Talk:Germans/Archive 5

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Well done with the ethnic cleansing

Enough said
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Enough said.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Please try and discuss this issue without recourse to emotive language - that's what has held up the discussion so far. Please make input into the section above. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC) I am sorry I tend to become emotional when someone suggest reenacting phase one of the holocaust.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC) This tired strawman again. Our argument has nothing to do with hate. It has everything to do with consistency. The article was written about ethnic Germans, which neither Einstein or Marx are a part of. I am of the belief that this article should have been about German nationals from the get go, but that's not how it turned out.Evildoer187 (talk) 01:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC) You have proven again and again that you know nothing about ethnicity or history or science, and everything about bigoted nationalism. I have not mentioned hate - but what is going on here is an exact reenactment of the redefinition of "Germanness" that lead to the holocaust. And that is not a Godwin fallacy that is simple fact.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Bigotry is hatred, so yes you did mention it. This article is not about German citizens, but about the German ethnicity. Until that changes, then Marx and Einstein have to go. Would you put a German citizen of full African, Roma, or Turkish ancestry in that box? Because putting someone of 100 percent Jewish heritage in there would be just as stupid, regardless of what the Nazis did. Frankly, I don't even care what they did because that's not relevant here. I am tired of your arrogant accusations of bigotry and harboring Nazi sympathies. I am not, nor will I ever be, bigoted against my own people. It is a very poor argument.Evildoer187 (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Change to lead?

After reading the past few discussions above I believe we need to make the lead more clear. What do others think - or any other suggestions - or do most think all is just fine?Moxy (talk) 09:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Current text

• The Germans (German: Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe.

No source for current text:

Proposed text(s)

• Germans (German: Deutsche) are the people who are identified with the modern country of Germany and historically Germanic Central Europe. This connection may be ethnic, residential, legal, historical or cultural.

Source for above text: Lowell Barrington; Michael J. Bosia; Kathleen Bruhn (6 February 2009). Comparative Politics: Structure and Choice. Cengage Learning. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-618-49319-7.

Comments

The main problem here is that the article was written about ethnic Germans who are indigenous to Germany and had resided there for thousands of years. Under those parameters, Jews like Einstein and Marx are obviously not eligible for inclusion in the template. Simply changing the lead is not going to fix the problem.Evildoer187 (talk) 10:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I have discovered this discussion via the History/Geography RFC page. What strikes me most, on an initial scan of the article, is that it attempts to define "German" using several different criteria, yet attempts (either explicitly or just by association) to connect these to the concept of an ethnic group. Certainly the lead needs changing to reflect the scope of the article as it stands, but what perhaps really needs discussing is what the scope of the article should be. It is of course pointless to discuss which people should be mentioned within the article until it has been decided what kind of "German" the article is talking about. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Don`t care about the picture argument - but it does highlight a problem. The concern is the definition in the lead - Because I disagree with Evildoer187 assertion that the article is or should be all about indignity (a source of offense racial calcification) - the article (to me) clearly talks about ethnic Germans, German diaspora as-well as the activities of the average German citizen - as it should. The article is not perfectly balanced in this way - but all Wiki pages are all a work in progress. Ethnic Germans is a section that leads to its own article within this overview article that should be about Germans in general. The current definition does not convey the actual situation - as in historical and the modern term (as reflected in the ref above).Moxy (talk) 10:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s racist to use the term indigenous. Germans are the indigenous people of Germany while Jews immigrated there after being expelled from Israel. Russians are the indigenous people of Russia. Native Americans are the indigenous people of America. The fact that someone is indigenous though doesn’t mean it’s ok to treat minorities or immigrants as class B citizens. Racism is not saying “he is an immigrant”, “he is ethnically Turkish”, racism is when you thing human rights and place in society should be influenced by those factors, that’s when it gets disgusting.

I agree the article talks about ethnic Germans! That’s why I said that Einstein and Marx should not be in the images in the first place. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 13:04, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Were does it say anything of this sort - "blood purity" is not part of modern society. So if your a B class German your not German at all - no matter what the current laws say right - If I were a B class citizen on my passport is say bastard German - is this correct--Moxy (talk) 16:44, 14 January 2013 (UTC).

Moxy, that's not what he said at all. In fact, NONE of us have made that argument, except for those who wish to keep them on the template. Your argument is a strawman.Evildoer187 (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

What yiu are talking about is nationality. A German by nationality can be German, Jewish, anything, and it doesnt matter what's your ethnicity. But the fact is, Jews, Germans and Turks are different ethnicities. Jews are a separate ethnicity so if you are ethnically Jewish you are not ethnically German unless some of your ancestors were also German. There is a reason in the census a certain percentage of population states "Jewish" in ethnicity. In Einstein's case he actually said he is Jewish and doesnt like Germans as a nation or as a people. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

How many times and how many people have to say this article is about Germans and thata there is an article for Ethnic Germans. Like the difference between the Americans and Native American. I take it you are aware there is a difference right.--Moxy (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

This is Not correct. The Ethnic Germans article does not include Germans from Germany, but is about the ethnic German diaspora. However, the Germans article infobox states → Regions with significant populations → Germany: 66 million Since the current population of Germany is 82 million, it can only mean that the "Germans" article is about "indigenous" Germans. The article isn't about Germans as a "nation", but as an ethnic Group.--IIIraute (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point, good eye! That just means both Einstein and Marx shouldn't be in it. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 18:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and I did agree to that much earlier. I think you though I was being sarcastic? But I was not. --IIIraute (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

So what should we do about Marx? Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 19:49, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Remove him.--IIIraute (talk) 20:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

So we remove Marx, no problem, who should we put instead of him. Who are we putting instead of Marx? Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Hildegard of Bingen, or Hesse? --IIIraute (talk) 20:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

PS Einstein should not be in the infobox no matter what the formulatuin is per dicussion on top. The reason is because he stated his dislike to Germany and Germans and wouldn't want to be in this infobox. I have to note specifically about the Jewish case. Jews were always a separate ethnic group, and until the emancipation they were also culturally isolated due to the fact they were living in closed communities. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 13:08, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I have so far made no assertion as to what the article should be about, in my comment above I was merely expressing the view that the article as it stands is confused, and you are right that the wording of the lead is partly responsible for that, as it is heavily weighted to an ethnic definition. P.S. I am unsure what you mean by "indignity" in this context. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The Germans article clearly states: "The Germans (German: Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe.", and the infobox states → "Regions with significant populations" → Germany: 66 million. So the article cleary only refers to "Germans" as a Germanic ethnic group that is native to Central Europe, as the current population of Germany is 82 million. The Germans article correlates perfectly with its German WP equivalent "Deutsche" → [1]. The article is not about "Germans" as a nation, but as a Germanic ethnic group. For Germans as a nation, see Germany. For information on the population of Germany, see Demography of Germany. --IIIraute (talk) 21:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

You got it - That's the problem - an un-sourced antiquated definition that does not match the real world references - that has misguided the article - as has been mentioned a few times by others by this point. After reading the article all can see it even talks about Jewish populations let alone German citizens as a whole. Despite this articles definition of who is a German the real world and Germany its self recognized all Citizens are Germans - not just certain blood lines - Its the law of the land since 2000 - Source number 3 for this point - that has not been countered by any sources thus far - just opinions - David Levinson (1998). Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Group. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-57356-019-1.-- Moxy (talk) 22:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

But that's what the article is about, and not a definition of "Germans". Change it - but don't forget to change every other article: English people, Scottish people, Polish people, Dutch people, Swiss people, Italians, etc......--IIIraute (talk) 22:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

....I mean, that's the main fucking reason we are now deleting Marx and Einstein - do you want this all over again? Because we haven't deleted them yet.....--IIIraute (talk) 22:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to drag this up again, but many of the articles (English, Polish, French, certainly the Swiss...) talk about nations or even citizens as well, and to me that seems appropriate if there is no other modifier to limit the meaning of, say, "French". If we want this article to deal with ethnic Germans only (as seems to be the consensus), it should be renamed "ethnic Germans". An artice just called "Germans" should give a broad definition of the term. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 22:49, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I would have no problem changing all of those other articles to reflect ethnicity.Evildoer187 (talk) 01:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That would be the opposite of what his point is - Pls read over Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point before editing any page that your not familiar with just to prove a point.Moxy (talk) 18:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow

There is some very serious trouble breeding in the sections above (such as the attempt to exclude Albert Einstein), and I believe the main reason is the attempt by some editors to define precisely what "German" is supposed to mean. Historically, Germans used to be defined simply as the speakers of dialects in the German dialect continuum. Under the influence of the Reformation, a standard German language developed, and some German speakers saw this as an occasion to branch off by creating their own standard: The Dutch did it successfully, the Austrians didn't succeed and switched to standard German.

The definition got fuzzy during the Nazi era. At one point there was a single country covering most German-speaking areas (Germany and Austria). Those outside (in Switzerland, Luxembourg) made a point of not being German, stopped using standard German as far as practicable and cultivated their dialects. On the other hand, more (in)famously, a 'racial' definition of Germans was pushed that was meant to explicitly exclude German speakers with other ethnic affiliations -- most importantly Jews, Sinti/Roma and Slavic speakers.

After the war that became a problem in Austria. The country consists mostly of German speakers, but in the south there is a Slovene speaking minority and earlier there had been a union with Hungary. The German speakers used to refer to themselves as Germans without second thoughts. (E.g. a village close to Vienna, near the Hungarian border, is called Deutsch-Wagram.) But under the Nazis they had to refer to themselves in this way, and many lost their enthusiasm for this ethnicity. The school subject "German" even temporarily got a 'neutral' name, but that was ridiculed by the population. I think it's fair to say that German-speaking Austrians in general nowadays aren't sure if they are ethnic Germans or not, with some embracing the ethnicity (while insisting that they are of course not German nationals), others rejecting it categorically, and many just feeling uneasy about the entire concept. (A feeling shared by many Germans, by the way.)

A friend of mine is the daughter of post-war immigrants from Israel. I personally consider her to be just as 'German' as any other Germans I know and more so than the typical Austrian. But I have never discussed this with her. Maybe she feels that ethnically she is not German at all but exclusively Jewish. Like many Jews she has a German last name with the kind of unusual spelling that names tend to get after passing through Cyrillic.

There used to be (still are?) special immigration privileges for ethnic Germans from East Europe. These were of course not based on 'racial' concepts, but on the language spoken at home. As the German language (next to the Yiddish language, its closest relative) was very popular among East European Jews, it was Jews who were most likely to satisfy these criteria and be officially recognised by today's German state as ethnic Germans.

So: There is no clear definition of German ethnicity. German-speaking 20th generation sedentary Christian German speakers in the heart of Germany are ethnic Germans under all definitions, but there are plenty of borderline cases such as Germans with another strong ethnic affiliation not based on language (e.g. as Jews, Belgians), German speakers with another strong language-based ethnic affiliation(Sinti and Roma, Danes, Sorbs), German speakers in Austria, German speakers in Switzerland and Luxembourg, German speakers in Denmark, German speakers in the diaspora. Not to mention the more recent immigrants from Turkey, Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia etc. and their children. Speaking of immigrants from Poland: There were huge numbers of these (miners) in the 19th century. Their descendants are often recognisable by their Polish last names, but otherwise couldn't be more assimilated. "Kowalski" and "Podelski" sound like German names to me.

The article must reflect this fuzziness of the definition, or it will be POV. Hans Adler 01:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That is what I would have written if my brain had not been shut down by my gut reaction.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that; I had been longing for someone to discuss this calmly, rather than just defending an established position and shouting louder and louder. What is to be done with the existing Ethnic Germans article? Above I had proposed to change its name to German diaspora, which seems to reflect its content, but the admin closing the thread has killed that. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 02:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

German diaspora is something else, usually diaspora is about people who have left the place of origin, many ethnic Germans only ended up outside of Germany because borders happened to be drawn in ways that left them outside of the country.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If you want to do that, you could open a WP:RM under WP:Title policy on that articles talk page. (After you've looked at these links).Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Honestly speaking, I would not mind if the article was reframed entirely so as to encompass all German nationals. Limiting it to ethnicity, as this one does, and including those who are arguably not ethnic Germans is problematic and an obvious catalyst for controversy.Evildoer187 (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

For this article, it should do a better job in the first sentence of saying that there are different definitions of "Germans" and this article covers it broadly, under its several definitions (but primarily German speakers, of Europe) Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• This is a good source: Forsythe, Diana. 1989. German identity and the problem of history. in History and ethnicity. Chapman, Malcolm, Tonkin, Elizabeth, McDonald, Maryon (eds). Routledge. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been following this debate for a while now and agree that Germans should be interpreted in the widest sense of Hans Adler, Maunus and Alanscottwalker. Evildoer187 has some strange ideas about "Jewish nationality" which he expressed for example here.[2] He seems to be confusing a number of issues, including where "Israeli" fits in. There doens't seem to be any reason in an article on Germans to exclude Marx, Einstein or for that matter Felix Mendelssohn. Mathsci (talk) 03:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please don't go digging through my edit history and using what you find against me in unrelated contexts. That is stalking, and if I have to drag you to WP:AN/I over this, I will not hesitate to do so. Anyway, it is the article that is confusing Jewish ethnicity with German ethnicity, not me. If Marx and Einstein were just Germans who converted to Judaism, or half/part German or Jewish, then I doubt we would be having this discussion. They are not the same thing.Evildoer187 (talk) 05:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If you are pushing the same non-neutral point of view on multiple articles, then of course it will be brought up because it is against the editing principles of wikipedia. Your anachronistic wikilawyering would apply equally well to Felix or Fanny Mendelssohn in the first half of the nineteenth century. I am familiar with the other three editors I mentioned from quite different articles; there is no need to personalize the discussion. It is you that have written something quite troubling elsewhere, but equally relevant here. Several users are "monitoring" your edits. That is normal in the circumstances. Please stop using this talk page as a WP:FORUM as yet another place to spout your personal theories about Israel, Europe and the Khazarian hypothesis. Also please stop using words like "antisemite" here as you do below. Mathsci (talk) 08:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It’s much simple then what you try to make it look. Jews are an ethnicity, Israel has nothing do with it. I didn’t even think about Israel through the whole discussion and I support the points brought by Evildoer187! The article talks about the German ethnicity. Blaming Evildoer187 in pushing an Israeli POV is the same as trying to say you are pushing an anti-Semitic POV that tries to discredit the Jews as an ethnicity in order to discredit their right on Israel (and I am not commenting on the situation in Israel, I think all sides there did wrong things and I personally don’t believe that land is worth fighting for, so don’t even try to blame me of pushing a POV. I’m also not saying you are pushing an anti-Semitic POV, I just think it’s to much blaming Evildoer187 of pushing a certain POV). The fact you are not German by ethnicity doesn’t mean you can’t be German by nationality and it doesn’t mean you deserve less human rights or any different treatment from any other German citizen, regardless of ethnicity, but due to the fact the article talks about Germans as an ethnic group, Einstein and Marx should not be here. Don’t forget the consensus was achieved by agreement from those who didn’t agree with this point at first. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well put, Hans. As for the issue of "Jewish-Germans", I see a lot of accusations of "Nazism" thrown at those who would separate the two. While I myself don't object to Marx or Einstein in the infobox, I don't think that the "splitter" viewpoint can rightly be characterised as such. Indeed, I note that a substantial number of "splitters" are self-identifying Jewish editors. Accusing them of Nazism is an abhorrent personal attack—even more so than if it were directed at a German—and those making such attacks should be deeply ashamed of themselves (I'm looking at you, Maunus). Such attacks also ignore a key part of the legacy of the Holocaust—namely, how Jewish-German self-identification was affected. While yes, a "nationalist" or "Nazi" German may not be inclined to view a Jewish-German as "true German", a Jewish individual might find the very notion of a member of their own ethnic group being associated with the group which exterminated some 6 million of them to be anathema. Let's not resort to displays of emotional fury—however well-founded one may think them to be—when they may actually cause more harm than good. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 03:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I ignore that. Some JEws might find it offensive that people they consider Jews could consider themselves to be both Jewish and German, for other Jews it might be entirely natural. And it is not Wikipedias job to try to make something as complex as ethnicity and belonging fit into nice mutually exclusive boxes.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Never said that it was Wikipedia's job to do so. Merely cautioning that it is in extremely poor taste to accuse Jews of trying to reenact "phase one of the Holocaust". ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't make accusations against Jews. I make statements about the effects of proposed edits. I don't care one whit about the ethnic or religious background of editors who make proposals with racist implications. One thing I do know is that no single ethnic group has ever cornered the market on bigotry. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I do not see any accusations by Maunus of nazism. TFD (talk) 05:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

See e.g., the collapsed section directly above this. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please be more specific than that if you are making accusations you would have to support them. Phase one of the holocaust consisted in instituting a policy that separated "Jews" from "Germans" as distinct mutually exclusive categories - which was exactly the same that the proposal would do. Pointing out this indisputable fact is not accusing anyone of nazism.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Not directly, but he and several others did accuse of bigotry and made several "Hitler would be proud" type comments. I am pretty sure that's not acceptable.Evildoer187 (talk) 05:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well said, Lothar. It's also worth mentioning that many of today's most rabid antisemites have actually taken the reverse position i.e. denying Jewish nation/peoplehood, claiming that Jews are just "Poles, Germans etc who converted". In addition, these notions have been thoroughly debunked by genetics, historical scholarship, culture, etc.Evildoer187 (talk) 05:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You wrote, "consideration of Jews as "simply Europeans who converted to Judaism" has been the official party line of antisemitism (well nowadays they call it "anti-Zionism") for decades now." No one had brought up that argument, and probably are not even aware of it. You have it wrong anyway. The theory is that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars and Western Europeans are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites. Otherwise I saw no "Hitler would be proud" statements. TFD (talk) 05:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

While the Khazar theory does enjoy support amongst antisemites, it is mostly relegated to the hardcore Stormfront/white nationalist crowd. More generally, modern antisemitic theories characterize Israel as a new South Africa, populated by "European" colonists imposing "apartheid" over the "indigenous" people of Palestine. It is very easy to confuse the two as they both revolve around the same motif i.e. that modern Jews are not really descended from the ancient Israelites.

