go play baseball someplace or something instead of wasting everyone's time including their own. Such losers! IZAK 07:40, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I’ve took out most of those links, but the page on Hitler has one because the page was locked for a while, and when we’re at it, the Hitler page also has a link to http://www.hitler.org, a site full of inaccuracies, half-truths and outright distortions, and that in turn links to http://www.nazi.org/ the site of the “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party”, the infamous http://www.jewwatch.com/ and the even more infamous [ http://www.stormfront.org / http://www.stormfront.org /]. --GeneralPatton 07:53, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The jewwatch people are nuts IZAK 07:50, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I wonder if I should bring the question of these links to the Village Pump so more users can see what they are and know it's ok to remove them, since some links, like the one on Hitler, present themselves as being “excerpts” of historical texts, thus Users are fooled into believing that they are legitimate links. --GeneralPatton 07:53, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No question about it, you should definitely expose the underhanded rotten neo-Nazi and racist links as much as possible, and get rid of them if it's possible by exposing their tactics. Go for it. IZAK 07:56, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just to set the record streight PzG Inc. http://www.pzg.biz is in NO way connected to Gary Lauck aka Gerhard Lauck.

Categories for Concentration and Extermination camps
Dear Izak, I don't know if you created the catgeory Holocaust concentration and death camps, but if you did I think this category perpetuates serious historical misunderstandings which I have tried to address at Extermination camp and which I will be addressing further at a new article Holocaust (word). The concentration camps were mostly in Germany and were not used for the purpose of exterminating whole categories of people. They were for individial prisoners, and many people survived in them for years, a few for the whole Nazi period. These camps should not be considered as part of the Holocaust, the planned and systematic attempt to exterminate the Jewish people. This was done at the six or seven extermination camps, located in Poland and Belarus. This is an important distinction which should be maintained, but which the new category title blurs. Adam 08:23, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Adam: I have taken your observations to heart and have created more accurate categories based on the articles themselves. Thus there are now separate categories for Category:Nazi concentration camps and for Category:Nazi extermination camps. This should alleviate some of your concerns. By the way, I have been keeping track of your valiant fights in the Zionist articles...so don't get frustrated, your hard work and efforts are appreciated by some of us in Wikipedia-land. If you have any other observations please let me know. Thanks again for contacting me. Best wishes, IZAK 09:26, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Izak, thanks very much for that response. I think those categories (which should of course be cross-referenced) work much better. Thanks also for your comments on Zionism (and also Anti-Zionism, but I would hope that people who agree with my position on those articles might join the fray sometimes rather than just watch :) Also if you have any knowledge about Lyndon LaRouche you might offer me a hand at that article. Adam 13:08, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ketuvim template
Hello Izak. Thank you for your comments - I fixed both issues. If you want to fix such things yourself, and an edit link is not available, you can always do so by editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:templatename. I am not sure whether there is, at the moment, a way to generate a list of all articles in the Template: namespace. (There was once, when it was still MediaWiki:, but I think it was disabled at some point.) A user-generated list, however, is available at Navigational templates. Best regards, -- Itai 08:27, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you Itai! IZAK 08:29, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The term Canaanite languages
has a precise linguistic meaning. The ancient Hebrews may not have been "Canaanites", but their language belongs to the Canaanite subfamily of Northwest Semitic. This linguistic classification is not in any way controversial, and has no bearing on the ethnic classification of the Jews. - Mustafaa 04:53, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Hebrew wikipedia agrees, by the way. - Mustafaa 04:57, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * The citation you quote from the "Hebrew" wikipedia is way off. It has almost no information and is accepting a FALSE categorization, as Hebrew is the language of the Torah, Tanakh, and Mishnah which go back for two to four thousand years. No-one knows what Ammonite, Edomite or Cananite is, as today all there is, is almost only Arabic in those areas, and Arabic is a Hebrew derivative. Hebrew is a uniquely defined language that has survived in all its fullness, whereas nothing or very little is known about Canaanites and their languages barring what the Torah (Bible) records. IZAK 05:27, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Edomite, Moabite, and Ammonite are all known from several inscriptions, the most important of which I have linked to in their respective articles. These reveal - unsurprisingly - that these languages were extremely similar to Hebrew and to Phoenician.  Because of the common geographical location of these languages in Canaan, linguists have chosen to call them "Canaanite languages".  This in no way implies categorizing the Hebrews as ethnically Canaanite, any more than calling languages "Semitic" implies accepting that their speakers actually descend from Shem. - Mustafaa 05:33, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A citation, from ''Les Langues Chamito-Sémitiques" (ed. D. Cohen), Paris 1988:

