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Most of the article is not about the Baal Tshuvas

But more about Kiruv talking about those people who are responsible for the Baaly Thsuvas. and now that they have their own article see Orthodox Jewish Outreach it gets re-routed there.--יודל 14:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Done--יודל 21:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Should some of this article be split into Orthodox Jewish outreach?

There have been some major edits to this and other articles resulting in AfD's, splits, merges, and other confusions. Please discuss whether or not information here should be split into the aforementioned article, and, if so, what should ho where. Once a reasonable consensus has been reached, we can have a stable adjustement, if necessary. Thank you. -- Avi 14:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There has been no discussion of any text in regards to this article the whole issue is on the Outreach Movement not on the Baally Tshuvahs themselves which this article is restricted to.--יודל 14:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yidisheryid: They are not called "Bally" Tshuvahs (see Bally (disambiguation) to understand this), and if you can't write about this subject's content in a decent and respectful manner, it shows that either you do not care for it or that you know little about what it is or that perhaps you may wish to do it harm as you cause much disruption in all articles that you get involved with, see the case against you at the present time at: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#In which there is a dispute between User:Yidisheryid and User:Avraham. IZAK 08:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

About the subject: there are 2 articles one is for the Baal teshuvah and one is for Orthodox Jewish outreach all discussions about Jewish Outreach institutions and rabbis must be moved into Orthodox Jewish outreach away from this article. because here the article is talking about the Baal tshuvas and should let all the thinks that make them into Baal teshuvas to its own article, like there is a separate article for rabbi and student, it can surely be 2 articles for the outreach and the Baal teshuvah.--יודל 15:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

done--יודל 21:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Baal teshuva movement

Proposal (in response to User:Avi's question above):

There could be two articles, but why do we need two articles? For example, there is an article about Haredi Judaism but what would be the purpose of an article about Haredi outreach or Haredi rabbis? -- since Haredi Judaism includes all its components and you can't have an article about Haredi Judaism without its missions or its rabbis, they all go together. Similarly, while there is an article about the Roman Catholic Church, there is only a List of popes and not an article about Roman Catholic Church outreach or of Popes as such, since there is no such thing as Catholicism without its core functions and its Popes.

What would make the most sense is that the Baal teshuva article be renamed as the Baal teshuva movement because it goes beyond what Orthodox outreach rabbis do or do not do since many secular or traditional Jews start moving to a more Orthodox position way before they connect officially with an Orthodox rabbi or community at large, and at the same a Baal teshuva movement article could legitimately be a sub-set of Orthodox Judaism or Judaism in general, and for which enough citations exist, because that is what the movement has become known as. (It's also referred to as the "Baal teshuva revolution" at times, but that makes it sound like the "Bolshevik Revolution" or such like and will cause misunderstanding as a lead title.) Thus using Baal teshuva movement (just as there is an article about the Jewish Renewal movement) would allow the inclusion of wrting about the complex motives and reasons of the people who join it, the rabbis and personalities that have guided it and still make it happen (no movement can exist without leadership on some level), and both historiacl and present events and issues relating to it in one article. Then Orthodox Jewish outreach should be merged into and redirected to Baal teshuva movement because (as explained) "Orthodox Jewish outreach" does not exist or function in a vacuum. IZAK 08:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree:

• IZAK 08:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Disagree:

• "Baal teshuva movement" rings to me as pov. It is true that most of the Baal teshuva article belongs under Orthodox Jewish outreach. Then why not simply move it there? The remainder of the Baal teshuva article should be renamed chazara bit'shuva, or a more commonly used English equivalent, if it exists.* Chazara bit'shuva should focus on the psychological and behavioral aspects of becoming a religious Jew, which have been widely studied and are neglected in en.wiki. It is the reverse transformation of yetzia bish'eila, which also has an article. gidonb 01:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC) *(Merger or moving the other way, then renaming are also fine. I am focusing on the content organization, not on the technical aspects). This is an alternative proposal. Feel free to move it to a more appropriate place!
  • Gidon: (1) I fail to see any "POV" in what I have stated. What you propose is like like saying that one needs to have an article about Jewish atheists to counterbalance an article about belief in The God of Judaism and that is more of a false construct of logic than my alleged failure to adhere to Misplaced Pages's POV rules by saying we Keep a long established name for an article, and then Expand it. Misplaced Pages is not about point vs. counterpoint like a ping-pong game. (2) I think there are some nuances that you are confusing here due to the different ways this topic is handled in English speaking America vs, Hebrew speaking Israel. The usage of the term "Baal teshuva movement" has gained widesperead usage in almost all English language print and Internet mediums as Google shows, and in addition the even stronger term "Baal teshuva revolution" has also crept in, and I am not suggesting that as a title, as that may be too radical for now. (3) Your suggestion that the Baal teshuva article be renamed by the hardly-known Hebrew name "chazara bit'shuva" (in the English speaking world) is indeed POV revealing an Israeli cultural tilt to this subject because that is not how the topic is handled, named or discussed in the English language, including the most Orthodox venues where it's frequently discussed. (4) Another crucial difference between the Israeli and the American Baal teshuva movement is that in the United States most Baal teshuvas have parents or grandparents who were involved with Reform Judaism and/or Conservative Judaism movements, something that does not exist in Israel or Europe, which left its mark and influenced them, and realizing, often in retrospect, that they began to move in the direction of Orthodoxy, and that by that time many who would eventually become Baal teshuvas would have had and still had already spent good portions of their time and indeed may still have spouses and family members who benefit from their time and/or connections with the Reform and Conservative synagogues and families, something that does not happen in Israel and that obviously has nothing to do with formal organized "Orthodox Jewish outreach" at all. As often happens it is the secular, Reform and Conservative Jews who seek out the Orthodox ones at work or in colleges with their questions and piqued interests rather than the other way around. (5) As I stated above the Baal teshuva movement is not just about "Orthodox outreach" it is a far wider phenomenon that has been noted, researched and written about by sociologists, historians and Jewish thinkers since the 1960s when it came into the fore. The Baal teshuva movement, in its origins, was as much inspired by the Sixties and seventies counterculture, especially the Counterculture of the 1960s, the Hippie movement (as per Reb Shlomo Carlebach), the Woodstock Festival, the Drug subculture, the new interest in Eastern religions (as per Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan) and the spirit of youth rebellion that still pervades US high schools and college campuses to the present time. It was in recognition of this phenomenon and in response to it that the earliest emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe went out to connect with these people. (6) One should not make the great error of logic and of history, as the name "Orthodox Jewish outreach" alone would imply, that it was somehow or other the "Orthodox establishment" that "created" or encouraged or even now creates the Baal teshuva movement. On the contrary, there is tremendous prejudice AGAINST Baal teshuvas in the mainstream Orthodox and Haredi communities, proven by the fact that they will generally not accept Baal teshuvas as spouses for their children, the Haredi and Hasidic leadership does not allow any Baal teshuvas positions of meaningful leadership and influence (beyond singing the "party line" of this or that group or organization) regardless of how many years the Baal teshuvas spend in yeshivas or turning their lives around as latter-day Rabbi Akivas and they are often viewed with scorn in Orthodox synagogues as a kind of second-class sub-group of "Untouchables" ("near-yet-so-far") forcing them to create their own "unique" ("separate but equal") places of worship, in spite of all the hype and hoopla in Orthodox circles about "Kiruv" (" close"), amazingly all these serious roadblocks have not stopped anything as the movement continues to grow spontaneously among all sectors and classes of Jews worldwide -- because it is a grassroots movement with its own natural life endowed with spontaneous regeneration. In the early stages of the movement the Lubavitchers were as surprsied as anyone else that anyone, let alone college students, would have an interest in Hasidic or Haredi Judaism, and to boot, when Lubavitch finally got organized and got rolling, the Lithuanian rosh yeshivas mocked and scorned the Lubavicth outreach efforts as outlandish and not becoming of Orthodox Jews. So the "Orthodox perspective" is only one aspect of a far broader movement sweeping across the Jewish world. (7) Therefore, based on the facts at hand, the truth is that the Baal teshuva movement is a spontaneous grassroots movement that takes place in the Jewish people starting at the latter part of the twentieth century and gaining momentum till the present. Plenty of citations and references can be found and used merely by following all the leads for Baal teshuva movement on Google (8) Your point about yetzia bish'eila is valid but it is a different subject. It is not about secular Jews studying Judaism, becoming religious, and then perhaps adopting Orthodoxy which is what the Baal teshuva movement is about, whereas yetzia bish'eila is another phenomenon. I could and should perhaps be renamed Jews who leave Orthodox Judaism as the name of "yetzia bish'eila" has been used by the Israeli left as a gimmick to mimmick and mock "the real thing" (the conventional Orthodox, Haredi and Hasidic Judaism that they hate) and as a kind of "alter ego" that has no real life of its own but only in relation to what it is meant to critique. A type of "anti-Torah" (i.e yetzia bish'eila) for the Torah (i.e. Baal teshuva), which is a ridiculous thought if you focus on it. That something has no unique identity of its own, only what it opposes or imagines itself to oppose. As if anyone could take seriously a statement that would postulate "E does not equal MC2" a very poor and faulty comparison.(9) An important thing to note is that while the study of psychology may be helpful in some cases, the use of "psychological and behavioral aspects of becoming a religious Jew" as metrics cannot and will not ever fully describe and expalin this phenomenon, because the Baal teshuva movement, as a true Jewish national and international movement cuts across all cultures, continents, and communities. As proof of this, the Jews of the former USSR have little in common with American hippies, and Israelis have little in common with South African or Australian Jews yet in all those countries and their Jewish centers you will find vibrant Baal teshuva communities that keep on sprouting up at all levels, in all professions and walks of life and when least expected. (10) I hope you are beginning to realize the complexity of this subject and how it cannot be squeezed back into any kind of "Genie in a bottle" as that would minimize serious and NPOV understanding of one of the most fascinating movements of modern Jewish history. IZAK 10:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