It also seems like you were looking for verbatim "Hitler would be proud" comments. Over the duration of the mess that ensued in here, there have been plenty of remarks about the similarities between our arguments and those of the Nazis. Wouldn't you agree that this basically amounts to the same thing?Evildoer187 (talk) 07:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you aware of the fact that many genetic researches have proven the Khazar theory wrong? Go to the Ashkenazi Jews article and read the section about genes. It was proven that Ashkenazi Jews have genes coming to the middle east similar to the genes of the Mizrahi Jews and local Arabic population in Israel, which shows a common origin that using simple historical connection shows they all came from Israel. No doubt that Ashkenazi Jews have some non Jewish genes that came from converted Europeans and rapes during the crusades and pogroms , but the fact is, due to the fact that until the emancipation the Jews were living in closed communities this issue concerns a small amount of their genes. In fact, the reason Ashkenazi Jews have so many genetic diseases are a result of marrying only each other in closed communities. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow, after two weeks of discussion, dialogue and consensus we have new guys jumping in who missed the whole discussion and therefore don't have the knowledge shared here by editors who were showing each other things for two weeks. Quick summery:

• The article doesn’t talk about Germans as a nationality but as an ethnicity. There was a major discussion if the article talks about nationality or ethnicity and it was concluded that from the content of the article we learn it talks about ethnicity.
• Jews are a separate ethnicity with a different history, genes, identity, that's why in German censuses they were stating "Jewish" and not "German" under ethnicity. In Einstein’s specific case, he actually stated that he doesn’t like Germany or Germans and he considers himself only a Jew! Note: Being not German by ethnicity doesn’t mean you can’t be a German by nationality or that you have less rights in Germany as a German citizen. Those are different things! Ethnic Germans=The Germanic tribes (with a few Slavic ones) which united into one ethnic group under the Holy Roman Empire and created a new identity which assimilated their old identities into a new identity. Jews were not part of that process and they are a separate ethnicity.
• Those who brought up the point that Jews are a separate ethnic group and not Germans were not “Nazis” or “racists” like you try to hint but actualy Jews . Me, Evildoer 187 and few more are Jewish. The problem with the Nazis was never they fact they told the Jews “you are not ethnically Germans”, the Jews knew it even without their “assistance”, the problem with the Nazis was that they believed that you can’t be a German citizen if you are not ethnically German and their problem was that they believed that your value as a human with human rights goes down if you are not ethnically German, that was the problem!
• After a long discussion it was decided that Marx and Einstein should not be in the article due to the fact they are not ethnic Germans, while the article is about ethnic Germans. It was decided to replace them with Angela Merkel and the Pope.

I know it’s a long discussion but please re-read it! A consensus was reached and I understand the arguments you brought up but if you read the discussion you will see they were brought up before you and discussed. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• If the article were about Germans as an ethnicity it would have to be based on sources about Germans as an ethnicity, which it is not. It would also have to use the definitions in those sources. There are no strict criteria for defining membership of an ethnic group, German or any other. So that also wouldn't work. I am not sure about Einstein, but Marx was an ethnic German and considered himself to be one. Finally, membership of ethnic groups is not mutually exclusive it is poissible for one person to be a Jew, a German, and an American at the same time, or at different times depending on context. Your concept of ethnicity is bogus unscientific babble and it has been disproven for the past 50 years.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

In Conclusion: Is there Consensus to remove Einstein and Marx?

Wow, after two weeks of discussion, dialogue and consensus we have new guys jumping in who missed the whole discussion and therefore don't have the knowledge shared here by editors who were showing each other things for two weeks. Quick summery:

• The article doesn’t talk about Germans as a nationality but as an ethnicity. There was a major discussion if the article talks about nationality or ethnicity and it was concluded that from the content of the article we learn it talks about ethnicity.
• Jews are a separate ethnicity with a different history, genes, identity, that's why in German censuses they were stating "Jewish" and not "German" under ethnicity. In Einstein’s specific case, he actually stated that he doesn’t like Germany or Germans and he considers himself only a Jew! Note: Being not German by ethnicity doesn’t mean you can’t be a German by nationality or that you have less rights in Germany as a German citizen. Those are different things! Ethnic Germans=The Germanic tribes (with a few Slavic ones) which united into one ethnic group under the Holy Roman Empire and created a new identity which assimilated their old identities into a new identity. Jews were not part of that process and they are a separate ethnicity.
• Those who brought up the point that Jews are a separate ethnic group and not Germans were not “Nazis” or “racists” like some of the new guys here try to hint but actualy Jews . Me, Evildoer 187 and few more are Jewish. The problem with the Nazis was never they fact they told the Jews “you are not ethnically Germans”, the Jews knew it even without their “assistance”, the problem with the Nazis was that they believed that you can’t be a German citizen if you are not ethnically German and their problem was that they believed that your value as a human with human rights goes down if you are not ethnically German, that was the problem!
• After a long discussion it was decided that Marx and Einstein should not be in the article due to the fact they are not ethnic Germans, while the article is about ethnic Germans. It was decided to replace them with Angela Merkel and the Pope.

I know it’s a long discussion but please re-read it! A consensus was reached and the arguments the new guys brought up were already brought up before and discussed.

There will never be a full agreement on such topic, but the vast majority of the people who participated in the discussion agreed about what to do and there in no point for few new guys to come and restart it simple because it will be going in circles. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Being ethnically German and being Jewish (ethnically or by faith) is not contradictory, and has not been since at least Jewish emancipation. People with strong dual ethnic identities are not rare exceptions. Some very diverse examples off the top of my head: Moses Mendelssohn, Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Torberg, Michael Wolffsohn. Franz Kafka was ethnically both Jewish and diaspora German. I have trouble finding the source, but many of the Holocaust survivors emigrating to Israel were heartbroken in part because they had been denied an essential part of their ethnic identity.

As to Karl Marx and Albert Einstein: I explained above how German ethnicity is primarily defined by the language spoken at home, and how this has made it easier for typical East European Jews to become accepted as Germans than for other descendants of German speakers, who usually got assimilated and changed their language. Add to this the fact that Marx and Einstein were assimilated to the extent that contemporary society would let them, and that so were their parents, and it becomes clear that German Jews / Jewish Germans are very much representative for the plurality of German ethnicity. (I note that for similar reasons I think it would be appropriate to have an Ethiopian Jew in the mosaic of the Jews article, and I was surprised not to find one there.)

FYI, this is the kind of comment that derail the discussion and can cause other editors to attack you as a racist:

"Nothing can make him an ethnic German because you can't change your genes, that's another fact. In fact, during the holocaust Germany was killing Jews an as ethnic group, a conversion would not help." "If someone doesnt tell the truth it's called telling lies. Claming most of the Jewish genes are non-Jewish is a lie." "No, you can't choose an ethnicity. You can change a nationality, you can choose a cultural identity, but an ethnicity is largely a matter of genes! You can't change genes! You need to read what an ethnicity is."

I don't know if you are really a Jew, a trolling neo-Nazi or just looking for 'fun' at this article. And pointing to a discussion in which you made comments of this nature as evidence that a long-standing consensus has been replaced by a new consensus (after your extended canvassing campaign) that can now no longer be changed – that was a bad move. We are no longer in the 1930s, when racism was an uncontroversial mainstream opinion. This is what the lead of ethnicity says: "Ethnicity or ethnic group is a socially defined category based on common culture or nationality. Ethnicity can, but does not have to, include common ancestry, appearance, cuisine, dressing style, heritage, history, language or dialect, religion, symbols, traditions, or other cultural factor. Ethnic identity is constantly reinforced through common characteristics which set the group apart from other groups."

Also, I can't find any evidence of the consensus which caused Illraute to make this edit. [3] Ignoring any inaccuracies in the details, I disagree with it. Hans Adler 11:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You can easily have a dual ethnicities, if you are half German and half Jewish, but the point is the names you have only one ethnicity which is Jewish. Ethnicity is not a matter of choice, it’s history, ancestry, genes, many other. We have no references to the claims the names you gave have any German ethnicity, they definitely were German by nationality but not by ethnicity. The holocaust survivors were not heartbroken for part fo their "ethnicity" being taken but for the fact their nationality and human rights were taken away after they were loyal German citizens and many even fought at WW1.

Language spoken at home has nothing to do with ethnicity! An Italian-American who speaks only English at home, are they English or Native American now? This is a culture thing, but cultural assimilation doesnt change your ethnicity.

You are bringing up a topic already discussed here is details. This defenition is wide beause of groups like Arabs for examply which have a variety of genes and local features due to a big amount of local cultures assimilated. Besides, even though living in Germany Jews lived in isolated communities until the emancipation.

The definition of the German ethnicity are those Germanic tribes who assimilated their old identities into a new German identity during the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Jews are not a part of that proces, otherwise German Jews wouldn't call themselves Jews anymore.

After the comment about me being "neo-Nazi" you showed whatever you write can't be taken seriously even a bit. Me and other Jewish editors were the first who brought up that those people were not ethnically German, does it really make sense you blame us of being racist to Jews? All the things you said were already dealt with. A concensus was reached, re-read the discussion Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 11:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You "bringing up" that German Jews / Jewish Germans can't be Germans unless of dual descent is precisely the reason why you are racist. It would be easier to take your concerns about Einstein's self-ascription seriously if you didn't at the same time push precisely the kind of racist ideology that motivated the worst part of Nazi ideology. (Breaking Wikipedia norms such as WP:CANVAS also doesn't help. You seem to think of this as a fight rather than a good-faith attempt by everyone to get the article right.) You have not addressed the definition of ethnicity in the article on the topic. I think it speaks for itself.

Jews in Germany actually fought for their dual ethnicity. Once achieved, of course it became more important to preserve their Jewish side and prevent full assimilation. The advent of Zionism then polarised everything even further. But the majority of people still lived somewhere between these poles, keeping themselves away from either extreme. Hans Adler 12:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I now see the problem, you simply don't know what ethnicity is. It has nothing to do with racism. Racism is when you say one ethnicity is better then the other or deserves more rights then the other. What you are talking about is nationality. I speak English, live in England, don't feel connected to any culture except English, does that make my ancestors Anglo-Saxons? No. Ethnicity is not something you choose, that's nationality, identity, whatever. Ethnicity is hitsory, it's genes. −

That's the joke! YOU are the one pushing your POV keeping on bringing Nazism when it's irrelevant, while I try to get the article right. I couldn't care less about Zionism, it has nothing to do with it (by the way, by saying that you show that you are pushing a certain agenda). Those Jews tried to preserve their NATIONALITY, ethnicity is something else. Einstein clearly stated he doesnt see himself as German and just as a Jews. Again, please re-read the discussion before trying to take part in it. All the stuff you are saying were brought up many times. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

We are not using the same definition, but that's because you are ignoring the modern definition that I keep pointing out to you and instead using an obsolete, racist one based on genetics. And no, by mentioning that the advent of Zionism facilitated inner-Jewish polarisation (assimilation, orthodoxy and now also emigration as the poles), I am not pushing an agenda. I have that from a Jewish biography, although I can't remember which one. Hans Adler 14:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

"Ethnicity or ethnic group is a socially defined category based on common culture or nationality." – Wikipedia article ethnic group

"[Ethnic groups are t]hose human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration; this belief must be important for group formation; furthermore it does not matter whether an objective blood relationship exists." – Max Weber

"Language spoken at home has nothing to do with ethnicity! An Italian-American who speaks only English at home, are they English or Native American now? This is a culture thing, but cultural assimilation doesnt change your ethnicity." – User:Guitar hero on the roof

Based on the first two sources, which I consider more reliable than the third, an 'Italian-American' who speaks only English at home is of mainstream American, Italian-American or dual ethnicity depending on what he eats, who he associates with, and who he considers eligible for marrying. Hans Adler 13:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't get why you start now different section for that. In any case, you talk about the current situation in Germany, at present you can be of any ethnicity and having German citizenship will safe guard all rights as any other German(as was for Jews in Germany for very brief time before WWII)-it have nothing to do with Einstein who passed away almost 58 years ago and flee Germany simply because he was Jewish. What I see here is few editors trying to force on Einstein nationality he have revoked and shaken off and ethnicity he didn't see himself part of, even much before anyone in Germany heard about Hitler. Cut long story short-keeping Einstein here is nothing but promoting nationalism. I have no objection of keeping Marx here, though it's encyclopedic fault caused by wrong motives. His ethnicity wasn't German but indeed he identified himself as such (and sorry, there is such thing as ethnicity and the consensus about it is that it's something you're born to) so at least it's somewhat of less bitter taste to keep him here. Also, he never revoked his German citizenship and certainly had positive feelings for Germany so if the article is about nationality he should be here. But, the discussion here is far from being honest. First we were discussing the ethnicity of Einstein, when it become clear that his ethnicity is Jewish (and sorry, ethnicity is mutually exclusive unless you are of different origins) and he himself supported this notion in many of his remarks, one came with the idea that the article is about nationality -ok, maybe it's-so make it clear and include Germans of different origins in the infobox (I suggested some Turks, Afro-Germans and Pakistani Germans) but then again the article is now about German diaspora(!!!) but while outside Germany Einstein made only very strong remarks against his affiliation with Germany-yet, of all option you fight over him -what else it can be if not an attempt to glorify Germany that verge with nationalism of some users(and apologize that I just don't buy the excuse that including Einstein in the infobox is meant to "fix" the history, I didn't know that's what Wikipedia is about). If it's about the German diaspora and anyone who grew up in Germany and had German citizenship (or his ancestors) is part of it then go ahead and make it clear by suggesting those who belong to it from different nations and ethnic origins. There are many Israeli high profile people who are part of what you claim to be the "German diaspora". There are people from the German diaspora who are not of European origin and are not whites, but you fail to include them and this lead me to the conclusion that having Einstein here will create the wrong idea about him and his biography-something he himself probably didn't want them to get.--Gilisa (talk) 11:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I started it because though we reached a concensus some new guys who didn't read a discussion try to re-open it and bringing up things we already dealt with. I agree with what you wrote! That's the joke, because this Adler guy missed the whole discussion he of caurse didn't read the quotes of Einstein about Germany and Germans. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 11:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course I didn't miss them. I am just interpreting them differently because I consider ethnicity to be neither a matter of genes nor a matter purely of self-identification. But as I say in my response to Gilisa below, there is a danger of projecting. Of course this applies to both sides. Hans Adler 12:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but a lot of what you say can't stand:

• "ethnicity is mutually exclusive unless you are of different origins" That makes no sense. You can be of dual ethnicity because your parents have different ethnic origins. But you can also be of dual ethnicity because you were born into a minority ethnicity and opt into the majority ethnicity. Or because you were born into a family in which both parents had dual ethnicity. Ethnicity is not about genes, it is about which group you primarily interact with.
• "What I see here is few editors trying to force on Einstein nationality he have revoked and shaken off and ethnicity he didn't see himself part of, even much before anyone in Germany heard about Hitler. Cut long story short-keeping Einstein here is nothing but promoting nationalism." – If, as you also say, ethnicity is something you are born into, then there can be no doubt that Einstein was of dual Jewish and German ethnicity. Einstein is ideal for the mosaic because readers instantly recognise him, and recognise him as a Jew. If having him here promotes anything, then it is the modern, non-racist, non-exclusive definition of (German) ethnicity, but certainly not nationalism. That is not to say that Germans aren't proud of Einstein; but thinking of him also makes us ashamed, and so he would be a poor vehicle of promoting nationalism. I would have thought this was obvious.
  Einstein may not be irreplaceable, and in fact Marx alone may be sufficient. Unfortunately we can't think him what he thinks about the matter. There is a danger of projecting attitudes on him based on what were at the time very practical decisions such as becoming stateless in order to avoid military service at at time when World War I was near.
• Ethnicity is a fuzzy sociological concept, and nationality is obviously a very important factor. This article (in principle; currently it's very badly written and these heated discussions are not helping it at all) gets it right by discussing both ethnicity and nationality. After all, the concepts are so close that there is a common term that is used both for German nationality and for German ethnicity.
• "There are people from the German diaspora who are not of European origin and are not whites". (Maybe you should look up diaspora. It refers to small groups of people physically separated from the main group. I am getting the impression that you inferred a different definition from the article German diaspora.) Yes, there are notable ethnic Germans who are recognisably of non-European descent, but there are a lot less of them. I can't immediately think of a good candidate for the mosaic, but it would be good to have one. We certainly need to add at least one notable German with Turkish roots, e.g. Cem Özdemir.