 * [Kena`an...] est à l'origine du terme cananéen par lequel on désigne l'ensemble des langues sémitiques qui ont été en usage dans la région, soit essentiellement l'hébreu et le phénicien (avec son extension punique) et, pour ceux qui y reconnaissent une langue autonome, le moabite. (although he later includes brief entries on the less well attested languages, including that of El Amarna, Edomite, and Ammonite).

 * [Kena`an]... is the origin of the term "Canaanite" by which one designates the group of Semitic languages which were in use in the region, mainly Hebrew, Phoenician (including Punic), and, for those who consider it a separate language, Moabite. - Mustafaa 05:39, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And finally, a source more familiar to non-linguists: the Encyclopedia Britannica. - Mustafaa 05:41, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Ah, yes, the key phrase you use is "linguists have chosen to call them "Canaanite languages"...So now the question is, what if one rejects the notions of these "linguists" and abides instead by the notions of say, "THEOLOGIANS" or more specifically HEBREW Theologians, who would utterly reject the speculations and hypothesis of these "Linguists"? To go just by the views of "linguists" would be to violate NPOV on Wikipedia as one needs to constantly present the views of the classical HEBREWS (aka as Jews) who abide by the classical teachings of Judaism, which teach that Hebrew was the language of Creation and of all humanity at one point. It was at the Tower of Babel that all the people were dispersed and were divided by (newly) conflicting tongues, or is this too much for you to "swallow"? IZAK 05:49, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This has been a lot of exercise today. IZAK, you need to understand, and please read because I will say this once because I am not very comfortable with long essays and paragraphs. - Linguistics is a very well-established science of comparing languages and how they split from each other, a process that never stops. I personally do not dispute the history of the Book of Genesis; I personally (by POV) believe that Terah was a descendant of Eber (founder of the Hebrews), and Abraham was Terah's son, and Lot was Terah's grandson. Ben-ammi and Moab were Lot's sons, and Esau and Jacob were Abraham's grandsons. Ishmael too, is an Eberite in a such a context. However, these distinctions do not translate into parallel linguistic splits. That does not deny that these people existed, but it's far more likely (and scholarly-accepted) that the languages that became associated with them were languages they adopted from other peoples. In the case of Abraham and his children in Canaan, they adopted the local Canaanite language for local communication. Samples of all four Canaanite languages adopted by Hebrew peoples are attested, written in early scripts related to Hebrew. Phoenician and Punic are also well-attested Canaanite languages, closely related to Hebrew, but the Phoenicians actually were Canaanites, and not Hebrews. (The Punic language survived until well into the Roman Empire, and was a favorite literary language of Augustine of Hippo. Now, the Canaanite dialects adopted by Abraham's family and Lot's family in Canaan only became "Hebrew" because they didn't stop speaking it for a very very long time, and it became the language associated with them, and the prophets of the Bible wrote in it.  As for what language Abraham spoke before he settled in Canaan (the pre-Abrahamic Hebrew language), we can't say; that's why there are theories at Hebrew language.  This is all well-established in the pages of the Torah and the Bible, as linguistic relations between the four Hebrew peoples and the Phoenicians and Carthaginians are well-attested in the scientific world.  The truth is, people of the biblical Hebrew family adopted different languages where they settled.  Canaanite languages by the children of Isaac and Lot, Arabian languages by the children of Ishmael, and later, old dialects of Aramaic, Arabic, Spanish and German by the Jewish diaspora for their daily discourse. But scientifically, the interrelated languages of Hebrews in Canaan are all Canaanite languages no more or less related to each other than the languages spoken by the ethnic Canaanites themselves, and are only also called "Hebrew languages" because they were biblical peoples in the Holy Land who spoke the same language. Since the Torah is theology, we can present it as a POV belief, but not as NPOV fact without concrete scientific proof. As such, we can't actually (yet) prove the historicity of Terah or Abraham (though we can still keep trying), and the distinction "Hebrew" remains an unscientific one. (That's why the Hebrew language articles were both in "Category:Canaanite languages" and "Category:Hebrew language", because one is scientific and the other is religious.) Now please, I understand and appreciate your religious passions, but keep in mind we can only mention theology as a POV, and that the only fact allowed in Wikipedia is NPOV science. - Gilgamesh - 05:53, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