To answer this long long talk above i cannot gather all the time but try i must so here u go:

1. Calling certain people a movement tells the readers that their minds work somehow in one motion which in fact we are dealing with too many people too many reasons and too many motives to look at them as a movement. The proposal to call it chazarah betshuvah isn't in any way to counter Chazara bish'ela its simply the better choice for a name of a certain phenomena, movement is more POV metaphor for a name then a dry name that does not invoke any borrowed notations of movement.
2. Right this should not be a title. For this reason that the results are indeed a small group of Jewish outreach professionals responsible to push on wikipedia this POV.
3. The name Chazarah bitshuva is exactly known as chazara bishaleh, we aren't going to say that because one POV name is more known it should replace its right name, lets face it those articles are written now for this reason to explain subjects unknown. and the proper name must be chosen, not the pushed POV by the kiruv workers and their p.r. paid professionals.
4. The difference in Israeli and American Baaly thshuvah are more then enumerated and has nothing to do with this discussion. especially since the article here was already created.
5. This is only one aspect of the broader phenomena.
6. This is false it is in no way a grass roots phenomena the organizations are grass roots but they have their own article already Orthodox Jewish outreach, the Baaly tshuvah aren't a grass roots phenomena they have millions upon millions of personal reasons and motivations to become like this only after their self kindled commitment to become religious they get connected to the outreach phenomena.
7. The hardships enumerated does not make them into a movement since those problems are your typical clash between orthodoxy and modernity, the Baaly tshuvah are modern thinking people and the Orthodox Jews are born into a ancient middle age or stone age life style and thought system, this is as much a factor in the Yetzia bish'eila as the Chazarah bitshuva phenomena.
8. the returnees have the same exact issues as the return backs. all grapple with challenge how to live in a new totally weird lifestyle for them.
9. True its not all physiological but it is the major and mainly part of it. the movement part is definitely the smaller factor here
10. There is no complexity at all here, this is a very clear cut deal, the word movement is very POV and no matter how many side discussions brought up it stays very simple Chazarah bish'eileh is the only right choice for 2 users against 1 we need more users to make this permanent but meanwhile it is wrong to create a new article with the clear POV word movement as its name--יודל 19:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• Disagree: anything in wikipedia must be before in some other place, nobody calls it Baal tshuvah movement, it is not a movement, every baal tshuva gets normalized after one generation, they do not consider themselves separate and unique. and 2 articles is very good one for Baal Teshuva and the second for Orthodox Jewish outreach are 2 different things, they are like a rabbi and a student, one is the rabbi who is Orthodox and one is the person who becomes orthodox.--יודל 14:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Yidisheryid: You miss the point/s I am making. I am not disagreeing with you in the very limited sense you speak of. But the question being discussed here is about looking at the totality of a movement and using its proper name otherwise why not merge the Baal teshuva article into the Repentance in Judaism according to you? So as you can see it's not just about the label of a singular "Baal teshuva" or many similar ones because in any case EVERY Jew is required to do teshuva all the time and be a contrite "Baal teshuva" which would not help understand the modern movement that is being discussed here and what has transpired to create it in historical, sociological and cultural terms which is fully appropriate and applies here, as well as other factors that contributed to it, and not just about rabbis or students who do this-or-that. Thus when there are literally tens of thousands of Jews since the mid-twentieth century who have arisen and moved in a certain direction, then, as happened in earlier times, the/ir movement gets a historical, sociological and cultural NAME because of its quantifiability, notability, and a growing academic literature and research about and into it, such as with the Pharisees and Sadducees of ancient times that are not just about what an individual "Pharisee" or "Sadducee" is or is not, but about entire movements in Jewish history. Similarly, in modern times there has been the Haskalah (the Jewish enlightenment movement) and the Bundists (the Jewish labor movement) and one would not limit them to articles about or based on the name of the individual singular word Maskil or Bundist. Or similarly articles about Religious Zionism and Hasidic Judaism refer to the Religious Zionist movement and to the Hasidic movement, and one would not expect lead articles about them to be called "Religious Zionist" or "Hasid"! Finally, your assertion that "nobody calls it Baal tshuvah movement" makes absolutely no sense if you simply check the many scholarly and reliable sources that a simple Google search of "Baal teshuva movement" reveals that the term "Baal teshuva movement" is very much used in the English-speaking world. IZAK 04:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