Hans Adler 12:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If the minority fully assimilates into the majority like happened with the Germanic trives in Fermany their minority identity dissapear, which didn't happen to the Jews! −

You keep on going on about this dual ethnicity thing but it's not ethnicity you are talking about. Einstein never was of German ethnicity, he couldn't have been, he was ethnically Jew. It's his nationality he got rid of! He was never "born into German ethnicity!" Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 13:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't know what ethnicity is and you clearly don't know much about Germanic or German history either. Just because you repeat this nonsense with exclamation points it does not make it so.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity=Identity and history/genes. Nationality=Identity, citizenship, and rights/duties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Guitar hero on the roof (talk • contribs)

No, that is incorrect. If you strike the "genes" it is closer to being correct.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• • As long as this article has documented sections on German = those who grew up speaking German, than this discussion of ethnicity is beside, or rather along side, the issue. So, whatever is being discussed about "consensus": it appears to not be source or scope based, and thus rather useless. See, WP:NPOV Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, I have no problem with German = those who grew up speaking German, in the context of this article, and then we should have Germans of different origins like Turkish (and also of non-European origin like Afro-Germans). The definition of German diaspora is equal to German nationality unless we assume someone who raised outside Germany and by him/herself is not German speaking but have German roots(e.g., Leonardo di Caprio) can be count for this infobox. Also Hans Adler, if it's about diaspora-why there are many Germans who never left Germany in the infobox (e.g., Wagner, Nietzsche) because in this case we have many candidates of different origins (not only Turks)like Afro and Pakistani Germans -at least as notable as Heidi Klum or Claudia Shiffer. P.S., Ethnicity is not fuzzy sociological concept, unless you mess minority concepts with the consensual concept of ethnicity.--Gilisa (talk) 12:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec with Alanscottwalker) All sociological concepts are inherently fuzzy. You either have (German) citizenship or you don't. Only for very few people there is a legal dispute about it. That's how it is with many legal concepts. But (German) ethnicity is much more complicated with lots and lots of different borderline cases. Hans Adler 13:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict)Moreover, let us assume, for the sake of argument there were a large body of modern academic literature whose thesis is "Albert Einstein was/is not German." That would also seem to be a very useful thing to discuss in this article, as it would presumably be dealing with definitional issues. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hans Adler, The issue is what the consensus about this term is and the consensus is that ethnicity is very much related to the historical group of people one came from. The legal issue is less relevant and depends on time and place. No one even think to argue that if you hold German citizenship then you are German citizen (unless you revoke it and declare you don't want any affiliation with the country of past citizenship). Alanscottwalker, in the Walter Isaacson biography there are some stunning remarks that Einstein made about Germany and Germans. It's more than reasonable not to include in the infobox someone who during his lifetime made remarks that show he didn't feel like he belong there. I had similar discussion on similar topics on the article of Jewish people, there it verged with edit-wars and lasted months -my position was that we should remove from the infobox Jews who converted to other religion and disconnected any affiliation with the Jewish people or made strong remarks that show they didn't want to be identified as Jewish, regardless how important they were during their life time and after. One of the figures I strongly pushed to remove was of Karl Marx. No doubt, Marx -like others I asked to remove was Jewish by ethnicity and many other things but I thought it's bad form to include him and others like him in infobox that by nature include exemplary Jews. Einstein wasn't German by ethnicity,whether ethnicity is fuzzy concept or not, he didn't even see himself as such. Einstein revoked his German citizenship with declared intent not to ever reclaim it or to return to Germany, he made more than one remark that show he don't want to be affiliated with Germany or German people. Yet, some editors insist to keep him here. This is bad taste - but I'm willing to accept it if the infobox will serve the declared purpose of the article: encyclopedic value on Germans by nationality. If indeed that's what the article is about then the infobox should reflect it with the mosaic having pictures of Germans that are non Germans or even non-Europeans by ethnicity. --Gilisa (talk) 13:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better to broaden the scope to avoid these kinds of silly discussions and if there is a cavalcade it should show all kinds of Germans not just one or two kinds.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

From what I can tell there's very little on this thread of value in terms of how to rewrite the article - which does need some work. I'm tempted to hat this thread as well because of the remark immediately above - Wikipedians do not decide who belongs or does not belong anywhere. We follow policy. We write according to verifiable material based on WP:Reliable sources. I have added a "not a forum tag." Will revisit later in the day. Truthkeeper (talk) 13:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Seriously off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Truthkeeper, Remove the tags and stop try to shut down users with different POV than yours. More important, even urgent, what the 88 in your user name stand for? --Gilisa (talk) 14:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC) "What does "88" stand for?" Seriously? Can we move past the Nazi references now? Anyway, can we also all agree that there is no universally accepted definition of ethnicity? The different approaches are summarized in the ethnicity article, particularly at “Approaches to understanding ethnicity”. I refrain from quotes for brevity’s sake. References for the different views are given at ethnicity. Please take these into account. Defining ethnicity by blood or by culture are opposing but valid views. The lede could briefly mention this to avoid future debates about it in the future. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 14:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC) That depends on what you mean by valid. If you mean that it exists then yes. If you mean tyhat it has any kind of scientific support then no. It is not possible to define ethnicity in terms of blood without absurd consequences.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Rainbowwrasse Of course, RB are mandatory but these are given at least in stating Einstein himself as to where and what he belongs. There is Wikipedia policy that forbid editors from including living people in infobox and categories by their ethnicity unless they self-identified themselves as belonging to there. Also the main stream view of ethnicity do consider blood relations. Last thing 88 is neo-Nazi sign that violate WP policy of user names and will be reported later today.--Gilisa (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC) 88 is a number, and if you report that anywhere you make yourself to look very stupid.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC) (ec) This doesn't seem helpful. When Truthkeeper88 started editing in 2008, an account Truthkeeper already existed. Also, a person born in 1988 would have been 20 at the time and might not have been aware of neo-Nazi symbolism. Or am I missing something about the combination of name and number? Hans Adler 14:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC) No, unfortunately born before 1988, yes Truthkeeper was taken and needed a number, no, stupid enough not to be aware of the 88 symbolism re neo-Nazism. It's infinity x two or even might symbolize good luck, but that's debateable imo. If they want to report me, that's fine. It doesn't move the discussion forward however. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC) ·ʍaunus, thanks you for your wise advise and kind words but anyway combination of "88" into existing usernames been issue in some AN/I cases I witnessed and is highly not recommended. If you argue German ethnicity or any other thing the article is about don't related with blood -put non-European Germans into the mosaic and we conclude this long discussion.--Gilisa (talk) 14:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Maybe we should make a list of discouraged numbers to use in usernames 81=Hells Angels, 666=Satanist, 187 =murder, 13= mara salvatrucha etc... </irony>·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC) There's a different between 13, which is a supersticion, to 88 which is actually commonly used by neo-Nazi groups. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 14:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC) 13 is also used by Mara Salvatrucha, a very large Latin American gang/cartel, using the same alphabet letter code used in the neonazi example. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC) ·ʍaunus Maybe we should list you in the comedians category or at least Wikipedians who are comedians. Perhaps some users who been blocked indf for having this number in their username (and there are such past-users) been saved if you just being their to explain the community that it's just a number no different from 9/11-however, there is policy... Truthkeeper, honestly I would expect Wikipedians to know what the number symbolize and not use it (certainly if you know what it means in Chinese culture)-fact is that everybody here (including Maunus) know the meaning of it. Given the complexity of AN/I cases and that I don't have time to go over your edit log and that I must AGF-I see no point to report, was just hasty with that. But anyway, would recommend you to consider changing the 88..In relation to the discussion I mean to go over the WP:deceased people but whatever the case is there I see two options: Removing Einstein or including Germans of non European origin as well.In either case the persistence to keep Einstein here is of good taste given his remarks. And just to mention, editors should find consensus regarding who will be in infobox.--Gilisa (talk) 14:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC) You would have to find a source showing that I self identify as being of comedic ethnicity. If 88 was used by a Neo-Nazi pov pusher then yes it could be a problem. If used by anyone else it isn't and there is no reason to make it one. The only thing you can reasonably expect from a wikipedian is to defy your expectations.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Hilarious, I don't know what your occupation is but if comedy is not your profession you probably lose a lot of potential money every second you are out of it. There is no need to find the smoking gun you're talking about generally the number 88 in any user name is considered mostly at least bad form. Certainly if he/she dealing with issues of ethnicity, race, Israel, Jewish people, Germany, etc.--Gilisa (talk) 15:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC) I don't consider it bad form and neither do any of my friends. Neonazis don't get to own combinations of ciphers.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Holy cow, that is some truly disturbing things that have been going on at this talk page for the last couple of weeks. That a discussion could even be going on for so long based on such an absurd claim as this one is really beyond me. Any "consensus" that guitar hero claims to have made here is obviously invalid, since it is based on no facts and sources (that is sources saying that Einstein and Marx weren't Germans) and as such the discussion is completely farcical and superflous. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree; this discussion seems to be have been dominated much more by nationalist and ethnocentric vigor than investigatory rigor. The sheer number of blatantly racist comments, as well as numerous comments that substitute questioning of the interlocutors' motivations for actual arguments, really bring any "consensus" into serious doubt in my mind. siafu (talk) 15:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Saddhiyama, there are ample sources-at least for Einstein (as for Marx I'm not very familiar) that describe Einstein as ethnic Jew, in fact Einstein did and not once (including remarks he made about his Semitic appearance). There are many historical and genetic sources that describe the Jewish people (including Jews from Germany) as totally different than Germans in these terms. BUT, if by ethnicity you refer to something else (otherwise your argument is OR) then include other German people of different origins, colors, etc in the infobox otherwise the infobox is implying, not encyclopedic, not representative and possibly even worse. --Gilisa (talk) 15:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

siafu, you're so right! those who want to include Einstein into a group he didn't affiliate with just to glorify their nationality are fine. They are not nationalists. Those who see the absurdity are racist, nationalists and bla bla bla. I offered numerous times to include Germans of different races and origins in the infobox, how does it turn me nationalist and not those who ignore it and yet want Einstein in the infobox!? Don't bother to answer.--Gilisa (talk) 15:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Why exactly should I not bother to answer? Are you suggesting that you will be dismissing anything I say before actually reading it? The real problem with this discussion is that the actual point of contention is being avoided, specifically what is the definition of ethnicity? Some folks seem focused on a genetic definition, others on a purely linguistic or cultural one, and from what one can easily read over at the article on ethnicity, both schools of thought have supporters. Instead of just making blanket proclamations about what ethnicity is, a more productive line might be coming to a consensus on what this article should be about and what the purpose of the images in the infobox actually is, as answering these questions will make decisions about who does and doesn't go belong the infobox rather less controversial. siafu (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Gilisa, your accusation just doesn't make sense. Holocaust denying Germans (still a minority, fortunately) aren't going to be proud of Einstein at all. They vilify him and claim to find errors in his work. (Unfortunately this is not a joke.) For any other German, Einstein is as much reason to be ashamed that he needed luck to avoid being brutally killed by the German state as he is reason to be proud. Nationalism in Germany no longer works the same as in other countries, though this is bound to change.

If there are any hidden motives here at all to include Einstein, then it is today's Germans' desire to make up for the past to the very limited extent that this is possible,

• by completely rejecting the racist notions that led into actions from excluding Jews from skat clubs to sending highly decorated Jewish World War I veterans to Auschwitz, in theory and in practice,
• by strong support for the state of Israel, and
• by welcoming as many Jews in Germany as are willing to come, accepting them as Germans without any restrictions (such as: it's only the nationality but we don't treat them as ethnic Germans) and making them heard in public life.

Or in other words: Your accusation isn't even plausible. An accusation that we want to include Einstein because that makes us feel accepted by Jews would be plausible and might be true to some extent. But even that accusation wouldn't be helpful because consciously what's going on is a disagreement on facts. Hans Adler 16:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hans Adler, I speak about the discussion here and you take a larger scope which is not relevant in this thread. I'm not going to discuss what happening in Germany today or what is the social status of ethnicity/nationality in it-not because we share different or similar views but because it's not relevant. It was Einstein who predicted nearly 100 years ago that if his theory proven true everyone will claim right for him and if not that he will be Jewish for the Germans. I don't want to get there but it seem unavoidable, I met Germans with no guilt feelings what so ever who do consider Einstein German-not because necessarily they consider Jewishness as nothing ethnic, they do, but because he's a symbol-don't forget, many consider him the greatest scientist ever lived. In fact, even during WWII there were few Jews who been given the option to stay untouched because of their notability and they even were admired - the point is aside for extreme radicals, everybody want an ornament like Einstein. I know one can be anti-Semitic and still claim Einstein was German. The radicals you mentioned will mostly use the refuted feeble arguments that Einstein stole his ideas from Aryan scientists and from his first wife-who wasn't Jewish. The same way one don't have to be holocaust denier to be an anti Semitic one can say Einstein was German and still be an anti-Semitic. In fact, it's well known and accepted today that the new way of attacking Jews is by saying they don't consist ethnicity. As said, Wikipedia should serve the facts and nothing more than that. If one consider ethnicity by genes, religion one born to and etc -then Einstein wasn't German. If one consider it by the place he grown in and by main language then why there are no Germans of other ethnicities in the info-box? Also, please consider that during his life time Einstein didn't want relation to Germany-I can't see how one can excuse ignoring from that. --Gilisa (talk) 18:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

"If one consider ethnicity by genes" you say, can you point me to a a study showing which gene Einstein had and which demonstratred his ungermanness?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Look at the quotes given earlier and read them. He stated he is a Jew and wants nothing to do with Germans. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

At one point are you going to start reading the comments you respond to? I am not arguing to include Einstein, I am arguing against the ridiculous idea that ethnicity has to do with genes, which you among others have espoused. So tell me which gene is it that only Jews have and not members of any other ethnic group? Which gene marks a person as being non-German?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Maunus, I think it's unfair to pick out the word "genes" from Gilisa's comment. I can see nothing like the obsession with a genetic definition of ethnicity in it that is exhibited by Guitar hero. It's followed by religion "etc.". We are all not native speakers of English and bound to occasionally use formulations that are slightly off. Hans Adler 19:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not an expert on Einstein, and it may well be that my impression of whether he would have considered himself ethnically German in the sense of this article was wrong. (It may well have changed during his lifetime, perhaps even several times.) My impression was formed in part by the fact that even in the US he retained his Swiss citizenship and was surrounded by German speakers. I don't know much about his friends there, but I know that Kurt Gödel (who no doubt self-identified as an ethnically German citizen of Austria-Hungary) was a close friend. Keeping in mind that German ethnicity is mostly about language, the presumption that he was still ethnically German isn't quite as strong as the presumption that a Jew who retains his religion is still ethnically Jewish, but perhaps you can accept that there is sort of a parallel.

As I have said before (now hidden somewhere in another long thread), removing Einstein is fine with me so long as we have a substitute who is equally recognisable as both Jewish and German. Karl Marx seems to fit very well. Apparently it's well documented that he felt German (it was much more natural and easier than in Einstein's time), and apparently his father sought full assimilation. (He became Protestant and changed his first name.)

I am also in favour of putting immigrants into the mosaic, though obviously they are not quite as important as a minority that has been living in Germany for at least 1700 years. I can't find any suitable descendants of Ruhrpolen (someone who is into sports might have more luck), but there are plenty of eligible Germans of Turkish and Greek descent. I think Germans of African descent are currently too insignificant numerically overall, though I have some in my wider family. I refuse to feel responsible for inadequacies in an article which I first saw yesterday in response to an ANI report, but maybe we can do something about it if we start cooperating. Hans Adler 19:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hans Adler-your concept that the Jews of Germany lived there for 1700 years at least is fault. In fact while some of them came to Rome as merchants from ancient Israel and then them or their decedents moved on to what is today Germany about ~2000 years ago -which make them more ancient in Germany than perhaps most Germans (nevertheless during most of their history they didn't see it as their home) the major contribution for the establishment of the Jewish community in Germany came many centuries later. For instance, about 12 years ago I read highly claimed historical paper showing that the community in Mainz was mainly formed by Jews who immigrated to Germany from Iraq about 1000 years ago. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal(~500 years ago) they established communities in the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Turkey and N.Africa and contributed to Jewish communities in all of Europe including Germany. According to two scientists that study Jewish intelligence (a field of study I'm against) the origins of Einstein goes to the Jewish communities of eastern Europe.In fact, there are many Jews from Germany who can give you reliable account about the time their family immigrated from say Poland to Germany (like this Israeli politician)and many times it happened no longer than 100 years ago. ·ʍaunus, you are keep being funny (I like this good spirit of yours)-you know I'm against the inclusion of Einstein here unless people of other ethnicity are included as well-because otherwise IMO it's nationalistic and misleading infobox-sorry, I don't feel like I need to apologize in the face of funny accusations. If, like Hans Adler said-there is something with Germans feel bad and then want to include Einstein here then it's not issue for encyclopedic value but even if it's the motive and it's encyclopedic-then in this case including more people of other ethnicity than German is expected (I know you are against expectations but I used to do them) certainly if there is place in the infobox for past Nazis or anti Semitics as it's now. As for your question about specific gene-4 genes difference are enough to declare that two organisms are entirely different species. There is no single gene that you can find in one population and you can't find in the other. There are alleles however that are almost not to be found in one population but are very prevalent in another, or specific mutations that are extremely rare or absent in one population but are to be found in another. Then, when you have this data you apply statistical methods that state the chances of this pattern to be random -usually the chances are much lower than one in a million and it points to common origin, no less. Even when one come to find whether a child is of a given parent he/she use the same methods and don't look for "specific gene". As for your question, Einstein was born Jewish and there is no reason to assume that he was geneticaly similar or more similar to Germans than to Jews, but this is out of topic-so please don't get my words out of context as you did before.--Gilisa (talk) 08:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

How about we remove the picture cavalcade all together from the infobox?