 * Gilgamesh: I appreciate your time and efforts. But really this is all "theology" as were it not for the Bible this discussion and the mere names "Ammonite", "Edomite", "Cananite" would not even be known today. The so-called POV theology has been around for thousands of years. A few years ago some academics with nothing better to do commnenced the process of chopping up anything too "religious" that came into their line of fire and proceeded to impose their arbitrary POV so-called "categories" which are just sheer nonsense and make a mockery of well-estblished religiously reliable facts. Now, there are also sometimes fellow-travelers to the anti-religious academics who latch onto the teachings of the "linguists" (in this case), and whilst having their own agenda (of promoting Jesus or Allah or whatever) claim to share the views of the secular scholars when all they really want to do is to diminish the UNIQUE role and history of the Hebrew people and their language, and in this case "Hebrew" has ALWAYS been synonymous with "Jew"...now you are coming along and telling the world in effect that "Not all Hebrews are the Jews and not all Jews come from Hebrews", which is a patent lie and attempt at distortion of the contination of Jewish=Hebrew identity which so frustrates the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists that they will do ANYTHINg to cast aspersions on the cherished traditions of the teachings of the Torah and Judaism that tell us that the Hebrews are the Jews and that the Jews are the Hebrews and that they alone spoke what we call today the Hebrew language, which they preserved for 2,000 years in the their Talmudic and scholarly texts and which they revived as a spoken language in Israel BECAUSE the Hebrew that was part of them never ceased to exist at all. IZAK 06:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I think Gilgamesh's point is that, since `Ivri comes from Eber, it shoudl refer to all descendants of Eber, and thus that "Not all Hebrews are the Jews" (although all Jews are Hebrews) is exactly what the Torah implies. Is your point that Ivri does not mean "descendants of Eber"? If so, could you expand on it? - Mustafaa 06:34, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa: Also not too complicated: See: Why are the Jews called "Hebrews"?: "The word "Hebrew" comes from the Hebrew word "Ivri." Jews are called Hebrews because their ancestor and founder, Abraham, is called (Genesis 14:13) "Abraham the Ivri." The word Ivri means "from the [other] side," and Abraham came to the Land of Canaan from Mesopotamia which was "on the other side" of the Euphrates. Additionally, Abraham, with his monotheistic beliefs, was on one side while the rest of the world was on the other (pagan) side." IZAK 06:46, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * IZAK, I don't dispute that you believe what you believe, and I never disputed that the Jews were Hebrews. But even the Tanakh says that not all Hebrews were Jews (but all Jews were Hebrews, which I never contested).  But at some point religious belief is inadmissible in Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is a medium of the scientific method.  You're allowed not to like that, and you're allowed to speak your mind to other people and tell them how much you don't like it.  I encourage it.  But the rules are made by Wikipedia, not me, and facts are only admissible if the scientific method attests to them; otherwise, it's just belief and can only be mentioned as such.  And even if Wikipedia were a religious discussion center, there's still the matter that nearly all religions disagree on certain points, and they would still have to compromise and cooperate in maintaining a single archive.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not merely an encyclopedia for Rabbinical Jews, nor for fundamentalist Christians, nor for conservative Islamists, nor even for militant Atheists.  It's for everyone, and everyone is welcome to make NPOV edits at Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 06:41, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