    • A Hasid or Hareidi is here to stay therefore its hasidim a Baal Tshuva wants his kids to be Hareidim or Orthodox Jews he nobody wants to perserve the Baal tshuva people as a movement why should we in wikipedia make it as such? if Google results give some mentions referring to this it is indeed not the main stream name and should not be named like this in the header, but only as a side point.--יודל 12:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Of course a Hasid or Haredi is here to stay, and no-one wants to label a Baal teshuva forever, but these are not the points in dispute. The term "Baal teshuva movement" describes what has happened in modern Jewish history and what is still happening, it describes a phenomenon and not a person as such. The Google search confirms that the term "Baal teshuva movement" is valid and has widespread currency in academic and literary books, publications and venues. IZAK 08:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Fact is this isn't a movement at all, the definition of a movement does not apply here, because this is not dealing with one factor or collective body thats moving, this is just like any other group of people that act in no way connected one to an other, nor are their lives in any way or shape connected to one an other. This article is only about the main point of a certain phenomena in nature, it is some man, some humans, not a phenomena, although the phenomena can be and should be a large part in this subject, it should not overtake the header, because we are still talking here about a person rather then its phenomena or phenomenas who are responsible for those people. 1 or 3 phenomenas which has Google results is not that important to overtake the subject's main thrust of issue here, it can be discussed at length inside the article as reasons or motivators but the lead and the header must talk about the main issue at hand and thats the people discussed which are Baaly Tshuvah.--יודל 14:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
          • I don't know what you want! I have cited sources, books, articles and even the President of the United States that the Baal teshuva movement is known, recognized, watched, discussed, mentioned, studied and it exists. Google did not create that artificially! Google just helped us locate more sources for the usage of the term. In fact Google has many other sources but I have not use, such as blogs or newgroups which use the term Baal teshuva movement a lot more. So you your criticism holds no water. IZAK 15:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
            • • All those souces and citations to call the subject a movement is from POV sources, this is worth ziltch nada zip and the term movement should not be left in the header as 2 users are against 1 meanwhile about this.--יודל 16:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
                • Listen, first of all, we were not voting on policy, it was I who was looking for input and so far there has been very little from anyone besides me, all you seem able to do is shout a lot and to attack articles by slicing them up and then cutting and pasting materials from other articles all over the place...do you think people are blind to these meshugasin? Take a good look at WP:DEMOCRACY and you will see that Misplaced Pages is not a democracy and I answered all the points thoroughly. Since there was no response, beyond Gidonb saying he likes "chozer bitshuva" an obvious Israeli name that has nothing to do with Americans, I believe that everything now has been settled and is 100% kosher veyosher. Misplaced Pages is about writing GOOD articles and citing reliable sources which is what I did. That is NOT called "POV" rather I have bent over backwards to display true WP:NPOV! If anything, it is you that started messing around with this entire subject when you split up the original Baal teshuva article and moved the material to a new article called Orthodox Jewish outreach without consulting anyone. Then you get upset that I also am allowed to have input here as if you WP:OWN this territory, sheesh! And then you even had the chutzpa to insult me by saying that the only reason you were doing it was to mess up my work on Misplaced Pages. You are clearly in violation of many Misplaced Pages rules, like WP:DISRUPT, WP:EDITWAR, WP:NPA and many more, but I have been very patient with you, so don't preach to me about your crazy ideas about what is or isn't right when you have admitted more than once that you enjoy being a WP:VANDAL. I repeat, the Baal teshuva movement article is NOT "POV" it is a widespread term that has been used for decades by Jews and non-Jews alike. I don't know what planet you have been living on, and maybe it's because your main language is Yiddish, that you don't realize this. Every single one of the quotes in the article is in keeping with WP:CITE so don't give me your baloney that "this is worth ziltch nada zip" IZAK 17:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
                  • • There is no need for nobody to consult before opening up a new article, what happened, happened. Now we have 2 users who have very eloquently explained to u that the name movement is more POV then Chozer bisaleh. the sources at hand is not at all in place here, i agree with you that every name is POV and simply because the usage notates something its not a problem, but in a clear choice of 2 names one that is a metaphor and a judgment call on people, and one that is a name on a phenomena without any Judgment directly on its people should be a no brainier here. I know i am only 2 against 1 and it makes it sound as if this was a democratecy based decision, thats why i am waiting for more time to come into play here before we can move it to the proper name on a consensus outcome, although the creation of the name movement must be undone immediately since it was clearly done against consensus.--יודל 17:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Are the Bally thsuvahs a Movement?