That would not only solve the current discussion, but also prevent discussions from erupting next week when more editors have been canvassed from around the internetz. It would also defy the temptation to see articles on ethnic groups as dog and pony shows where people get to show their best exemplars to the world.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm for it, given that there is no other consensus on the horizon. --Gilisa (talk) 15:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

While this is not a desirable outcome, I have to concede that it would be better than the current situation, and may in fact be necessary to avoid meaningless sniping and shouting matches. siafu (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

What exactly would make it an undesirable outcome. I.e. what is the argument against removing the images?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or, more directly, it's very helpful and illustrative in answering the question "Who are the <insert ethnic group here>?" to be presented with a list of notables, some of whom may be already recognizable for other reasons to the reader. This, of course, is just my opinion, but I've had this experience myself in reading articles about smaller (i.e. less numerous) ethnic groups, and presumably there exist sufficiently naive readers who would be thus informed when reading about Germans. siafu (talk) 16:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

No, the fact that there is disagreement about the individuals shown does not warrant complete removal of the image. Doing this would mean that images at other articles would also have to be removed just because people might have differing opinions on what to show. Come to think of it, this would also be true for the articles dog and pony... Rainbowwrasse (talk) 16:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There is no rule that all articles on ethnic groups must be standardized. It is not the fact that there is disagreement, but that there is no possibility of reasonably solving the disagreement or implement criteria for what to include. And the fact that the pictures do not contribute any useful information to readers.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I sympathize with the dog & pony show concern, but the images--if all are in accord--can serve as a gateway to the articles on the respective personages, assuming that such linkage is possible. The images do impart a direct sense of the period from which the individual hails, in some cases, and are not necessarily a detraction.--Ubikwit (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

@Maunus, I'm talking about all articles, not just ethnic groups. Just because we can't decide whose kitten is cuter doesn't mean kitten should have no picture at all. The collage demonstrates a few examples of Germans. That's a valid purpose. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a tempting idea, but there is a valid reason why other articles of this kind have such mosaics. I think if you look at articles for ethnic groups that you know little about, you will see what I mean. For me Khmer people, Chechen people and Afro-Trinidadian and Tobagonian work in this way, for example. Germans are way too diverse for illustration with a single 'typical' image. Hans Adler 16:53, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it's better then keeping it with Einstein and Marx so I support it, but to be fair, I do see the benefit of them. When you go to Jews, Russians, Scots, Belarusians, English people, it gives people a good example if who belongs to this ethnic group. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 19:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

As I have said above, I have now come around to grudgingly accepting removal of Einstein due to the self-identification issues and the various changes in citizenship. (I believe this article needs to be about German citizenship, nationality and ethnicity simultaneously as these are closely related topics that would otherwise require separate articles with lots of duplication.)

But I can see no excuse for removing Karl Marx, who was born into a thoroughly assimilated, recently Protestant family. The mosaic absolutely should contain one or two German Jews, and Marx seems one of the best choices we could make. Hans Adler 19:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah but the fact Marx's family converted doesnt make him ethnically German! If you convert to Islam will you be in Arab? But whatever, if we do need to contain a Jew, why not a Turk? I think Turks also deserve a representative. If it's really based on nationality, a Turk should be in to. If you will put someone Turkish instead of Einstein my objection to Marx will automatically be gone due to the fact it's really based on nationality in that case. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Apparently you are calling nationality what I would call citizenship for clarity and ethnicity what I would call 'Volksgruppe'. That actually makes sense: Volksgruppe is a Nazi term that can't really be translated to English, so it is usually rendered as 'ethnic group'.

The definition of 'ethnic group' that I have been using all the time, and that this article should use, is the one from the ethnic group article. Under this definition, the Danes, Sorbs and Sinti/Roma living in Germany are considered in today's Germany to be both ethnic Germans and ethnic Danes, ethnic Sorbs or ethnic Sinti/Roma. For Jews the modern situation is more complex due to the Holocaust, recent immigration and a historical (though decreasing) reluctance of Jews to consider themselves German in post-war Germany. Hans Adler 21:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a big specialist on Nazi terminology, you seem to have an obsession on it so I will leave it to you, but I have to say, you are lying. Sorbs, Danes and Sinti/Roma are not qualified as ethnic Germans, I never heard this claim before, they are qualifyed as their own ethnicities in the census. No one ever called them ethnic Germans. In fact, in the admin noticeboard where you wrote a complain on me someone actually clearly said you are trying to push a new definition of ethnicity. The German term you refer to refers only to the German ethnicity and it can't refer to any other ethnicity, and by definition it's the "superior race", those things have nothing to do with ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 22:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Your ignorance is astounding. As is your instance that we believe your assertions about who qualifies as an ethnic German based on nopthing but your own opinion. How about you either start presenting sources, or else shut up and stop wasting our time.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not obsessed with Nazi terminology, I simply know about it due to my work on articles such as Hans Schwerte. (I am essentially the only author of that one.) Sorbs, Danes and Sinti/Roma are ethnic Germans by the definition in ethnic group if and only if they are essentially indistinguishable from other German nationals, except perhaps by physical appearance, when mixing with them. That's true for most, though admittedly not all. E.g. the expression "the German people" in the Grundgesetz implicitly includes these national minorities, as everything else would be severe discrimination. The term 'Volksgruppe' applied to Slavs and Jews, among others, and was the basis for selection of people (by racist 'scientific' criteria) to be sent to concentration camps, or in some cases for selection of Polish children to be separated from their parents and sent to 'Aryan' orphanages where they were raised as Nazis. Hans Adler 09:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC) (Edited: Actually, I think the selection of children followed a different 'logic'. I got confused here. Hans Adler 13:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC))

They didn't just convert, they abandoned their Jewish identity and culture entirely to become Germans as did thousands of Jews. But yes a German of Turkish ancestry would be a good inclusion to the cavalcade.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I support this initiative. But if not that, we should include an ethnic Turk or two, so people are reminded that this is about nationality and not ethnicity alone. Just so long as people aren't misled to the assumption that German Jews are in fact just indigenous Germans who adopted Judaism, then I'm ok with it.Evildoer187 (talk) 20:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

So how about we have Fatih Akin, Lukas Podolski, and Jessica Wahls, Gerald Asamoah, or Kevin-Prince Boateng? If people still have doubts about Marx, we could add the Jewish German nationalist liberal politician Eduard Lasker instead. Is that something we can all agree on? Rainbowwrasse (talk) 21:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this is reasonable. You have my support.Evildoer187 (talk) 21:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

For me not a single one of the people you suggest is recognisable by image. In fact I think I haven't even heard of most of them. I think that's significant because I can recognise about half of those in the current mosaic by image, and all by name. So I would say more notable people would be better. Hans Adler 22:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I don't think you gave yourself a big compliment here. Fatih Akin is one of the biggest German directors today and every person who claims they know cinema know him, Podolski is one of the greatest German football players ever, Boateng is one of the most popular football players today. Your lack of different famous people doesnt mean they don't qualify. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 22:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I would not recognize most of them either (although I had heard of their names, except one), but their achievements are mostly outside of my personal fields of interest. I assume a football fan might recognize the footballers, etc. I'll happily admit that I couldn't hand-on-heart claim that I knew exactly what e.g. Hegel stood for, except that he was a philosopher, but I'm sure he's popular with philosophy fans. Anyway, I think the point here would be to show a wide variety, rather than just the most notable ones. They were just my suggestions, more notable ones are welcome. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 22:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think Podolski and Akin are the most recognizable. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Can't recognize any of them either, to be honest, and hadn't heard about any of those till this discussion. Also I fail to see how some of those are notable enough to be included in a collage like this. - Rex (talk) 14:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Karl Marx and Albert Einstein are not Germans

They are Jews. They were Germans by nationality, but due to the fact the article is about Germans as an ethnic group, please take out those two people from the info box. Jews are an ethnoreligious group, which means ethnicity formed around a religion, and Marx and Einstein were of Jewish ethnicity.

I understand you Germans have some guilt feelings for the holocaust and you try to show how you are good in integrating Jews now (70 years too late), but please remember the article is about an ethnic group and Marx and Einstein were not of German ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 12:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree in principle that it seems presumptuous for us to include these people in a category that neither they themselves nor their environment considered or wished them to be part of -- if that is indeed the case. Iblardi (talk) 14:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Marx very clearly and unequivocally considered himself a German and not a Jew. In fact his views on Jews would today be considered antisemitic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

But treating Marx as an ethnic German is not without its problems either. The nature and degree of his "Jewishness" seems to be an issue with which his biographers have been wrestling. For instance, J. Carlebach, in Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Judaism, 1978, pp. 320-323) concludes that Marx, although he "Marx was not a Jew in any religious, national or cultural sense" and "was never what someone once called ‘functionally Jewish’, ... was Jewish in two respects. First, by descent, and second, by common consent. (...) The little evidence we possess would suggest that, while Marx would have agreed with a description of himself as a Jew by descent, he would have resented the second, though it was and remains something he could not escape" (my italics). The tyranny of external ascription? Iblardi (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Has been discussed a thousand times. RFC/editor consensus has clearly been in favour to include German Jews from assimilated background/assimilated Jews - see talk archive. --IIIraute (talk) 17:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

But I suppose that the discussion is not so much about whether persons of Jewish descent can or cannot be ethnic Germans, but rather whether particular Jewish individuals who self-identified as Jews should here be included as ethnic Germans even if they would have rejected the idea themselves. What about that source quoted by Table Lamp 47 in October 2011, Fölsing's biography of Einstein, which was supposed to have "nailed the issue" regarding Einstein's self-ascribed ethnicity? According to that editor, Einstein was "a strongly motivated Zionist (Fölsing 1997, 494–505)," who "opposed assimilation as a contemptible form of “mimicry” (p. 490)". What happened there -- was the source misquoted? Iblardi (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't matter, he still was an (at least) eighth generation German citizen of converted, assimilated non-observant (German)-Jewish background, with a Germanic given name, a German surname, born, raised and educated in Germany, attended a Catholic elementary school, did write all his major works in German, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics, being a German national and laureate. --IIIraute (talk) 01:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It matters insofar as ethnicity is now commonly defined in terms of both external ascription and self-identification, as the article Ethnic group makes clear. The latter aspect should not be ignored. Iblardi (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Just because Einstein did support the creation of a Jewish state (although once created, he didn't move there himself), it does not mean that he wasn't German. In his youth, Einstein did not identify strongly with Jewish culture and religion.[4] And even if he did, it's a matter of religion and not of ethnicity. Einstein did choose to spend most of his life in German speaking countries, and chose to return to Germany and to become a German national again in 1914. He chose to become a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and in 1916, Einstein voluntarily accepted being appointed president of the German Physical Society. He did choose to spend most of his adult life in Germany and for his whole life, even when living in the USA, he did continue to use the German language. He was a fully assimilated eighth (or more) generation German citizen of converted, non-observant (German)-Jewish background, with a Germanic given name, a German surname, (and did choose to continue to use both of them for his whole life) born, raised and educated in Germany, attended a Catholic elementary school, did write all his major works in German, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics, being a German national and laureate, the latter, again by choice! So, somehow he must have identified with the German culture, language, etc. --IIIraute (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Still, Einstein's case is problematic. According to Z. Rosenkranz, Einstein before Israel: Zionist icon or iconoclast? (Princeton 2011), Einstein’s identification with the Jews was primarily "ethnic and cultural, not religious, in nature". Einstein referred to his "coreligionists"(!) "time and again" as "'ethnic comrades' (Stammesgenossen), thereby illustrating the primacy for him of the ethnic bond with his fellow Jews. For him", according to Rosenkranz, "the central characteristics of the Jews as a nation were ethnic lineage, 'a sense of being different,' and 'predominantly' non-religious traditions".

Rosenkranz writes that Einstein saw the "assimilationist strivings of the urban, bourgeois majority of German Jewry" as "undignified mimicry" (my italics -- this addresses the issue of assimilation mentioned above).

"In contrast, he was profoundly impressed by what he perceived as the ethnic authenticity and cultural achievements of the Ostjuden (...)" (p. 255).

"His relationship to his own German identity was also fraught with ambivalence"; in the end, however, "though never explicitly acknowledged by Einstein, he felt a great deal of allegiance to German culture, and even more to the German scholarly ethic" (p. 255-56). (Note, however, that the author does not speak of an ethnic bond.) Yet, immediately after the war, Einstein "was thoroughly disgusted with the 'horrid Europeans' in general. This anti-European sentiment also resulted in Einstein defining himself (and the Jews) as non-European", and "he employed his Jewish ethnocentrism, ingrained in him from a very early age, to conclude that Zionism was qualitatively different from other forms of nationalism and therefore worthy of his support" (p. 256-57).

All of this seems to suggest that Einstein cherished his Jewish ethnic identity and rejected the idea of him being a German in an ethnic sense, despite his affiliation with German culture. Iblardi (talk) 18:08, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what this seems to suggest - I do know that this is all supposition. However, the points I have made are facts. Einstein was a fully assimilated eighth (or more) generation German citizen, who was born, raised and educated in Germany, and did choose to return to spend most of his adult life there. That's surely enough to make him an ethnic German.--IIIraute (talk) 19:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The facts you made have nothing to do with the discussion. Einstein was of Jewish ethnicity, it's a fact. As assimilated as he was for 8 generations his ancestors made sure to mary only Jews, another fact. What you talk about is nationality. Nothing can make him an ethnic German because you can't change your genes, that's another fact. In fact, during the holocaust Germany was killing Jews an as ethnic group, a conversion would not help. A good example is Italian-Americans. They are Italians by ethnicity, but Americans by citizenship. There is no such ethnicity as American (well, there is native American but that's not what I mean), therefore no one says I'm of American ethnicity, even if they speak English for 9 generations. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

If you repeat a lie many times it will not make it true. Jews are an ethnicity and a religion. Einstein was 100% Jewish by ethnicity. He was not Jewish by religion, it's known, but he always identified as a Jew. A good example is Italian-Americans. They are Italians by ethnicity, but Americans by citizenship. There is no such ethnicity as American (well, there is native American but that's not what I mean), therefore no one says I'm of American ethnicity, even if they speak English for 9 generations. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Editing decisions that are solely based on an editor's own reasoning from primary data without regard for the opinions expressed by secondary sources would fall under WP:SYNTH, I think. If a mainstream scholarly source has something relevant to say about the specific issue under discussion, it should not be summarily dismissed. Iblardi (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

What I found is this: According to John Stachel (“Einstein's Jewish identity,” in: Einstein from ‘B’ to ‘Z’ (Boston, 2002), p. 57-75), Einstein’s parents were “even more assimilated to German culture, particularly in its love for the German literary classics, than had been previous generations of south German Jews.” Still, “they unhesitatingly identified themselves as Jews and continued certain Jewish customs” although they “did not practice the Jewish religion or observe kosher dietary laws” (Stachel, 2002, p. 58). Einstein’s family, “similar to other rural Jews”, showed a “high degree of interdenominational tolerance: among village Jews it was common for pupils to attend christian public schools and receive private Jewish tutoring at home.” (Rosenkranz, op. cit., 2011, p. 13). In fact, there had been no Jewish schools in Munich since 1872. Thus it happened that Einstein received Catholic instruction alongside his “private Jewish instruction” (Stachel, 2002, p. 59). Gender roles at home appear to have been “well-defined and traditional in nature, similar to those in the rural Jewish family” (Rosenkranz, 2011, p. 13). Rosenkranz notes that “like other members of the German Jewish minority, the Einsteins clearly maintained a ‘Jewish familial 'inside'’ and a ‘German ‘outside’’—a condition defined by one German historian [i.e. Till van Rahden] as the “situative ethnicity” of the German Jews”.

Later, when he resided in Switzerland, there still was, as Einstein wrote in 1921, “nothing that called forth any Jewish sentiments” in him, but “all that changed” in 1914, when he moved to Berlin. There, he writes, “I discovered for the first time that I was a Jew, and I owe this discovery more to Gentiles than to Jews” (Stachel, 2002, p. 62). Einstein’s “Jewish identity” (in terms of self-consciousness) “was essentially established” by 1923 (Stachel, 2002, 57). From that time onward, apparently, he would refer to the Jews as his Stammesgenossen, “thereby illustrating the primacy for him of the ethnic bond with his fellow Jews” and would charactierize the "assimilationist strivings of the urban, bourgeois majority of German Jewry" as "undignified mimicry" (Rosenkranz, 2011, p. 255; also cited above).