Gilagamesh: I do not dispute what you say. When FACTS are misrepresented then it is is only right to correct them. And to accept only an "assertion" that something is so, is no subsitute for intellectual honesty. We have before us ancient TORAH texts, not "rabbinical" texts, but classical well-preserved and reliable texts revered by hundreds of millions of people, not just Jews and not just by "fundamentalists" as being reliable. This is as scientific and NPOV as a scientist looking into a petri dish which he should stick to doing as he is out of his depth when he applies "petrie dish" methods and theories to black-and white texts that say what they mean and mean what they say. A lawyer in law school would be expected to read, study and explain the statutes and laws, we would not care how well he conducted experiments with his legal ideas because that's not what you do with legal ideas and the language of law. Similarly, to chop up and insert speculations about the language of the Torah and what the words mean is not meant as a "Sunday afternoon stroll" in the hocus-pocus world of anti-religious secular academics and their cohorts. IZAK 06:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm frankly at a loss for words. This is like claiming that every biology article we write should include a Creationism section, or that every cosmology article should include a disclaimer stating that the world was created in six days - except that those doctrines are specifically claimed by the Bible, whereas Bereshit does not say which language was spoken before Babel. - Mustafaa 05:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Darling:Just LOOK at the language of the original Torah! What is it? And of course it is HEBREW. Does it have to say "By the way, we are now speaking Hebrew" when it is obvious that ONLY Hebrew is being spoken. And yes, when touching upon Biblically related "hot-potato" subjects like the oririgins of languages and the origin of life (which NO "scientist" can "know" as there were no scientists to take notes). We can only work with the primary texts and in this case the Torah and the Tanakh are the most reliable texts we have, unless we want to look at the Rosetta stone forever.... IZAK 06:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Um, I don't know what you think I meant, but of course the language of the Torah is Hebrew. Who was arguing about that? - Mustafaa 06:26, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * This is the point:The language ALL humanity spoke prior to the Tower of Babel was the Hebrew of the Torah, it's not that complicated. That why all languages have TRACES of Hebrew in them. Linguists agree that all languages are derived from one ancient "unkown" "core language". In Judaism, this is NOT a "mystery", that one core language was the ancient Hebrew of the Torah, which subsequently becomes reserved for the Hebrew people only commencing with Abraham, as a devotee of the HEBREW God who spoke with him and it is Abraham who brought it to Canaan and NOT the other way around. Now, is that not a beauty of reason and logic, and not mere "theology" :-) IZAK 06:38, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Yeah... The language of the Torah is Hebrew.  I don't know how that can be disputable.  I mean, there's a possibility other parts of it were written in other languages originally and then translated to Hebrew, but the texts as they were issued by Moses and later in written form by Ezra were in the Biblical Israelite Hebrew dialect. -Gilgamesh 06:30, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

 * Gilagamesh:Kindly restrain yourself from making up "theories", just stick to the facts as they are presented to us in the "primary documents" of the Torah, otherwise you will start to believe in Science fiction that we come from space aliens and that Steven Spielberg is writing the scripts as we speak ...IZAK 06:38, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa's calling it a day from this discussion and so am I. But I am afraid I must be blunt here and now: If you continue to flout the rules of Wikipedia, you'll invite trouble, probably at the administration level. You need to adhere to the editing rules the rest of us adhere to, or you'll find yourself not being able to edit here anymore. - Gilgamesh 06:45, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh I see, now you are resorting to scare tactics. I am not "flouting" the rules of Wikipedia and I never have! You have inserted your own POV and grow impatient when your categorization is changed in spite of its erroneous nature. My edit record is excellent. It's your bias that is determining your reaction as you refuse to see or consider a broader more rounded approach to the subject at hand and hence to the truth. What can you do. IZAK 07:08, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Proposal for Mediation
These conflicts have been difficult for us to discuss. I suggest we go by procedure and request a mediator to help us iron out the disputes and clarify the edit rules for everyone, you and I included. Requests for mediation - I will ask first, I invite you to ask as well. - Gilgamesh 08:16, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

