Wikipedia:Peer review/History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union/archive1

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

An excellent article that deserves a shot at FA status. Thorough, interesting, well-written, and well-illustrated. Lets start the process. --Goodoldpolonius2 20:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:LEAD. Something like, "Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, including Hasidism, etc., etc., while also facing historic persections in the form of pogroms, forced settlement in ghettoes, and in anti-semitic propaganda such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Kaisershatner 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Lead needs expantion. More online citations would be needed, especially in the early sections, for such strong statements as 'Jews were not tolerated in the area of Muscovy'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• This should soon be an FA. Here are some comments to help it along.
  • More footnotes...I want to know where the specific parts of the article are coming from (pretend I'm a student who wants to research this further - the ten 300 page books in the reference section is over-whelming - point me to where I should go for to find what the article is talking about). The following could use footnotes:
    • "Documentary evidence as to the presence of..." (tell us which documentary evidence )
    • "estimated 2,000 Jews dead...estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews were killed (whose estimate? These kinds of things are rounded off greatly and differ greatly between sources. Someone can just come along, claim these are wrong, and put in new numbers according to their source. So just source these numbers), same with "The Holocaust" numbers.
    • "the gates probably leading to which were known ...probably, Vladimir-in-Volhynia" ("probably" sounds like the writer is giving an opinion, if it is not known then say so)
    • "According to Lenin, anti-Semitism was an "attempt to divert the hatred...toward the Jews."" (reference quote)
    • "a gang of marauding Jews"; (seems to be a quote or referencing something)
    • ""30% (as of 2003 it was only about 1.2%). " (this is someone esle's conclusions to a study, provide reference to the source of where this was found.
    • stated that "national and racial chauvinism...repressed in the USSR."(reference quote)
    • Soviet Union did grant official "equality of all citizens regardless of status, sex, race, religion, and nationality." (is that a quote?)
    • In the 1955 UN Assembly's session a high Soviet official still denied... (might be neat to reference the UN transcripts)
    • "Stalin targeted "corrupt Jewish bourgeois nationalists," eschewing..." (quote?)
    • "In 1989 a record 71,000 Soviet Jews were granted exodus..." (ref numbers, is "exodus" the really best word?)
  • "Tradition places Jews in southern Russia..." - what does that mean? tradition, like the bible?
  • "...granted them by local rulers. (See also Shtadlan). These Jews were not..." - I'm not sure about this but please check the Manual of Style about self-refences
  • Last paragraph of "Jews and Bolshevism" seems to be a concluding thought to the previous paragraph, consider combining/merging them.
  • "After the October Revolution " gets sub-section happy, always be considering and re-considering the layout and structure of the article.
  • "That is, however, an oversimplification, since Stalin was just as brutal when..." - this seems like an opinion, please re-word
  • The paragraph "Emphasis on education and movement from countryside shtetls to newly industrialized cities allowed many Soviet Jews to enjoy overall advances under Stalin and to become one of the most educated population groups in the world." is just begging for an expansion and/or ref. Same with the paragraph "Over 200,000 Jews were also killed in battle fighting in the Red Army against the Nazis."
  • Consider re-naming the section "The collapse of the Soviet Union and emigration to Israel" as only two sentences actually involve that time period and that emigration action
  • Consider adding another sentence or two on Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, what they do, why they exist. I don't know anything about them but they sound important/influential to the subject.
  • The paragraph "Anti-Semitic incidents inclyde explosives aimed at the Jewish community, random acts of violence, and high profile cases such as the stabing of eight Russian Jews in a Moscow synagouge on January 11, 2006 by a man with neo-Nazi ties.": re-consider this paragraph as a whole, it seems out-of-place (sticks out from the rest of the article) and inappropriate (more current events than history). I don't see what it is adding to the article/section so consider just omitting it.
  • "It is hard to imagine Russian art without..." this tone and list format really sticks out, re-word it so it is more in tune with the rest of the article.
  • "Demographic data" is hurting - rename to "Demographics", convert ext.links to footnotes, re-write to avoid fragmented sentences/paragraphs into brilliant prose. --maclean25 22:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Great article. Here are some comments:

• After the overthrow of the Khazarian kingdom.. , Jews in large numbers fled to the Crimea, the Caucasus, and the Russian principality of Kiev. There is absolutely no historical evidence that proves this. There are several historical theories that speculate that this could have happened, but we should probably stick to facts here. Please, refer to Khazars#Khazars outside of Khazaria (as you probably already did) for more details. I would suggest phrasing similar to the one on the Khazars page: After the overthrow of the Khazarian kingdom.. , Jews may or may not have fled to the Crimea, the Caucasus, or the Russian principality of Kiev.
• Mikhail Khodorkovsky ... is also Jewish. This has been repeatedly stated in the newspaper coverage of his trial, most likely to identify him as the "other". However, while Khodorkovsky's father is indeed Jewish, Khodorkovsky himself never did anything Jewish in his life, and, most importantly does not self-identify as a Jew - which would make him a non Jew from secular standpoint. Halakhicly, he is not a Jew either, since his mother was not Jewish. I would suggest revising the sentence accordingly.

Hope this helps! CasualFighter 17:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)