When all of the above is taken into consideration, the claim that Einstein should be considered an ethnic German seems at least debatable. Iblardi (talk) 23:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Look, I think it is great that Einstein suddenly discovered "that he was a Jew" in his late thirties, but this article is about Germans as an ethnic group, and not Einstein's religio-moral identity crises. And guess what: you can be German and Jewish! --IIIraute (talk) 02:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be consistently missing the point. Ethnicity, not religion, is exactly what the sources are talking about, as you should have seen if you had read my postings. I shouldn’t have to repeat this, but once again, for clarity’s sake:

According to the above sources, Einstein’s parents “unhesitatingly identified themselves as Jews and continued certain Jewish customs” although they “did not practice the Jewish religion”; "the central characteristics of the Jews as a nation were ethnic lineage, 'a sense of being different,' and 'predominantly' non-religious traditions"; Einstein referred to the Jews "time and again" as "ethnic comrades (Stammesgenossen), thereby illustrating the primacy for him of the ethnic bond with his fellow Jews”; Einstein saw the "assimilationist strivings of the urban, bourgeois majority of German Jewry" as "undignified mimicry"; “like other members of the German Jewish minority, the Einsteins clearly maintained a ‘Jewish familial 'inside'’ and a ‘German ‘outside’’—a condition defined by one German historian [i.e. Till van Rahden] as the “situative ethnicity” of the German Jews”. Now, this last quotation, about "situative" or "situational" ethnicity, which is a somewhat ambiguous term, brings up an interesting point: would it be possible for Einstein to be considered both an ethnic Jew and an ethnic German? Perhaps so, but this should be investigated rather than taken for granted, as you now seem to do. Iblardi (talk) 06:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

However, this seems highly doubtful. Rosenkranz (2011) also quotes from a letter to the Centralverein Deutscher Staatsbürger Jüdischen Glaubens, written in April 1920, in which Einstein “reconfirms his Jewish identity in a positive manner and once more rejects his German identity: I am neither a German citizen nor is there anything in me that can be described as “Jewish faith.” But I am a Jew, and I am glad that I belong to the Jewish people, even though in no way do I consider them to be the chosen ones. Let us leave anti-Semitism to the goy and let us keep the love of our brethren”” (p. 75). It is obvious that the word goy includes the Germans and that Einstein is not thinking of himself in terms of multiple ethnical identities here. Iblardi (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The reason why this talking about “tribal brotherhood” may be more important than the actual degree to which Einstein or his family had been assimilated into German society is that, since the work of Fredrik Barth, self-ascription has come to be seen as one of the more crucial factors in defining ethnic identities. This can be shown by a few quotes taken from contemporary writers on ethnicity:

> L.A. Wilkie, Creating Freedom: Material Culture and African-American Identity at Oakley Plantation, Louisiana, 1845-1950 (2000), p. 7: “Frederick Barth’s (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries quickly became the leading text within the field due to Barth’s reconceptualization of ethnic groups as forms of social organizations that maintained boundaries, rather than content, as the primary means of retaining ethnicity and that define themselves through self-ascription, not just through labeling by outsiders... . (...) Barth’s tenets continue to shape the way that many anthropologists define ethnicity”.

> K. Frøystad, Blended boundaries : caste, class and shifting faces of 'Hinduness' in a North Indian city (2005), p. 19: “For Barth, as for Eriksen and others who stand on his shoulders, ethnicity primarily pertains to ascription and self-ascription of group membership and cultural characteristics.”

> J.J. E. Gracia, Surviving Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century (2005), p. 43: “...sociologists frequently make self-naming, self-definition, and self-awareness necessary conditions of ethnicity (cf. Isaacs 1975, 34-35; Parsons 1975, 56; Horowitz 1975, 113; Hayes-Bautista 1983, 275-76; Aboud 1987, 32; for philosophers, see Bernstein 2001; Outlaw 1996, 7).”

> C. Dowd, The construction of Irish identity in American literature (2011), p. 10: “Barth’s work shows his struggle against essentialist thinking, and in his 1998 preface to the new edition of his book, he makes use of the vocabulary popularized by modern critics to clarify his point, noting that ethnicity is a matter of “social organization” and “self-ascription” rather than “empirical cultural difference”.”

Many other examples could be cited. Now, if this criterion of self-ascription also applies to individuals -which I do not know for sure- the question that should next be asked is whether Einstein's own statements regarding his Jewishness and his "non-Germanness", as quoted above, are in themselves enough to exclude him from the German ethnic group. Iblardi (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

IIIraute, you keep on referring to Jews as a religion which just highlights how little you know on the topic. Jews are an ethnic group and a religios group, the identities can exist separately. It's obvious Einstein and Marx were of Jewish ethnicity and they had no one in their family of German ethnicity. Maybe it's in your genes to want to wipe the Jewish race, I don't know, but the fact is, Jewish is an ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 06:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

"IIIraute...maybe it's in your genes to want to wipe the Jewish race, I don't know..." thanks for revealing your true colours - please say no more! -- enough has been said!! ...don't take yourself so important, you f***ing racist!!! --IIIraute (talk) 14:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It's funny to hear accusations of being racist from a guy who tries to deny the existance of a whole ethnicity. I'm totally not racist and support the right of every ethnicity or race to exist and express itself without being harmed, especially when talking about a minority. I didn't say it's in the genes of all Germas to wipe the Jewish race, I spoke just about you, that's why my comment is not racist. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 18:49, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

At second thought, I do appologise for that comment I made. It is nasty and I shouldn't have said it. But the fact is, for me as a Jew it does look suspicious to see a person denying the obvious fact that Jews are not just a religion but an ethnicity. Even the Israeli law of return is built on the principle that a person can immigrate to Israel even if they are christian as long as one of their grandparents was of Jewish ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it doesnt matter! My family where what you described in Germany, but the fact is, after all that they still married Jews and ethnically they were Jewish. The article is about Germans as an ethnic group, not nationality. The fact is, both Einstein's parents and Marx's parents were of Jewish ethnicity, and so were they. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 07:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see what concensus you are talking about. Many times people said that people who are not ethnically German should not be in the collage and all of them were dismissed in the named of the so called "concensus", which is ironic because here this word is just used by a minority to dismiss a majority. Even though they were assimilated, ethnically they were not German (as much as you would want them to be). If you decided to go according to the national principle and not ethnical, why is there not even one person of Turkish ethnicity? Mesut Ozil for example. There are many assimilated Turks in Germany. Many people mentioned it before and it's obviously the real concensus is not to put non Germans in the collage. You don't need to feel guilty about it, I'm a Jew and I can tell you it's ok, it's just following the procedures of ethnic articles. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 07:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

If you do not see what consensus is being talked about, then you have not checked the archives. That what convinces you strongly is not seen as convincing by the others. By the way, Karl Marx was not a Jew. And if it it would be very strange if all people who are Jews by Halakhic law were excluded from the list of all other countries, not just Germany. Mesut Özil (note spelling) is not in any way as important as, for instance, Karl Marx. Should he become world footballer of the year three times in a row, he might be a candidate for inclusion. -- Zz (talk) 17:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Uh, yes he was. It says on his Wikipedia page that he was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.Evildoer187 (talk) 20:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I love it when people who have no idea of the topic start talking about it :-) Jews are an ethnoreligious group, which mean an ethnicity formed around a religion, which includes similar genes (Jews have genes from the middle east as a reference to where they came from). I don't consider myself Jewish by religion, but I am Jewish by ethnicity and nothing can change that. Karl Marx was 100% Jewish ethnically, it has nothing to do with religion. What the Jewish religion says has nothing to do with ethnic identity. If a German converted to Judaism he still remained German by ethnicity, but he obviously is Jewish by religion. Same thing. Karl Marx was ethnically Jewish, his genes were Jewish and not Germanic. I looked at the "concensus" and other pages in the archive and I saw that many people numerous time brough up the fact that people who are not of German ethnicity should be not put in the collage, so again, there is no concensus on the topic, that's why I reopened the conversation. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

ethnicity is not exclusively based on geneaology as commonly assumed, but can be based on geneaology and/or culture and language. please see → RFC → [5] ← --IIIraute (talk) 17:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity is genetics+history, what you are talking about is cultural identity or national identity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Make yourself familiar with Wikipedia. During this, check what tone is expected, why a logical argument is preferred, and how that is presented. For instance, I don't consider myself Jewish by religion, but I am Jewish by ethnicity and nothing can change that is just a personal view. Moreover, it does not refute the points brought up by others in any way.

If you really think that persons who are Jews by Halakhic law are not eligible for the inclusion in the notables of any country, then this discussion page is the wrong place to discuss it anyhow. Go to the right place, establish a consensus that Jews should be deleted from the list of notables of any country, and report back. -- Zz (talk) 17:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

This personal view is an example of a fact, you don't have to be Jewish by religion to be ethnically Jewish or the other way round. Raional arguments don't really work here. Many people come and say Einstein and Marx and Jewish by ethnicity, not German, but for a reason it keeps on being dismissed in the name of a certain "concensus". First of all, a concensus can be changed, Wikipedia is built on the principle of constant improvement. Second, a concensus doesnt get challenged so often by so many people. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity is a social rather than biological construct. Germans in each state may be more related to people in neighboring non-German provinces than to other Germans. Frisians, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Swabians/Suevi. Eastern Germans may be more related to Eastern Europeans and Asians than other Germans. We think of English prime ministers such as David Cameron and Tony Blair as English, despite non-English surnames, and do not think of the Royal family as German, despite their ancestry. TFD (talk) 18:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity is genetics and history. What you are talking about is nationality. Unlike ethnicities like English or Russians which were formed a long time ago, Germans formed their own united identity at a later stage, and before that were split into different states, but what united them into one nation was the common history, culture and origin. Jews in Germany assimilated, but they still didn't become of German ethnicity because it's impossible to change ethnicity. In the case of Einstein, he actually identified as a Jew, so he didn't even see himself as German. In the case of Marx, both his assimilated parents were of Jewish ethnicity. A good example is Italian-Americans. They are Italians by ethnicity, but Americans by citizenship. There is no such ethnicity as American (well, there is native American but that's not what I mean), therefore no one says I'm of American ethnicity, even if they speak English for 9 generations. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Germans are not genetically homogeneous, and in the examples I provided, Germans in some states may be closer genetically to the natives of neighbouring non-German provinces than they are to other Germans. Northern Germans are genetically closer to Scandinavians, central Germans to northern French and southern English, southern Germans to northern Italians, eastern Germans to Poles, etc. Also, European Jews are closer genetically to Europeans than they are to Middle Eastern or Chinese Jews. Ethiopian Jews appear to have no relationship to other Jews at all. The myth of ethnically pure nationalities is a myth that died out with the end of the Second World War. TFD (talk) 07:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Germans are not homogenous, but the fact is, genetically they are a union of specific Germanic (and a bit of Slavic) tribes which formed the German nation. Jews are a Semitic ethnicity, they were not one of the "tribes" or kingdom which became part of the German ethnicity.

That's a lie. Genetic tests showed that Jews are genetically closer to middle eastern populations like Arabs, Druze and Assyrians then Europeans because for most of their history in Europe Jews lived in isolatted communities (until the emancipation). You can read about it in the Ashkenazi Jews article. Even the Genes Jews do have which are not Semitic are mostly Slavic and not Germanic. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 12:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You should avoid terms such as "lie" which is not in the spirit of scholarly collegiality. You are misreading the article, there was a high degree of similarity among Jews in Y-DNA but far less in Mt-DNA markers. These markers were also found to a lesser extent in the host population. In some cases, e.g., Ethiopia, there was no similarity at all. "[B]etween 35 and 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome comes from European descent."[6] You still need to explain why people of German ancestry living in the UK, Holland, France, and Italy, are not Germans. TFD (talk) 14:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

If someone doesnt tell the truth it's called telling lies. Claming most of the Jewish genes are non-Jewish is a lie. It's not a matter of different opninions. The research you brought clearly states that the 35-55 might come from European descent, but first of all, it's not sure if it's 35 or 55, or maybe 38? or maybe 45? The fact is, even most of that range falls under 50%. Second, no one said the non-Jewish 35-55 come from Germans. It's mostly Slavic actually (don't forget, though Ashkenazi Jews first settled in Germany and France during their first arrival to Europe, when they left those areas due to the crusades and laws against Jews to Poland and the territories under it's control, like Ukraine and Belarus. There the Cossacs raped many women, and that's mostly where those genes come from. As someone who studied History of the Jewish people in the Tel Aviv University that's a topic I studied a lot about). I don't need to explain it because people of German ethnicity who live in the UK are German and in Italy are Germans, they might be British or Italian by nationality but they can't change their ethnicity. AS I said, Italian-Americans. Even after living in America for many generations and speaking English they are still ethnically Italian and American by nationality becuase there is no such ethnicity called American. Again, there were references about Einstien brough here showing he identified as a Jew on an ethnic level, and Marx didn't have and German roots as far as we know. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 18:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The Anglo-Saxons who conquered Britain are called English not German. The Franks who conquered France are called French, not Germans. The Lombards who conquered Italy are called Italians, not Germans. The West Frisians who live in the province of Friesland are called Dutch, not Germans. The Germanic peoples (Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) who live in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, are called Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, not Germans. But this article is about Germans not Germanic peoples. Your claim about Cossacks btw does not explain why there is such a high prevalence of European mitochondrial DNA among European Jews and is just idle speculation. TFD (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

They are not called Germans because they are not Germans. They were specific Germanic tribes which evolved into certain ethnicities, but they were not Germans as in Germans the ethnic group because that ethnic group didn't exist yet. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Because Germans are not a biological group but a social construct. Being a Frank, Anglo-Saxon, Slav, Jew, Catholic, etc. does not make one a German nor does it exclude one. BTW, at what date did "Germans the ethnic group" come into existence? TFD (talk) 12:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

"The Germans (German: Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe."

Contrast this with the first line from the Ashkenazi Jews page.

"Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim (Hebrew: אַשְׁכְּנַזִּים, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: [ˌaʃkəˈnazim], singular: [ˌaʃkəˈnazi], Modern Hebrew: [aʃkenaˈzim], [aʃkenaˈzi]; also יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכֲּנַז Y'hudey Ashkenaz, "The Jews of Ashkenaz"), are an ethnoreligious group who trace their origins to the indigenous Hebrew speaking peoples of Canaan in South Western Asia, and settled along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north, probably during the early Middle Ages.[5]"

This article is about the indigenous people of Germany, not ethnic minorities who originally came from elsewhere. Karl Marx and Albert Einstein may have been German nationals, but they were not indigenous Germans. It would be analogous to putting Ronald Reagan or Jesse Jackson on the Native American template. They should be removed.Evildoer187 (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

recruited opinion/canvassing → [7]. --IIIraute (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

100% correct! Great example. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, but please don't attack Illraute on the basis of his German nationality. This is not YouTube.Evildoer187 (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You are right, I went to far there. It's just for me as a Jew whose family in Germany were killed for being Jews (ethnically, nothing to do with religion) it's annoying to hear someone trying to deny the existance of a whole ethnic group. I don't understand why anyone would do it unless they have a certain political morive. It's like in Syria and Iraq when the government tried to deny the existance of the Assyrian ethnic group because of political reason (to dismiss their claim for an independent country). But you are right I shouldn't have went to the level I went there. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

And if we're gonna bring antisemitism into this, it's worth noting that the consideration of Jews as "simply Europeans who converted to Judaism" has been the official party line of antisemitism (well nowadays they call it "anti-Zionism") for decades now. It's utterly pointless to bring up how the Nazis used their non-Germanic origins to persecute them, because the majority of Jews no longer live in Europe, or identify with it. Rather, the majority of American Jews identify more with Israel than their diasporic host countriesEvildoer187 (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, someone of German descent who lives in the UK, Italy, France etc, is still German in all but a national sense. Similarly, someone who is 100 percent Ashkenazi cannot be an ethnic German, because they are not the same thing. This page is about the German ethnicity, not nationality. Therefore, they don't belong on this page. Jews are more similar to other Middle Eastern populations, according to genetic, cultural, historical, linguistic, and other consensus.Evildoer187 (talk) 20:37, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You are missing the comparison. Franks from Germany moved to Gaul where they are called French. Franks who remained in Germany are called Franconians. Angles and Saxons who moved to Britain are called Anglo-Saxons or English, those who remained are called Angles and Saxons. Lombards who moved to Italy are called Lombards, those who remained are Suabians. Friesians who moved to Holland are called Friesians, those who remained are called Frisians. English developed from a Low German. Why is an Angle in Angleland (England) English, while an Angle in Germany is German and an Angle in Denmark is Danish, when they are ethically the same people, speaking dialects of the same language if being German is defined by genetic ethnicity? TFD (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You're missing my point. Ashkenazi Jews are not Germans, in the ethnic sense. Those examples you gave are of foreign tribes who gradually merged with native ones in the lands they had settled, thereby creating a new ethnicity altogether. The result is that the modern French population is a amalgamation of Celtic, Germanic, and Latin tribes, the Italians are a confederation of tribes who settled over the centuries, and so on and so forth. No such thing ever happened with Jews in Europe, or anywhere for that matter. This article is about ethnic Germans, not Ashkenazi Jews. So why are Albert Einstein and Karl Marx on here?Evildoer187 (talk) 02:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, considering the purpose of this encyclopedia, how can it be helpful to the reader to call Einstein an ethnic German? Given that ethnicity is a social category, reference to someone's ethnicity should help us better understand the way a person or group of persons function in relation to other people or groups (in addition, of course, to other qualities such as personal character traits, intelligence etc.) and how this influences the courses of their lives. Which label would be more appropriate for this purpose: that of “German” or that of “Jew”? In general, I think, it would be misleading to present German Jews from the Nazi era as ethnic Germans. For these people, the ethnic aspect of their identity had tremendous consequences for their personal and social lives. Calling them ethnic Germans obscures the fact that they were the victims of ethnic cleansing and the participants in an ethnic conflict -even if it was forced upon them, and also upon many of their ethnic German contemporaries- with the German people on the one side and they, the Jews, on the other. Had they been ethnic Germans, their lives would have been very different; the very fact that they were not cost many of them their lives. Iblardi (talk) 08:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You are wrong about Germanic tribes. The Friesians for example lived in what is today modern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands centuries before those nations were formed and are closely related to each other and in many cases continue to speak Friesian, which is a Germanic language. They also speak the languages of their host countries. Yet we do not exclude them. Similarly, other Germanic tribes settled in specific areas of what are now separate nations and regional differences still exist. BTW can you provide a date at which Germans, as distinct from Germanic tribes, came into existence? TFD (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't mention Germanic tribes. Did you misplace your comment? Iblardi (talk) 13:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly! Einstein was not Jewish by religion because his religious views were not Jewish, but ethnically he was Jewish. That's why he had to leave Germany and that's why he supported an independent state for the Jews. Marx would have the same destiny like Einstein if he would be alive at the time, which is immigration due to the fact he couldn't stay in Germany due to his ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore he identified himself with Jewish culture and Jewish heritage.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 12:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

What is your definition of a Jew? Is it someone descended from a Jew or someone descended from ancient Israelites? Because if it is the latter, then we cannot know if someone is Jewish because we would need to conduct genealogical or research or DNA testing, but if the former it could include people who had the same ancestry as other Germans. TFD (talk) 13:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

He was an atheist Ashkenazi Jew, had Ashkenazi Jewish parents, and identified himself as a Jew, rather than a German. He considered other Jews, and even the Palestinian Arabs if I recall correctly, to be his brethren. That's a pretty clear indicator of how he felt about himself and his people. Furthermore, it would not be in the best interests of this encyclopedia to conflate Ashkenazi Jews with the countries in which they lived, because they are a separate minority like the Gypsies were. They are not the same people.