Ok, Gilgamesh go ahead, not a bad idea (I hope)... hopefully something good will come out it. Let me know when I should put in my two-cents worth. IZAK 08:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Alright, it is ready. 08:26, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

This subject is now in Mediation, see:

Request for assistance in a conflict between users regarding Canaanite and Hebrew linguistics articles Thank you. IZAK 10:17, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Shalom buddy, how are you doing? Seems there is a bit of a sticky mess starting here. The first step is to get your sources ready. Do you have any renowned orthodox jewish published source which you can offer as a solid reference for the beliefs stated? That should settle things down a bit. All the best. Zestauferov 12:58, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Zest: It's a case of "Judaism or Torah 101" which has been around for close to 4,000 years but which some people refuse to acknowledge prefering instead the "pie-in-the-sky" of "in-the-dark" flashy "slash-and-burn" academics who prefer to pontificate about the unknowable rather than accept the "black-and-white" Hebrew texts of the Torah etc. IZAK 06:38, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Note: Further debate on this issue is taking place on: Talk:Hebrew languages. Thank you. IZAK 06:26, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Request for assistance in a conflict between users regarding Canaanite and Hebrew linguistics articles
I've moved the request/discussion from Requests for mediation to Talk:Hebrew language and the issue has been listed at Requests for comment, because according to Dispute resolution, this should be done before mediation is attempted, and I do think that involving more people in the discussion will help move the issue forward.

Thanks, BCorr | Брайен, Co-chair of the Mediation Committee 12:53, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry I cannot be of much help. The terminology alone gives me a headache. Can't we let them believe that Hebrew is morphed canaanite. JFW | T@lk  14:17, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * IZAK, I appreciate your request, but am afraid the level discussion is over my head. I need to learn more before making anything intelligible out of it. Regards.  ←Humus sapiens←Talk 18:33, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When all the edit warring is over, would you mind reviewing Beth din and adding what you think is necessary?? JFW | T@lk  19:34, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Guys. After looking at the arguments from both sides, may I suggest that a term neutral to either side is used? A term used to refer to the parent language/script of this family is 'Old Negev'. Would a term such as 'Old Negev' Languages be agreeable to both sides?--Josiah 02:12, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

'''Note: Further debate on this issue is taking place on: Talk:Hebrew languages. Thank you.''' IZAK 06:28, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Izak. I've been to the Hebrew-Canaanite debate page a few times, and made comments where I thought they were relevant.  Thanks. Jayjg 17:13, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Jewish Wikiproject
Mazel tov, it's here! Ezra Wax has commenced the "Judaism" WikiProject! The bris is next week. JFW | T@lk  14:11, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, thank you I saw it already and left my personal best wishes. I still have no idea what you really hope to accomplish though...:-) IZAK 05:18, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The aim of the project has not yet clearly been elucidated. However, my past experience with Wikiproject "Clinical medicine" is:
 * When experienced editors exchange information, the quality of articles goes up due to coordination
 * Articles may be announced for peer review or floated for comments
 * Standards (such as Hebrew pronunciation!!) can be agreed upon
 * It makes edit wars briefer and less damaging
 * It helps in coordinated efforts against vandalism
 * Editors who are particularily knowledgable or have access to resources can do quick checks on facts.

I think a Wikiproject would be a massive step in the right direction. At least it will offer some unity in the otherwise very much fragmented approach to Judaism articles on Wikipedia (although your work on categorisation has brought a lot of structure).

