Template:Did you know nominations/Yeshivas in World War II

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 00:44, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

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Yeshivas in World War II

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  • ... that the Soviet government sent some students of yeshivas in World War II to do forced labor in Russia's Komi Republic? (Eliach, Rabbi Dov Tales of Devotion (pp. 50-51) "The replacement soldiers who arrived ordered us onto freight boats that took us to the Komi Sasar Republic ... We were taken to Zeschart, a small village ... We were sent to forced labor the very next day ..."
  • ALT1: ... that some of the students of yeshivas in World War II were exiled to labor camps in the remote Komi Republic? (Eliach, Rabbi Dov Tales of Devotion (p. 366) "These sailed up the river, bringing us to our destination on the banks of Vychegda River - the autonomous republic of Komi, which was part of the Soviet Union ... In the end we weren't taken to Siberia, but to a forsaken region to its northwest called Komi-Koli, which is inhabited by a small, impoverished population.")
  • Reviewed: First nomination

Created by Charlie Smith FDTB (talk). Self-nominated at 22:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: No - I am not convinced that "Tales of Devotion" is a WP:RS. (It is reliable for that Eliach said so, but without corroboration may not be reliable for a factual claim).
  • Interesting: Yes
QPQ: None required.

Overall: This is a good start, but needs some work. (Also, the title does not match the topic—it does not discuss the situation of yeshivas outside Europe during World War II.) (t · c) buidhe 18:20, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello and thank you for reviewing my DYK nomination. At Template:Did you know nominations/Yeshivas in World War II, you said that the book, Tales of Devotion, may not be a reliable source. What prompted you to come to that conclusion? Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 00:11, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Charlie Smith FDTB, there is no presumption that sources are reliable. I take the perspective that memoirs are not generally reliable, as an individual person may be mistaken or misremember, as well as the possibility of occasional hoaxes. If cited at all, it should be attributed as the claims of so-and-so (unless you can find a reliable secondary source which corroborates the information).
The article also has other issues: some WP:editorializing ("warmly welcomed", "famous", "infamous"), non-cited information, and other sources which are questionable (dead link to "project witness" which, despite its claims, does not appear to be referenced in actual Holocaust research[1]). (t · c) buidhe 01:17, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your feedback on the WP:editorializing problems. I intend to fix them as soon as possible, if they're not fixed yet. It may take some time though, as I'm in school and have less time for editing. Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Tales of Devotion is not a single memoir. Rather it's composed of conversations that Rabbi Dov Eliach had students in pre-World War II yeshivas. Among the interviewees were two students who were sent to do hard labor in the Komi Republic. As for the Project Witness source, it was a webinar about yeshivas in World War II, likely recorded, although the link may no longer exist.Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 18:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Buidhe, I removed the words "infamous" and "warmly welcomed", although I think the saying that the yeshivas were "famous" is a factual statement. Regarding the non-cited information, were you referring to anything specific? I will try to replace the Projcet Witness reference with more reliable sources. Thank you. Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 20:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
The article still uses unreliable sources such as JewishGen, which are self-published and/or user-generated. Whereas, there are reliable sources that cover the subject:[2][3] (t · c) buidhe 22:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
Charlie Smith FDTB Hi any progress on this? VincentLUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 10:37, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
I replaced JewishGen references. Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 21:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)


General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
QPQ: Done.

Overall: I began this review mainly to see where we are at with this DYK nomination. As far as I can see, all issues raised about sources and wording appear to have been resolved, apart from the sticking point of the validity of the Tales of Devotion as a reliable source. I believe that this can be resolved as suggested above: "it should be attributed as the claims of so-and-so". So please could you check through all the Tales of Devotion citations within the text, and make sure that each relevant bit of text includes something like "Rabbi Dov Eliach says that ..." Once this is done, I believe this nom will be good to go. Note: I have copyedited the article for language style, but have not changed content, and that copyedit does not affect the DYK. Storye book (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

@Charlie Smith FDTB: Please see the above review? Thanks. Storye book (talk) 10:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

  • As we have not yet heard from the creator, and the attributions to Rabbi Eilach have still not been put in the article - please could someone else do that? (See my review above, for details). it would be nice to be able to give this nom a green tick, now. Storye book (talk) 12:30, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
I have fixed the issue. Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 20:47, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you @Charlie Smith FDTB:. Sorry but I think we still need some improvement, with that source. I think that the Rabbi needs to take responsibility for the information, since he has authored the book. It would be better to say something like, "According to Rabbi Eliach, a student recalled that ..." This is because we cannot prove that a student really did recall it, but we do have evidence that the Rabbi said that the student recalled it. I hope that's OK with you? Storye book (talk) 21:34, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I made it clear that the students' testimonies are only known through Rabbi Dov Eliach (and changed one of the references to a secondary source).
  • I also wanted to add that the "Alt1" DYK option that I wrote should probably not be used as I realized that it isn't clear from the book that the students were sent to organized labor camps, as the Alt1 suggests. They may have been sent to do forced labor in regular towns. I'm therefore writing an "Alt2" below. Thank you Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • ALT2: ... that some of the students of yeshivas in World War II were exiled to do forced labor in the remote Komi Republic? (Eliach, Rabbi Dov Tales of Devotion (p. 366) "The replacement soldiers who arrived ordered us onto freight boats that took us to the Komi Sasar Republic ... We were taken to Zeschart, a small village ... We were sent to forced labor the very next day ...")
  • Thank you, @Charlie Smith FDTB:. This article represents history that should be remembered, so thank you for your hard work, and for your patience with getting this through DYK. Good to go with ALTs 0 and 2. Storye book (talk) 20:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi, I came by to promote this and added two "citation needed" tags to information that needs a source. Something also happened to the referencing (see footnote 9) and I'm not sure how to correct that. Yoninah (talk) 00:09, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you. I filled in the two "citation needed" tages. Charlie Smith FDTB (talk) 00:06, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Restoring tick (for offline source) per Storye book's review. Yoninah (talk) 00:42, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
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