You would have a case if either Marx or Einstein were recent converts to Judaism, but it's not so. Karl Marx had brown skin, for Pete's sake, and earlier pictures of Einstein reveal that he had very Levantine features.Evildoer187 (talk) 14:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

OTOH, Walther Rathenau, the other most famous German Jew in the Weimar Republic, wrote, "My people are the Germans and no on else The Jews are for me a branch of the German nation like the Saxons, Bavarians or Wends." The Wends are Slavic Germans. Bavarian nationalists often claim they are not Germans. BTW Einstein rejected German nationality, but accepted Swiss and US nationality. Do you have any sources that he rejected German ethnicity, rather than nationality? TFD (talk) 15:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

He clearly refers to the non-Jew (goy) as "the other" in the passage quoted from Rosenkranz, 2011, p. 75. Iblardi (talk) 15:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Rathenau, note that “a branch of the German nation” seems overly interpretive if it is meant as a translation of “ein Deutscher Stamm”, which can be more neutrally translated as “a German tribe”. And although he calls the Germans "his people", he might mean this to be taken in a civic rather than in an ethnic sense. In his 1897 article “Höre, Israel!” he clearly treats the German Jews as a people distinct from ethnic Germans, urging his “Stammesgenossen” (which could be translated as “ethnic brethren”), “das schwärzliche Volk” (as he thinks they are perceived by the ethnic Germans), not to engage in Darwinian “mimicry” in order to merely resemble the “Stammesdeutschen” (=“tribal Germans”, ethnic Germans), but instead to work on the “self-education of a race” (“Selbsterziehung einer Rasse”) by discarding all those “Stammeseigenschaften” (“features of their tribe”) that are hated by their “Landesgenossen” (“compatriots”). Here his ideal of “Germanness” seems to be one of citizenship rather than ethnicity. [8] Iblardi (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The reason why I called the translation overly interpretive is that it seems to imply that Rathenau thinks that the Jews and the other German “tribes” have branched off from a common “German” origin, whereas his actual words could point to the opposite, viz. that the Jews and the Germanic tribes are to grow together to form the “roots” of a German “tree”, so that the German national identity will be “rooted” in the various ethnic identities of the historical tribes that the modern nation encompasses. However, Ernst Jacob, in “Walter Rathenau als Deutscher und Jude” (Der Morgen 2 (1926/1927), pp. 603-610), cites from a letter in which Rathenau asserts his Germanness more emphatically, in the type of language that is clasically associated with ethnic identification: “Ich habe und kenne kein anderes Blut als deutsches, keinen anderen Stamm, kein anderes Volk als deutsches. Vertreibt man mich von meinem deutschen Boden, so bleibe ich deutsch und es ändert sich nichts. Du sprichst von meinem Blut und Stamm, selbst einmal von meinem Volk und meinst die Juden. Mit ihnen verbindet mich das, was jeden Deutschen mit ihnen verbindet, die Bibel, die Erinnerung und die Gestalten des Alten und Neuen Testamentes” (p. 604-5; my emphasis). The case of Rathenau seems an especially complicated one. On the one hand, there is his own self-perceived Germanness; on the other, there is a constant need for him to explain and to justify himself to the outside world, which tends to see him primarily as a Jew and a (relative) stranger. Iblardi (talk) 11:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ratnau obviously ment nationality, simply because ethnically he was a Jew, and a big part of the propoganda against him referred to him being Jewish. Einstein never had any Germany ethnicity to begin with to reject it. Do you really don't see that you don't have a case? Jews are a separate independent ethnicity, nothing to do with the Germans on an ethnic level. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 17:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This is sounding a lot like No true Scotsman. siafu (talk) 17:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Why do people have such a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that Jews are a diaspora group from the Middle East, thus making them a Middle Eastern people? I'm beginning to think that people just don't want to acknowledge it.Evildoer187 (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No it's more like telling a Scotsman who lives in England that he is ethnically English because he lives in England and speaks English. Or it's like telling Mel Gibson that he is a Native American because he lives in America. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 21:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No, its more like calling Gibson a Scotsman because that is where his ancestors lived, along with British those of PMs Cameron, Blair, MacMillan, and Douglas_Hume, while Thatcher was Welsh and Callaghan Irish. No king or queen has been English since 1066, and of course we can exclude English Jews, such as Disraeli and the Barings. But can you tell me the year that German ethnicity began. TFD (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You are still missing the point. This article is about ethnic Germans. Albert Einstein and Karl Marx are not ethnic Germans, they are Ashkenazi Jews. Therefore, they don't belong on here. Also, according to this, the people we now call Germans have been present in what is now Germany since the Nordic Bronze Age, if not earlier. Jews, on the other hand, were not present in Germany until the early Middle Ages. Do the math.Evildoer187 (talk) 22:42, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

If you define German as people whose ancestors lived in Germany in the Nordic Bronze Age then English people, Franks in France and Lombards in Italy are Germans too, but many if not most Germans in Eastern Germany are not Germans because their ancestors came later. So for the fourth time, please provide the date at which Germans began. TFD (talk) 23:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I define Germans as the indigenous population of Germany. Jews are a separate minority, who originally came from the Middle East. As for the English, Franks, and Lombards, they are English, French, and Italians respectively. They merged with the native populations and forged new ethnicities, and their ancestors had been present in those areas since the stone age. The same can't be said for Jews.

And here's what it says about Germanic tribes....

"The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes is assumed to have occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age, or at the latest during the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, the tribes began expanding south, east and west in the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul, as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Central Europe"Evildoer187 (talk) 00:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

At what point do you consider German ethnicity to have started? If it began in the Bronze age, then Angles, Franks, Dutch and Suevi living in Angleterre, Frankreich, the Netherlands and Lombardy are just as German as the Angles, Franks, Deutschlanders and Suevi living in Germany. TFD (talk) 00:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

No, they are not "just as German" because they merged with indigenous populations in other lands and forged new ethnicities. The result is that those populations have Germanic heritage, even though they are not Germans themselves. This has happened countless times in European history. This never occurred with Jews, who have always been and continue to be a separate group. Would you include Romani people in Germany on this page? How about Turks living in Germany? Evildoer187 (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I propose a change of the first sentence from: "This article is about Germans as an ethnic group", to "This article is about Germans as a nation and an ethnic group." Problem solved. see: Austrians, for example. --IIIraute (talk) 02:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

They're not part of the German nation either. The Jews are a nation and ethnoreligious group from the Middle East. We'd still have to remove them from this page.Evildoer187 (talk) 02:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Both were German nationals, period. →→ see: Albert Einstein, Karl Marx.--IIIraute (talk) 02:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't mean they are Germans. Jews are a separate nation from the Germans, as well. Would you include a German born Turk on this list?Evildoer187 (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

A fully assimilated, eighth (or more) generation German citizen of converted, non-observant Turkish/Muslim background, with a Germanic given name, a German surname, born, raised and educated in Germany, who attended a Catholic elementary school, did write all his major works in German, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics, being a German national and laureate, while not being able to speak a single word of Turkish? Yes, why not?? --IIIraute (talk) 02:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not? Because he's not of German ethnicity. You are totally confusing ethnicity with nationality. If you would study a bit of sociology you would know that the top level of assimilation is when you marry into the majority group, so as much as they were assimilated they made sure to maintain their Jewish identity. Both Einstein's parents were Jews, same thing about Marx. Getting a noble prize doesnt change your genes or ethnicity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 07:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Evildoer187, Frisia reaches across three countries, including the province of Friesia in the Netherlands, the district of Nordfriesland and other regions in Germany, and Denmark. They are genealogically related and 100s of thousands retain Frisian languages. Yet they are indigenous citizens of three different countries. How is it that you consider them to belong to three separate ethnicities? And would you consider David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher to be English? TFD (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Because they mixed with the local tribes in each area and developed a separate culture and formed separate identities. In the case of the Jews they married Jews and they kept on identifying as Jews for ethnicity. You were brought quotes above about Einstein's self-identification. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 07:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The Frisians did not "mix with the local tribes in each area and develope[] a separate culture". They were the "local tribes" living in what is now modern day Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, which is where they still live, and they continue to call themselves Frisians and 100s of thousands of them continue to speak Frisian. That the kings of Europe chose to draw lines on the map did not change their ethnicity, yet they have learned to speak the languages of their host countries and are citizens. And like the English who moved from Germany to England and may have mixed with the local tribes, the Jews moved to Germany and definitely mixed with the local tribes and even adopted their language, totally losing their own. TFD (talk) 18:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) One thing seems clear, this article cannot be about pure ethnicity as you define it. Germany has had numerous immigrants, many of which now pass for German. Its a bit like America, on a smaller scale. --Prüm (talk) 18:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The entire purpose of the article is to provide information to readers about the German ethnicity. The entire page is built around that idea, so I don't think re-phrasing a line or two is going to solve the problem. As it stands, Jews are a separate ethnicity, so they don't belong on this page. We already have an article for Jewish diaspora communities in Central/Eastern Europe.

As for the guy who said that Jews "mixed with local tribes and adopted their language, totally losing their own", that is false. There was no extensive admixture with Germanic tribes at any point in history. Rather, the European components in Ashkenazi Jews are predominantly Mediterranean i.e. Greek and Roman. I'm not saying there is no German ancestry whatsoever, just that it's very marginal. Further, Jewish immigrants to Germany modified their old tongue to accommodate their new surroundings. The result is Yiddish, a pidgin language with heavy influence from their native Hebrew tongue and Middle High German. Lastly, Jews in Germany never became ethnic Germans. They don't share the same history, culture, roots, etc, and they were mostly isolated from the larger German society until the 19th century and even that is debatable. So to treat Jews in Germany as ethnic Germans is inaccurate and misleading. Jews =/= GermansEvildoer187 (talk) 19:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

"This article is about Germans as a nation and an ethnic group." Problem solved. see: Austrians → (Freud), Dutch People → (Spinoza), for example. Einstein and Marx were German nationals →→ see: Albert Einstein, Karl Marx. Deborah Sadie Hertz, How Jews Became Germans, Yale University, 2007.[9] --IIIraute (talk) 20:15, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

You do know that Jews are a distinct nation themselves, right? "The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yehudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. " And I'm afraid those changes to the lead don't cut it, because including Einstein and Marx is still tantamount to treating Ashkenazi Jews as ethnic Germans. That would be misleading. Thus far, you've only presented one WP:RS that speaks to the contrary, which gives me good reason to believe it falls under WP:FRINGE.Evildoer187 (talk) 20:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Einstein and Marx were German nationals, period. It is time to end the discussion. →→ see: Albert Einstein, Karl Marx. --IIIraute (talk) 20:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This article is about ethnic Germans, and the rest of it was written with that in mind. Reverting one or two lines in the lead doesn't change anything. Einstein and Marx were Jews, who are a separate ethnicity. They don't belong here.Evildoer187 (talk) 22:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly - and did you ever consider to read the section called: Ethnicity → [10] -- Guess what - it does include Jews! --IIIraute (talk) 23:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

"The German ethnicity is linked to the Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe.[28] The early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia.[28] By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe and southward into Celtic territory.[28] During antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at this time.[29] By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France.[29]"

Does this sound like it applies to Jews? I don't think so.Evildoer187 (talk) 01:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

...wtf! You're wasting your breath!:

"By the Middle Ages, large numbers of Jews lived in the Holy Roman Empire and had assimilated into German culture, including many Jews who had previously assimilated into French culture and had spoken a mixed Judeo-French language.[41] Upon assimilating into German culture, the Jewish German peoples incorporated major parts of the German language and elements of other European languages into a mixed language known as Yiddish.[41] However tolerance and assimilation of Jews in German society suddenly ended during the Crusades with many Jews being forcefully expelled from Germany and Western Yiddish disappeared as a language in Germany over the centuries, with German Jewish people fully adopting the German language.[41] By the 1820s, large numbers of Jewish German women had intermarried with Christian German men and had converted to Christianity.[42] Jewish German Eduard Lasker was a prominent German nationalist figure who promoted the unification of Germany in the mid-19th century.[43]"

Does this sound like it applies to Jews? --IIIraute (talk) 01:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Not really. In order to assimilate, Jews had to leave their Jewish identity behind, usually by way of conversion to Christianity (although religion is only a part of it). Moreover, they obviously didn't assimilate the entire Jewish people in Europe, because it continued to exist long after these events. As far as it is known, Albert Einstein and Karl Marx were 100 Ashkenazi Jewish, not Germanic.Evildoer187 (talk) 02:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't know what you are talking about. Being "Germanic" has nothing to do with ancestry and everything to do with identification with a cu;ltural tradition,that includes language and history. And being "German" has nothing to do with being Germanic, and it hasn't had since 1945. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

No, you don't know what you are talking about. Germanic IS ancestry and it includes common language and history which were formed by people with a similar background which were together in the first place due to the fact they were related. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Einstein was a fully assimilated eighth (or more) generation German citizen of converted, non-observant (German)-Jewish background, with a Germanic given name, a German surname, born, raised and educated in Germany, and attended a Catholic elementary school and didn't speak a single word of Hebrew. Ethnicity is not equal to genealogy, but also incorporates language, nationality, and culture. --IIIraute (talk) 02:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If you would have any knowledge in sociology you would know that the highest level of assimilation is inter-marriage, and Einstein’s family through all the generations married Jewish (he did it to), which shows even though culturally they were assimilated they didn’t loose their ethnic identity. I love it that you argue with what Einstein himself said about his identity, he always identified as a Jew. His Jewish ethnicity was the reason why he had to leave Germany. He had a German name because centuries before that Jews all around Europe were forced to take local names. Also, if an Italian American took an English name does it mean they are ethnically English or Native American? A big part of what is ethnicity is genes, and weather you like it or not, Jews are an ethnic group, a separate ethnic group, and Jews who lived in Germany were not ethnically German. Einstein and Marx are not ethnically German, they are ethnically Jewish. Assimilation can effect on national identity, not ethnic identity. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I am late to this discussion, but this nonsense just can't stand uncontradicted where it might influence others: It's a severe distortion to say that Einstein married Jewish. His first wife was Mileva Marić, an Orthodox Christian from Serbia (then part of Austria-Hungary), and their sons (Hans Albert and Eduard) were baptised. It was only after that that he had an affair with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal, whom he married after his divorce from Milva. It's a bit tall to claim on this basis that he married his cousin because she was Jewish. Hans Adler 12:00, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Some contributors here try to argue that Jews cannot be Germans. This is a counterfactual statement. So, ethnic identities are tried to be constructed, usually based on genes, claiming that one excludes the other. These claims show a stranfe and uncanny resemblance to those perpetuated by the Nazis. Further, just as the claims of the Nazis, they lack any scientific rigor. Most genes are shared by most humans, and there is no genetic marker for being German, Jewish, or whatsoever.