PS I would recommend you archive your talk page. It's 38 KB. JFW | T@lk  09:16, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Ok, keep me posted, I look forward to some positive results, but I do anticipate that many others will want to have input...after all this is Wikipedia... IZAK 09:57, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ethnic Jews
Hello IZAK,

Is there any reason why you have been deleting the "Ethnic Jews" category tag from articles and have deleted the Ethnic Jews category? Ghe 14:05, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Firstly it's redundant as there is already a category Category:Jews. It seems many people find these type of categories offensive when the word "ethnic" is attached as it is often abused by anti-Semites. Would Howard Stern, Karl Marx, and others listed be happy that you call them "ethnic" "Jews" or would they be outraged?! What is the point of having such a category in any case? This is a very tough and controversial area. It would also become a nightmare to go around and list every last "ethnic" Jew on the planet and make it seem like some sort of "witch-hunt". There is already a List of Jews page that appears that is adequately listed on Category:Jews. Some of the names in that category should also probably be removed for similar reasons. By the way, who are you, as you have no user or talk page (yet), is there any reason you are hiding? IZAK 02:46, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I thought it might be a better idea to specify whether a person is Jewish by religion or simply by ethnicity. If you would rather group them all into a single category, that's fine with me. Ghe 02:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Category:Torah people
This new category of Torah people is a little ridiculous. Would there be a parallel category for Christians such as Bible people with all the same information? Besides, it's trite. Hafoch ba ve-hafoch ba de-kula ba. You might as well add everyone in history. Danny 02:33, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi, I disagree with you. Firstly, these names appear on Wikipedia. I did not place them there. What should we do? Ignore Noah, or Miriam, or whomever and just not categorize them because you think it's "trite"? (Hafoch ba...is a mystical concept, we are not going to derive where you are mentioned in the Torah so don't worry). Secondly, there are NOT an infinite number of names in the Torah. The names are finite and as long as some people keep on listing them on Wikipedia, there is no reason not to have them categorized and listed by the primary source they come from: The Torah itself. Thirdly, what the Christians or Muslims do will be up to them. To have just "Bible " people would be a problem as the Christians would then insert New Testament figures. So Torah is a good way to differentiate between the two faiths. Many pages already have seperate Jewish and Christian, even Muslim categories as each faith has its own categories page/s. (Again, not my doing, but Christians and Jews do want to keep their sources apart, even if they share them historically somehow.) I am trying to create categories and sub-categories for Category:Jews and Judaism of which Category:Jewish texts is a sub-category and Category:Torah is a sub-sub-category, and finally to organize the information correctly, and Category:Torah people is a valid and legitimate sub-sub-sub-category (yes, I know, these "categories" do tend to "drag on" but that is the nature of this project). It's all perfectly organized and logical. Finally, the idea of the Wiki categories is to make it easier to locate topics and articles, and by having the lesser categories of Category:Torah people, Category:Torah places and Category:Torah events (most pages have no other categories on the pages, so they are "orphans" waiting to be categorized) they allow the user of Wikipedia to find the names of the Torah's people, places, and events with the click of a mouse (ok, they may have to click a few more times), and it will make their search/es much easier as the categories bring all relevant information together on one category page devoted to that specific category. IZAK 02:55, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Category: British Governor General
I'm a bit curious as to the nature of this category. Is it meant to include all Governors-General that have been British? If this is the case, it should not rightly include Australian Governors-General, since these are now Australian appointments by convention. Or is it for Governors-General who represent the British Monarch?

In which case, I'm not sure if "British" is the right title for the category - because the sovereign wouldn't view them as a "British" GG, but rather as a "Nationality X" GG, since (s)he is representing the monarch in that country. Nor would the GG necessarily be viewed as "British" by the denizens of the GG's nation of appointment. In any case, why limit it to Governors-General? Why not have a "British Vice-Regal Representatives" category that would include (eg.) Province/State Governors in Canada/Australia, and Administrators of places such as Gibraltar?

Thirdly (a really minor quibble :) - shouldn't it be "Governors-General" (with a hyphen, and pluralised?)Lacrimosus 10:24, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC).