This header was made by me to divide so many sections, everybody should help out in making it a better header--יודל 21:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

What in heavens name are "Bally thsuvahs"? It reveals your utter disdain and mockery of the very subject you claim to have an interest in! IZAK 06:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you daring to destroy a good article again? Do not threaten me. The Baal teshuva movement article was written excellently with great care and it contains reliable sources from Jewish and non-Jewish books and personalities, and as I s even US President Ronald Reagan used it in speech quiting from Irving Kristol over twenty years ago. Look at every one of the sources and you will see that most of them come from books and reliable sources. The word "movement" will stay simply because it's used, printed and publicised all over the place by lots of reliable writers, researchers and academics (not to mention rabbis and even priests)! The only reason that I can imagine that you hate the word "movement" so much is that you want to destroy the entire movement on Misplaced Pages because you have your own pro-Christin missionary POV agenda, as you have told me many times about your love of Christian missionaries and what they do. Why else would anyone care about such a thing in any case? IZAK 18:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

we should care here about people. The Baaly Thsuva are real people we should not dismiss consensus like this, This grave breach of opening an article against consensus should be corrected, president Reagen cannot play more leverage then the wikipedia writers, i will study why he called them like this, see for the proper context and clarify if this wasn't a campaign deceleration to wooo in some orthodox voters who tend to be more pro r=Reagen then the liberal groups. Please provide a link here about your source and perhaps consensus will be changed as of now the word Movement is POV and the other word should be used.--יודל 18:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

We all care about people here at least as much as you do, who are you kidding? Everyone respects the Baalei teshuva (why don't you write their name right if you care about them so much??? just another example of your inconsistencies, to preach about caring for them at the same time as you couldn't care less how their name is spelled!) Look at all the sources in the article. It's not just the Reagan citation, and obviously it's not a question of him deciding anything, but rather the fact that the name Baal teshuva movement gets mentioned by him in speech to a Jewish group (and the Bnai Brith need a lot of outreach as we all know...) see these other citations in the article:

1. Rabbi Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University: A baal teshuva movement has emerged with a significant number of Jews from non-traditional homes returning to the observance of grandparents and great grandparents.
2. Professor Dana Evan Kaplan of University of Miami: in the 1970s. Orthodoxy began a remarkable revival, spurred on by the missionizing done by the Baal Teshuva movement among other Jews.
3. Rabbi Aharon Feldman of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel: there is a deep yearning for spiritual values. This yearning has taken on massive proportions as expressed in the baal teshuva movement.
4. Professor William Helmreich of Queens College: Baal teshuva movement noted as part of growth of Orthodoxy
5. Professor Timothy Miller of University of Kansas: academic research about the Baal teshuva movement
6. And last but not least, our best President Ronald Reagan quoting Irving Kristol: the rise of -- and I hope I get this right -- Baal Teshuva movement -- a powerful movement of Jews, young and old, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed, returning to the ancient ways of the faith.

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