Secondly, by the spurious arguments proposed, Jews cannot be members of any other nationality respectively ethnic group. Interestingly and tellingly, our contributors ignore that Jews would have to be taken from all other similar lists in Wikipedia. This critical point is dodged for the umpteenth time. The uncanny resemblance rears its ugly head again. -- Zz (talk) 15:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Jews and Germans are separate ethnicities. You don't see how including Ashkenazi Jews on a list of Germans could possibly be problematic? Also, please refrain from these fallacious "Hitler would have been proud" arguments. They are useless here.Evildoer187 (talk) 15:54, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I have a helpful information for you: one can be an Ashkenazi Jew and be of German nationality. It is a statement of fact. According to you, however, Jews and almost everything else are separate ethnicities. So, Jews should not appear on the list of any nation, should they? How come you do not address this point? And yes, certain people would have been proud. -- Zz (talk) 16:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

This article is about the German ethnicity, not nationality. We already have a page for the Jewish ethnicity, right here. In fact, Albert Einstein is already on it. One cannot be a full Ashkenazi Jew AND be an ethnic German, and to include Marx and Einstein here is misleading. Whether or not the Nazis would have approved is of little concern to me, because my only interest is improving the article.Evildoer187 (talk) 17:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Either way, I am taking a brief hiatus from Wikipedia. I will discuss this with you further, upon my return.Evildoer187 (talk) 17:22, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Why shouldn't you be an ethnic German Ashkenazi Jew? Ethnicies aren't mutually exclusive. You even get ethnic Swedish Xhosa and Scottish Maori. You're pretty free to choose or change your ethnicity any way you like, it's not a fixed quality, unlike ancestry. If Einstein and Marx felt that they were German, they were, and if they didn't, they were not. If they also regarded themselves ethnic Jews, then they were that too. It's as simple as that. Who are you to tell them what they can or can't be, and why would you even have an opinion regarding this? It's just not up to you to decide. I really don't understand how this is even worth any discussion. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

No, you can't choose an ethnicity. You can change a nationality, you can choose a cultural identity, but an ethnicity is largely a matter of genes! You can't change genes! You need to read what an ethnicity is. What you are talking about is nationality. Nationality is not a fixed quality. Einstein never said he felt German, that's the point, he always said he felt Jewish, and even if he wouldn't it doesnt matter because you can't decide on your ethnicity. Ancestry is a more "local" version of ethnicity. I can't believe we have people who don't know basic terminology taking part in the discussion and think they make a point! Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

What makes you believe that ethnicity is determined by genetics? Seems an odd view of the world... If you can't change your ethnicity, how come so many people are doing it? Also, I am well aware of the difference between ethnicity and nationality, it's just that neither of them is necessarily fixed. Contrary to what has been claimed in this thread there is no genetic factor that makes a person an ethnic German. A large proportion of the British population is of Saxon ancestry and genetically indistinguishable from Germans, but that does not make them ethnic Germans. To quote from ethnicity: 'Ethnicity can, but does not have to, include common ancestry, appearance, cuisine, dressing style, heritage, history, language or dialect, religion, symbols, traditions, or other cultural factor.' (emphasis mine). If Einstein said he's not German, then fine, he's not. It's his business alone, what do you care? I'm just not sure he's ever said that though, and also... I mean... haff you heard ze guy talk? ;-) Perhaps you can only be an Ashkenazi Jew through descent; that's perfectly possible. Being an ethnic German is however not determined by genetics, so there's nothing to stop an Ashkenazi Jew from also being an ethnic German. I know Ashkenazi Jews (by descent) that self-identify as English. Are you seriously suggesting that they are wrong about their own ethnicity? There are indeed a few ethnicities that are relatively closed to outsiders, but a very great number are much more permeable. Many groups will happily assimilate "outsiders" at the drop of a hat. That's just the way it is, relax, have a biscuit. Also, I've followed you invitation below to "think why" your ancestors "through all the generations [they] made sure to marry Jews". I could for the life of me not come up with a good answer, please tell me the reason. Below you also say that Jews "can be members only of the Jewish ethnic group", but in at Jews it says "Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia." (emphasis mine). So do their genes change upon conversion or something, and immediately cease being, say, ethnic Igbo? That makes very little sense. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 01:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A person's actual genetic makeup is only crucial to his/her ethnicity to the degree that he/she, his/her ethnic group and/or the society at large postulates the existence of such a connection as a requirement for belonging to that ethnic group. This is one of these things that, to me, makes the modern concept of ethnicity so blurry and difficult. I'm not sure if I have mastered it myself.

At any rate, quotes from Einstein, to the effect that he didn't consider himself to be an ethnic German, can be found further above in this rather disorganized thread. Iblardi (talk) 07:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I largely agree with you, except that I would change the first sentence to: "A person's actual genetic makeup is only crucial to his/her ethnicity IF he/she, his/her ethnic group and/or the society at large postulates the existence of such a connection as a requirement for belonging to that ethnic group." For many ethnic groups ancestry is not a fixed requirement, and this includes ethnic Germans (though possibly not Ashkenazi Jews). Rainbowwrasse (talk) 12:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That definition is to wide and is meant to include groups like the Druze who claim to be an ethnicity but have the same genes as Arabs or Arabs who have a big wide of genes through the Arabic world. The fact is, both in the case of Germans and in the case of Jews we are talking about ethnic groups which are based on genes, that’s why both article have sections about genes. The person you claim to know means he is English by nationality, not by ethnicity simple because he can’t be of English ethnicity because his ancestors were not the Anglo-Saxons and Celts who formed the English ethnicity. That’s what you for a reason find so hard to understand, you can nationality, not ethnicity. The biggest joke is Einstein himself never identified as a German but always identified as a Jew. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't demonstrated to me that you can determine German (or English) ethnicity genetically. If I gave you DNA from a central European person, would you be able to determine his ethnicity with absolute confidence? Please state which genetic factors distinguish an ethnic Dutch person from Enschede from an ethnic German from Gronau three miles further east. You will find that there are none. Yes, there are some genetic markers that are relatively common in Germans, but there is no defining German gene, and all markers are also found in the surrounding ethnicities. I don't know why you say that "both article have sections about genes" btw, the word gene isn't mentioned anywhere in Germans. The Jews I mentioned earlier consider themselves ethnically English and are considered as such by the community, ergo they are ethnically English. I don't mean to be rude, but it does seem a bit pompous of you to say they "mean[s he is] English by nationality, not by ethnicity" when I specifically said that they self-identify (i.e. ethnically) as English. You don't even know these people, how could you possibly know what they mean? Just accept that many ethnic groups are not defined through ancestry, even if a few are. Please also stop repeating your "you're talking about nationality, not ethnicity" mantra, it is pretty irrelevant in the real world and is not helpful. As I've said right at the start, if Einstein said he's not an ethnic German, and sources can be found for that, then I'm perfectly happy with that, I have no ideology invested in it. I can also accept if your particular ethnic group is fiercly endogamous and defines itself via ancestry, but you should accept that there are many other ethnicities that do not. Anyway, you still haven't explained that thing about how your genes change when you convert to Judaism. Or is the article on Jews wrong about converts being fully Jewish? If so, why hasn't it been corrected? Rainbowwrasse (talk) 12:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

We don't need to define Germans or English to know the simple facts the Jews are a separate ethnicity, just like we don't need to define Germans to say Russians are a separate ethnicity. The English people are the Anglo-Saxons and local Celts which mixed into the English ethnicity, with a common origin, identity and history. The Germans were formed from Germanic tribes during the Holy Roman Empire. The Jews are a separate ethnicity, with separate origins, with their own identity. Just like Turkish people living in Germany. Jews are a Semitic people which originally came from Israel and to this day keeps it's own identity, jsuit like any other ethnic group. You need to except that ethnic groups are defined by ancestry and few other things. You are the one who doesnt know what happens in the real world simple because you mix different terms. You can change a nationality, not an ethnicity. A person can choose an identity, like an Italian American can see his main identity as American and not feel Italian in any way, but ethnically he will still be Italian, it's not changeable. It's your genes, where your ancestors came from. I don't see what's your problem just admitting the fact that Jews are a separate ethnicity. Einstein never identified as a German but for a reason a few Germans here insist on having some ownership on him (after trying to kill him and his people). Jews are an ethoreligious group, which means an ethnicity formed around a religion. When someone converts to Judaism they become Jewish by religion, but not by ethnicity, I never said someone who converts to Judaism will become ethnically Jewish. From the other hand, a Jew which converts to another religion still remains Jewish ethnically because you don't change your genes by converting. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 13:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

sigh* Here you go again with your "ethnicity is fixed by genes" rant, even though you practically conceded that there is no genetic basis to being an ethnic German or English person by completely evading the initial question and saying "We don't need to define Germans or English...". If you want the phrase ethnic German to make any sense at all, then yes, you do need to define it. Please also note that I have never said that Jews are not an ethnic group, I've clearly said that they are multiple times. I've also never said that you claim that conversion to Judaism makes a person an ethnic Jew; the article Jews does, however. I have no problem with Einstein being included in a collage of ethnic Jews; he's clearly said that he's Jewish. But IF he also considered himself an ethnic German, then he was that, too. If not, then he wasn't. If you can't change an ethnicity there should only be a single one, that of the last common human ancestor. Clearly that's rubbish. Most Japanese would not self-identify as ethnic Africans just because that's where their (and everyone's) ancestors originally came from. Ethnicities can develop, change, and assimilate. For a great number of ethnicities self-identification, culture, and custom are at least as important as genetics, and often more so. On a lighter note, your assertion that "...a few Germans here..." were "...trying to kill him and his people..." is a true gem of casual racism. I'm assuming here that you are trying to imply here that all (ethnic, presumably?) Germans, regardless of their age, year of birth or personal history, are guilty of "trying to kill him and his people". Either that, or you are actually saying that Zz, for example, is really a Nazi war criminal that hasn't yet been brought to justice. As I find it unlikely that the German contributors to this thread are a bunch of Nazi OAPs, I must assume that you believe that calling someone a Nazi is in any way acceptable in polite society. It's not. I don't go around calling you a racist, either. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity is fixed by genes, it's one of the things making and ethnicity. It's true ethnicities can change and assimilated, just liked the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts became English, but the fact it, the Jews still exist and they are not one of the groups which formed the German ethnicity in the first place and the fact is they still exist and didn't dissapear. Einstein never said he was German, he always said he was Jew. Both of Marx's parents were Jewish, and yes, if you see someones parents, grandparents and etc were Jewish the person is ethnically Jewish. Zz blamed me and Evolidoer187 are doing what the Nazis wanted, which is a joke because how is the fact we still exist something that Hitler would want, so I am saying that if anything, he should check what his great-grandfather was doing in 1941 before he blames people who suffered from Hitler in doing what the Nazis are doing. How is it racist reminding Germans of there past, especially when someone claims Jews are not an ethnicity? I never said all Germans are. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 16:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Again you keep repeating that "ethnicity is fixed by genes", but fail to back up that assertion with anything except your own conviction. Further, how is the fact that an ethnic group still exists proof that members of that group cannot form part of another ethnicity? Ethnic Bavarians still exist, and yet they also formed part of the German and Austrian ethnicities. It would be preposterous to argue that an ethnic Bavarian can't be an ethnic German or an ethnic Austrian. Again, if Einstein said that he's a Jew and not also a German, I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is you telling other Jews (or anyone else for that matter) that they are not allowed to decide for themselves what ethnicity they consider themselves to be. If a Celt could decide to be English, why shouldn't a Jew? You may not approve of it since your family "through all the generations ... made sure to marry Jews" (btw you still haven't explained to me why they did that), but it's a fact of life that you do not get to decide for other people. Clearly being an ethnic Jew is very important to you, but to other ethnic Jews their "Jewishness", if you want to call it that, it so totally and utterly irrelevant that they wouldn't even give it a second thought. Please don't say "But Einstein said he's a Jew", because this isn't even about him anymore. As to your racism, you were not "reminding Germans of their past" (which in itself would be largely irrelevant here), you were implying that (just by being German) the German contributors (how do you know they are ethnic Germans, anyway?) to this discussion were somehow complicit in the holocaust. That's pretty racist in anyone's book. Anyway, you are apparently just spouting, so any further discussion with you would appear to be futile. We're also veering off topic. You have a nice day now :o). Rainbowwrasse (talk) 19:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnic Bavarians have a similar history and close genes with Germans and Austrians (in fact, all of them were German during the Holy Roman Empire), but it has nothing to do with Jews. The Jews come from a different origin and have a different history. Even in Germany they lived in closed communities for most of the history. How am I being racist by saying the simple fact that Jews and Germans are separate ethic groups? The reason Einstein's ancestors married only Jews was because they were Jews and wanted their children to be Jewish and consider themselves Jewsish, that's what minorities do when they don't want to dissapear. A Celt didn't "decide" to be English, he didn't become English. He married someone Anglo-Saxon, and at some point all Celts and Anglo-Saxons in England were mixed with each other and created one united identity. It's a process which took generations of one new ethnic identity replacing few others which united. The English ethnicity was formed from few groups uniting and mixing. When that happened to Germans, Jews were not one of those groups, that's why they survived as a separate identity. Jews were and stayed a separate independent ethnic group, otherwise they wouldn't be called Jews anymore. The Holocause is involved here in a typical "the new Germany" logic. Russians don't have guilt because they didn't do the holocaust and they didn't put any Jews in their image because they know Jews are not ethnically Russian. Same thing about English people, French people, Polish people and so one. They put just people of their ethnicity in their images, and there's nothing racist about that, it's normal, that's what ethnicity means. Only in Germans a few German guys feel the need to proove that Jews are in fact Germans, which is a result of the guilt feelings. It's prooving the point of not being racist, except you miss the point. The problem is not the fact that you call a Jew a Jew and say "he's Jewish, not Germans", the problem is that during the Holocause Nazi Germany wanted to kill the Jews on the basis of being a Jew, and that is a problem. Mesut Ozil is not ethnically German and no one has a problem saying that because you don't feel guilty in front of Turks (though to be fair, they are not treated as nicely as they should in Germany). Einstein stated he is Jewish, but for a reason you feel the urge to claim different. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble. (A) When did I say Einstein's not Jewish? I'm all for just asking people what ethnicity they are and not forcing them into something. You're confusing me with you. (B) Who here is trying to prove that Germans=Jews? You really think that this whole discussion is about that or about saying the Jewish people don't exist? Who said that? (C) You have no right to decide whether or not I'm English. But I forgive you. You're probably just upset because you're not really Jewish because your granny once ate a cabbage on a Wednesday or something. I'm not sure, I'm pretty new to this inventing-reasons-people-aren't-what-they-think-they-are business. You're the expert. What's the genetic determinant for being German (English, French, Russian,...) again? I think you forgot to mention. (D) At your behest I had a look at Poles and found Joseph Rotblat in the collage. Tsk tsk, those crazy Poles...they probably put him on there because they felt guilt-ridden about starting WW2 by invading Germany. Or is that not how that got started, I can't remember now... Rainbowwrasse (talk) 22:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Guitar hero on the roof, to use your language: How can you guarantee for Einsteins genetic Jewish "purity"? Do you have some source on that claim? Maybe you can find some information on this in some old Nazi files? You could try "Reichsstelle für Sippenforschung" or "Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt", for example. Otherwise it is quite possible that during many centuries of genetic propagation with several other Jewish families (who could have settled in Germany as much as one millenium earlier), the one or the other German gene might have contaminated the purity through the cause of sexual reproduction?? On the long shot that the files will not provide some "purity references", you are pretty much fighting a lost cause. --IIIraute (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

No one in the world is ethnically "pure" as you like to say, but the fact is, as far as he knew all his ancestors were Jewish and he always identified as a Jew, never as a German, why? Because he is a Jew and not a German. I don't know how to get information from there, you would know better, but the fact is, ethnicities exist, it's normal and there is no problem with it. I understand your position which is guilt after World War 2 so going from one extreme to the other, but the fact is, people have ethnicities, there is nothing wrong with it, all ethnicities have the right to exist. He might have had someone German many many generations ago, and might have not. He might have had something Slavic, and might have not. There would be nothing wrong if he would, but as long as there is no proof those are speculations. Again, he always identified as a Jew, and everyone in his family were Jews and married Jews as far as we know. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It's so funny to see a German blaming Jews of doing what the Nazis did. Guess what, me and Evildoer187 are Jewish, and read the articles about Ashkenazi Jews and Jews and it clearly states an ethnic group. I don't know what your great-grandfather did in 1941, mine were either fighting for the Soviet army against the Nazis or mudrered at the Holocaust, so watch out who you are blaming in what. You clearly don't know the difference between ethnicity or nationality. Jews can be members of any nationality, nationality is a matter of citizenship, but they can be members only of the Jewish ethnic group, that's why ethnicity and nationality are different terms. A person can be a member of few ethnicities but only if they have ancestors coming from few ethnicities. If you don't have a proof Einstein and Marx had anyone of German ethnicity in their families they should not be in the collage. Our problem with the Nazis was never pointing out we are a separate ethnicity, race or whatever but the fact that the Nazis were hurting our human rights and tried to destroy us. I had ancestors living in Germany and they considered themselves German by nationality but just like Einstein and many others through all the generations they made sure to marry Jews, think why. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 20:22, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, let me add my input into this.