Hi, You have point on "all counts", let me see what I can do. IZAK 10:29, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Looking for User:Nyh

denominations of angels
check out the angel and cherub articles. i think the point in the ark article was that the christians replaced hebrew cherubs with their own interpretation of angels. - Omegatron 14:00, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

South African categories
Thanks for your message. However, for my "defense" of the category Notable South Africans, please see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, where somebody has put up this category for deletion. Elf-friend 18:26, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bible/Koran
that article appears to be about very general things such as textual corruption, Mohammed in the Bible etc. The page I've been helping to build is very specific - it's about stories, people and places. There is no place on the page for debates about textual authority - it is frimly foccussed on the texts in of themselves and how they are similar. I do agree though that they are similar in topic, perhaps they should be merged into one all-ecompassing page or something like that. -sdrawkcab

RK has reverted your edits in Yosef Karo
Just thought you'd want to know, RK has reverted your recent edits in Yosef Karo. Jayjg 21:03, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your notification. So far there is nothing much to say, as long as he does not call Yosef Karo a Reform rabbi or the founder of Conservative Judaism. :-) IZAK 05:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, I just thought you might want to put them back in, if you thought they were valid to begin with. Jayjg 15:33, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Request to review
Hi, could you please review Names of the Jewish people? Thanks. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 23:58, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Very interesting entry. I looked at it, and I will try to think what else can be added. Thank you for contacting me. IZAK 05:16, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Question
Why did you blank Sorek? I noticed that it was a redirect to Delilah. -- Merovingian ✍  Talk  06:09, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Merovingian, "Sorek" is a place, whereas Delilah is a person. Sorek was actually a valley or a brook, mentioned as the place where Delilah lived. I have created a brief article now for Brook of Sorek to where I moved plain 'ol Sorek. Your care and concern is appreciated. Let me know if you spot anything else. Thanks again. IZAK 06:57, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personal attacks
Please review your statements "(Remove as it is only Sam Spade that is insisting on Holocaust "revisionism" . Is he an anti-Semite?)" and the No Personal Attacks policy. Your ad hominem brings you only shame, and does nothing to promote the civility required to maintain intellectual honesty. Sam [Spade] 23:33, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I appreciate your concern, but you have chosen to dispute one of the rawest and most sensitive issues in Jewry today, the Holocaust by giving credence to the Holocaust deniers, therefore it IS your credibility and motives that must be clarified as what you are saying is offensive and harmful to all Jews both the living and the dead. You further insult the Jew article by calling it a "rant" which makes your true motives all the more questionable and disgusting! IZAK 23:45, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * IZAK, stop making excuses, reread No personal attacks and calm down. Blocks for personal attacks are increasingly generally accepted policy, particularly on a contentious article. "Play the ball, not the man" - David Gerard 00:14, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sam Spade
Don't let Sam get you angry. Trust me, he's not worth your time. If you do have any trouble with him in the future, however, let me know. I've been compiling data on his activities: User:Spleeman/Sam_Spade. Happy edits! -- Spleeman 08:18, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"See also" should not be at the tops of articles...
Hi Izak, You've added some links to the tops of a number of articles concerning Creationism, Deism, Cosmology, etc. On many/most of those pages, a "See also" section already exists at the bottom of the page. Your changes have been mentioned on the Vandalism page, and at least one of them has been changed (your suggestions moved to the "See Also" section at the bottom of the page). It might be nice of you to go back and make the rest of those changes yourself, to save someone else from doing it. Kevin (2004-08-21 16:25 CST)

 * I fixed your broken "see also" lists and created Category:Creationism. Please don't do this again.  --141.211.62.118 05:52, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi, in good faith I was hoping that the following was a means whereby these highly inter-related subjects could be disambiguated as very few of them refer to each other via complete "See also's" (Many pages list disambiguations at the top of the page): See also Creation; Creation belief; Creationism; Creator god; Estimates of the date of Creation; Young Earth Creationism; Day-Age Creationism; Old Earth Creationism; Evolutionary creationism; Cosmogony; Cosmology; Cosmological argument; Biblical cosmology; Deism; Theism; Intelligent design. IZAK 03:23, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I think that it is counterproductive to have many lists in many articles, because the lists are hard to maintain. Would you consider using Category:Creationism instead?  --141.211.62.118 04:59, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi again, your suggestion is not bad, but the main problem with it is that in this case, the "categories" may be changed and switched around easily. In fact someone has already removed most of the Category:Creationism at the bottom of the above pages, and inserted Category:Religion instead. In fact someone has requested that it be made into a Category:Categories for deletion (see it for yourself). Whereas if there is an actual "==See also==" section on a page with links to related or similar articles, it becomes a more secure part of the article itself. That is my take on it for now. IZAK 22:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeshu article
I've suggested that the overlapping and often contradictory information in 5 different articles related to Yeshu be combined into one article. It has been suggested that you would be interested in commenting on this. If so, please see Talk:Yeshu. Jayjg 19:35, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Jayjg: I have purposely kept my distance from the subject of Yeshu on Wikipedia and there is a very good reason for it is because it's the very nature of the "facts" surrounding this subject that will ALWAYS result in (as you put it above) "overlapping and often contradictory information". I have been impressed by the work you and User:Jfdwolf have been doing. Both of you can count on my full support. IZAK 02:03, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Templates
Hi, I have created the templates you asked for. Please provide feedback to the Template:JewishLifeCycle since it is more controversial than the other two (Template:HebrewMonths, Template:JewishHolidays) I created. --YUL89YYZ 14:43, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

 * Dear YUL89YYZ, Thanks a million for the great job! I have done as you requested as well, and have tried to create a little more comprehensive Template:JewishLifeCycle, if you like it, go ahead and insert it in the articles listed in the template. All the best. IZAK 08:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pictures of Israel
Hello, Where can I find copyright-free pictures relating to Israel, Zionism and the Israeli Defence Forces? MathKnight 15:10, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) (BTW: Shana Tova!)

 * Hi, Shana Tova to you to! One place to start is by searching the Google "Images" page, enter the subject and then see what images and photos come up (sometimes there are several pages with many repeats to go through) and there are always those that are not specifically copy-righted or that are available and circulate in the public domain. Hope this helps. IZAK 05:41, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Occupation of Palestine
You might be interested in a discussion on this article's deletion:

Votes_for_deletion/Occupation_of_Palestine Jayjg 05:45, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I have voted to delete it. IZAK 05:59, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jews & Greece
Hello from Thessaloniki, Greece, the city once famous for its Sephardic majority. I'm particularly interested in writing articles about the history, the life & the culture of Greek Jews, and I'd invite you to review my articles including Yevanika.

A short question: What's Hebrew for "Greece"? "Yevan-" or something? Can you provide the name both in Hebrew and Latin alphabets? Thank you. Etz Haim 11:41, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi Etz Haim: Traditionally, Greece has been known as Yavan in Jewish history and scholarship. I am placing your question on WikiProject Judaism where it will get more attention. Please join. Best wishes, IZAK 03:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikinazi
Well spotted, IZAK. I have put Image:Wikinazi.png on Images for Deletion, and I will unilaterally remove the image in a week if there has been no response. JFW | T@lk  11:52, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * It took just a few minutes for Guanaco to delete the image. Problem solved. JFW | T@lk  12:20, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I see this has been taken care of. Just wanted to let you know I got your message. -- Cecropia | Talk 16:31, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:IZAK/Archive 2


text:
Mahafzah

Mahafzah, Mahafzeh or Mahaftha is a Jordanian tribe who reside in such places as Kufr Jayiz, Waqqas and Ghor al-Safi (al-Karak). It originated in the Karak area, where it participated in the battles of Hittin and `Ayn Jalut and were among those who aided in resisting the Tatar encroachments on Muslim lands, and in particular Jordan and Palestine. The Mahafzah were relied upon to help aid a wing of the Muslim armies. Several members of the Mahaftha tribe left the small town of Kufr Jayiz in search of education and a better life. Today some Mahaftha tribe members reside in Irbid, Amman, Karak, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the United States of America, the census of mahfzah members around 3000, Mahafzah tribe has common council in Kufr Jayiz called Mazafah, they meet there in social occasions.

title: Mahafzah