Jews are in fact an ethnic group. One only needs to see the Genetic studies on Jews article to find that not only are Jews genetically closer to each other than to their host nations, they all trace a common descent to the Levant. There has been genetic input from other groups, but due to centuries of avoiding intermarriage and assimilation and being ghettoized, there is not that much of it. This has been clearly researched and confirmed multiple times, and one only needs to look at that article I gave as proof, but if you want some sources here and now, this, and this and this should suffice.--RM (Be my friend) 20:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

...and your point is?? P.S. Guitar hero on the roof, you shouldn't be doing this → [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]!!! --IIIraute (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. An ethnic German can't claim he's ethnically Jewish even if he converts to Judaism and it's the same the other way round. People here literally don't get what's a nationality and what's an ethnic group (the joke is, they are ignoring what Einstein himself said about his identity). Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

My point is that yes, Einstein should not be put there. Ashkenazi Jewish culture and traditions is different from mainstream German culture (Jews were generally isolated from their hosts because of their separate religious, dietary, and cultural traditions), and on top of that, Einstein emigrated from Germany. As a Jew, Einstein would not have really been biologically related to the German population. Einstein was not biologically nor culturally German. I'm with Guitar hero here.--RM (Be my friend) 21:39, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

...but you are just a recruited spin-editor → [17]!! --IIIraute (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You still have not explained why a Friesian who lives in West Friesia, speaks Friesian and is descended from people who lived there two thousand years ago is ethnically Dutch, while a Friesian who lives in East Friesia, speaks Friesian and is descended from people who lived there two thousand years ago is ethnically German. And please no nonsense about how they mixed with the original tribes because they are the original tribe. TFD (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Being Jewish who hold the right for German citizenship (though no intend to claim it) since my ancestors lived in Germany for nearly 1000 years until 1935-I'm offended by the racist argument that Jews are not an ethnic group. According to this argument a German who live outside Germany is ethnically German but a Jew who say lived outside Israel or renounce the Jewish faith is ethnically not Jewish. The fact that many Jewish atheists (like this one) see themselves no less Jewish than the chief Rabbi of Israel is not important-what is important-according to TFD for one is that Friesian who lived in West Friesia is ethnically different from one who live in the east of it while nothing is different between them a side for cultural minor differences if at all. Well, the strange artificial dividing into ethnicities in Europe (outcome of political issues) have nothing to do with this discussion but -being resident of Israel I can say that Druze people in Israel call themselves Israelis and in Syria they are Syrian -their ethnicity remines, however, Druze. A decent scholar would say that what make ethnic group for a one is its own unique history (and undoubtedly the history of Jews who lived in Germany have very little to do with the German history-95% of their time in Germany, if not more, they were hunted and persecuted minority and for long time Jews were not even allowed to freely visit in many German cities) its language (well, German Jews started to speak German as their first language only 100 years-give or take a decade-before the holocaust, and even after their prays remain in Hebrew and Aramaic) religion (nothing in common) genetic origin (nothing in common)and etc. While Marx was assimilated Jew and even self hated (he was disappointed when his daughter -whose mother was German and therefore were not Jewish according to the Jewish law- declared herself Jewish) Einstein did not try to affiliate himself with the German people. The Hebrew university of Jerusalem to which Einstein endowed all of his writings released part of them-there are many many remarks of him on German people and on himself as a Jew. I can say that he didn't see himself as German to any extent, was in favor of heavy punishment against Germany right after WWII and pretty much blame the whole German people for what happened and affiliate himself very strongly with Jewish people. On footnote I will end by saying that Jewish people are undoubtedly ethnic group in every possible way. But in different then any other ethnic group, once one convert to Judaism he/she become part of this ethnic group in many ways and formally. However, the rate of conversions to Judaism is very low and too insignificant to be considered. In fact, I believe the percent people of different origins (e.g., Polish, Russians, Romanians, Gypsies, Turkish) that are assimilated to the German people is much higher though the process is different. It's really nice that you argue that their are no Jewish people only Jewish faith and that you now made Einstein your own property, however-this is false. P.S., The discussion on genetic studies is futile, the consensus in academy-after more than 100 studies published and many more done every year is that Jews are one ethnic group from the genetic point of view with very few exceptions (Ethiopian Jews) and Jews from Germany are genetically Jewish and anyway share pretty much nothing with the German people.--Gilisa (talk) 22:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

...and another recruited POV-pusher → [18]. --IIIraute (talk) 01:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

What's the matter? Nothing else to say? Fronm what I see the user gave you facts, but due to the fact it's obviously prooving you wrong you have no choice just to complain. It's normal to ask someone who has knowledge on the topic to comment on the dialogue, especially when unlike you he gives the facts and not how he would like the facts to be. React to the facts, because that's what the discussion should be about (in theory), and not "he won a Noble prize that's why he's German and Mesut Ozil is not". Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Jews are unquestionably an ethnic group. And a religious group. See ethnoreligious group.
• Holocaust makes it such a charged issue: "How dare Germany claim a Jew it drove away (or killed)?" But ethnicity is not just genetic, and to a great extent it depends on what an individual himself/herself chooses. Let's take the discussion away from Germany. Sammy Davis Jr. considered himself African-American (or the equivalent term of the day) and Jewish. What's the problem with that?
• And Holocaust cuts the other way, too. Normally I would consider a Jew actively professing Christianity to be no longer a Jew for most purposes. But if Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger—who was raised Catholic after his parents were martyred in the Holocaust—considered himself a Jew as well as a Catholic, I'm not prepared to challenge his birthright.
• I think Einstein made it clear he was a Jew, not a German. I think Marx substantially expressed the opposite. Why are we challenging their own definitions? StevenJ81 (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding your observation that "to a great extent it depends on what an individual himself/herself chooses": I know that this is the theory, but the problem is that a person may not really be free to choose his own identity in practice if he lives in a society that is used to assigning ethnicity to its members on an essentialist basis. The only ones that could really "choose" their ethnicity in any way that mattered would have been the ones that could pass for "indigenous", European Germans on account of their external features and who were able to hide their Jewish ancestry from the dominant ethnic group. Iblardi (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Whoa there, fellers! Just to get this cleared up: As far as I can see from this increasing tedious and convoluted thread, nobody here has claimed that Jews aren't an ethnic group. It's mostly about whether Einstein was (ethnically) Jewish, German, both, or (OMG! let's spend days tiffing about this one) neither. Apparently the great man considered himself neither a German citizen nor [of the] Jewish faith. But I am a Jew, and I am glad that I belong to the Jewish people, even though in no way do I consider them to be the chosen ones. Seems fairly clear-cut. Jews: 1 Germans: 0 (and as StevenJ81 just pointed out: Marx: Jews: 0 (maybe 1 after penalties) Germans: 1) Why some people feel the need to turn this into a platform for anti-German sentiment, ethnic pigeonholing, and fairly blatant racial abuse is anyone's guess, please stop. Also, it may be worth noting that WP:canvassing is not considered good form, especially if it is done with false accusations. Cheers, Rainbowwrasse (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Einstein as far as we know had only Jews in his family and he identified only as a Jew, never as a German! That's the simple truth. The quote you gave proves that he saw himself as an ethic Jew, that's where the Einstein case should be closed. So why is he still in the image? Why is User:IIIraute still saying yes but his family lived in Germany for 8 generations (so what? They made sure to marry only Jews so their children would stay Jewish, and does an Irish American become a Native American after 8 generations)? You might have not said Jews are not an ethnic group, but others here did. Now about Marx, both his parents were Jews, his grandparents were jews (and apprently rabbis, and were talking about Orthodox Rabbis), and his parents converted to Christianity just so their sone wouldn't have to deal with anti-semitism, but that still doesnt change his ethnicity! That's the thing, if a Turk converts to Christianity and lives in England, do their origins change to Anglo-Saxon? That's exactly the point. I admit I went to far with some expressions, but there were clearly quotes brought here about Einstein's idenitty and about the Jewish ethnicity but still it comes accross a brick wall. It's normal to ask someone who has knowledge on the topic to comment on the dialogue, especially when unlike you he gives the facts and not how he would like the facts to be. They didn't come here to revert or to insult, purely for the facts. The fact is, so far they gave quotes and valuable information. Due to the nature of the page it's edited mostly by Germans, but in such a discussion it's fair if Jews present some quotes from their side. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 08:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

IIIraute I suggest you to comply with WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL and don't call me POV pusher. Refer to the facts, if you know how. If there is POV here, aside for the violation of WP:OR by the argument that there is no Jewish ethnicity (even if they are, even if they see and seen as ethnic group) -then this is the German nationalistic POV that try to make worlds greatest minds ethnically German (even in the case of Einstein who made numerous remarks about his distance from the German people, his closeness to the Jewish people and Jewish mentality (his own words) and predicted that if the relativity proven right German supremacists will argue he's German but Jew if it's proven wrong). There is nothing German in the ethnicity of Einstein-undoubtedly he was German citizen for a long time, born in Germany, his language was German and he was grown much in German culture but wasn't and didn't see himself as ethnic German-the same is today with many second generation Turks who live in Germany. Comparing Jewish people to artificial ethnic groups in Europe is at least irrelevant and pointless and again OR. Before Hitler raise to power 40% of professors in German universities were Jews-more than 40 times their ratio in the German population, this just emphasize that aside for their self-definition, history and etc -their Jewish ethnicity played unique part in their academic achievements. Wikipedia is not real life, you can argue as much as you want that Einstein was ethnically German- a side for being disrespectful for Einstein and motivated by nationalistic need to prove that German people are superior, we all here know this is false. --Gilisa (talk) 09:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

...but you were recruited through canvassing - weren't you? → [19]. --IIIraute (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That's the joke, he thinks he knows better then Einstein who Einstein was! His best argument is "they were assimilated", but if they were so assimilated why did they marry only Jews? I studied sociology and we learned about different levels of assimilation, and the highest level of assimilation is marriage, because let's say if a Jew married a German he is still Jewish, his children will be half Jewish, but would his great-grandchildren know they have Jewish ancestors...? So this is the highest level of assimilation because one group swallows the other or two groups create a new one, but the fact is, even though culturally assimilated most of the Jews in Germany (including Einstein's family) made sure to marry Jews, and that shows the simple fact that they wanted to keep their ethnic identity Jewish. If they would really ethnically assimilate we wouldn't even have this discussion because Jews wouldn't exist anymore! Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 09:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Jews are ethnic group and they were considered such for centuries, this is how Israeli central bureau of statistics counts them, [20], this is in the basics of Jewish religion and this is how genetic science relates to them Genetic studies on Jews. To deny this fact to Jewish people is something that has really no place in this encyclopedia.--Tritomex (talk) 09:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

...another recruited opinion through canvassing → [21]. --IIIraute (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Einstein was ethnically Jewish, and declared himself as such. He was in some period of his life also a German citizen but this has nothing to do with his ethnicity. I am for example Serbian citizen but I am not Serbian as my ancestors and my ethnicity is Hungarian.

Look, maybe I'm missing this, but can anyone give me the exact quotes (by Illraute or whoever) to show that anyone claimed that Jews are not an ethnic group? I can't see that anywhere. If it's there and I missed it, boo and hiss. If it's not there, y'all keep your pantyhose on and stop fantasizing about some German supremacy plot to suppress the Jewish ethnic identity. So Einstein was Jewish and not German, Marx was of Jewish ancestry and German. Big deal. It’s their business alone. Rainbowwrasse (talk) 11:13, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That is what IIIraute says: "In his youth, Einstein did not identify strongly with Jewish culture and religion. And even if he did, it's a matter of religion and not of ethnicity." It's clearly claiming that Jews are a religion and not and ethnicity. And here's another one of his "pearls": "Look, I think it is great that Einstein suddenly discovered "that he was a Jew" in his late thirties, but this article is about Germans as an ethnic group, and not Einstein's religio-moral identity crises." The second one was after he totally ignored the explanation that Jews are an ethnic group and again trying to claim it's a religious matter.

And based on what are you saying that Marx is not of Jewish ethnicity? From what I read, his grandparents and parents were Jewish. I agree it's not a big deal, so Einstein and Marx should be simply taken out of the infobox and replaced by people of German ethnicity.

I'm not claming all Germans are like that, but for me it obviously has something to do with the “New Germany” psychological crisis. What I mean is, some Germans are feeling guilt for the approach Germany used to have which is “Destroy the minority. No minority, no problems”, and they bring a new approach: “Ignore the minority existence and claim they are in fact Germans. No minority, no problems”, when the approach should be much more simple: “Yes, minorities exist, they are not ethnic Germans, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to exist as citizens with equal rights and as minorities with the right to self-express themselves. There are minorities, and it’s not a problem”. The fact is, when you go to the English, Russians, Belarusians, Scots pages they have people only of the ethnicity the article is talking about, non of them have Jews in their images, because they don't feel any guilt or crises on the topic. All those countries had famous Jews from converted families like Marx, but they still understand those guys are still of Jewish ethnicity. From the other hand, out of all pages on the Germans page there is an attempt to turn ethnic Jews into ethnic Germans. How come other pages about ethnicities don't have this issues? That's my point.Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, lets break this down then: Illraute said that in his youth Einstein did not identify strongly with with Jewish culture and religion. Someone may convert to Judaism and identify with Jewish culture and religion. According to you, that does not make him an ethnic Jew (Jews suggests otherwise, but let's assume your POV for the time being). Therefore, as per Illraute's and your OWN arguments, identifying with Jewish culture and religion 'is' a matter of of religion and culture, not of ethnicity. Einstein's ancestry is irrelevant for whether or not he identified with Jewish culture and religion. Illraute's second comment is about how he came to identify himself as Jewish in later life. He (re-)discovered and cultivated his Jewishness, if you will. This cultivation of an common identity by individuals is crucial to maintaining a coherent ethnic group. To quote from the article: Ethnic identity is constantly reinforced through common characteristics which set the group apart from other groups. Illraute has not said that ethnic Jews don't exist.

On to Marx. From what I gather, Marx identified with German culture, fully immersed himself in it, and was considered fully German by Germans. Whether you like it or not, that suffices to make him an ethnic German. 'German-ness' is not defined by genetics (cf. Dutch vs German, which are genetically indistinguishable). Marx rejected his Jewishness, which I find sufficent reason to not consider him an ethnic Jew. You disagree, deny him the right to decide for himself, and include him in your ethnicity. Fine. That's why I said '1 on penalties' further up in this thread. With Einstein it is the other way around. There are reasons to consider him an ethnic German (and please don't start with his genes again, they are irrelevant for this; the German ethnic group is not defined by genetics), but he himself did not consider himself one. I accept that. Ilraute and others take the same stance as you with Marx: They apply their definition of their own ethnic group, deny him the right to decide for himself, and ALSO include him in their ethnicity. I don't see that anyone has claimed that he was not of Jewish ancestry; it's about whether or not he's also German. You're basically fighting about whether a ball is red or round. Why do you find is so hard to accept that not all ethnicities are genetically determined? Can you tell a Dutchman and a German apart by looking at their DNA? Rainbowwrasse (talk) 14:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Karl Marx was self-hated Jew who made several high profile antisemitic remarks, his case is not important for me-in any case he wasn't ethnically German (though if it wasn't the principle we are talking about the case of Marx is not that important). It's very well accepted in academy to describe demography of countries by ethnic groups. For instance, if there are 1 million ethnic Germans in Russia then Russian demography will include ~0.75% Germans in the demographic survey-even if they speak Russian, married to ethnically Russian people, eat Russian food and hold only Russian citizenship. From previous debates I had with Germans who fervently argued Einstein was ethnic German they some times came with the argument that "The Nazis so Jews as ethnicity-do you want to go back to these days". Well, this kind of arguments have much audacity in them. Jews are the last people that have to pay for horrific crimes made by German people-German history can't dictate anything for Jews. Moreover -the logic of such tasteless arguments goes like this "We made crime and killed you, now-for your own sake-we have taken your identity (because it pisses us and we don't want to be pissed off, for your own safety), keep ours (meaning: we're ethnic group and people and you don't) and by the way inherited your achievements. So thanks, you can be pissed off if you like-we're cool with that, but don't twist history and facts please. As for this thread-can someone do me a favor and google the remarks Einstein made on Germans and on Jews (search for the Hebrew university source which include them all). The article is on Germans as ethnic group, and Einstein clearly shouldn't be there. What more that the mosaic picture include some high profile anti-semitics (Like Vagner who was not less than Hitlers ideological Godfather)-it's an insane paradox and every honest person would admit they don't belong to the same ethnicity and certainly not in the same mosaic. --Gilisa (talk) 11:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

...his name was "Wagner". --IIIraute (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That's all you have to say? Sorry, he didn't mean to hurt your feelings by writing his name in a wrong way. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 16:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm absolutely careless about this pre-Nazi name, but thanks for letting me know. BTW, where did you remove all of my posts and by which authority? --Gilisa (talk) 16:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It was your own canvassing-"Brethren" Guitar hero on the roof → [22] So watch your tongue!, before you accuse other editors of "sabotage"! --IIIraute (talk) 16:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

IIIraute My comment was meant to Guitar hero on the roof and I still want him to restore my comments. I don't understand what exactly he's trying to do but in any case he have no right to do what he did. The same way I suggest you to mind your language and avoid factorial mark when you address me. It's not only ridiculous but also ineffective and violating WP:CIVIL. --Gilisa (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, right! You clearly positioned your comment to answer mine, writing: "I'm absolutely careless about this pre-Nazi name, but thanks for letting me know. BTW, where did you remove all of my posts and by which authority? ... so stop this hogwash, and don't hose yourself! --IIIraute (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

IIIraute, did I addressed you by your user? I was addressing my "brethren" (can you explain me please why you used this word picking to describe me and Guitar hero on the roof "relation" here?) who appeared to comment to your post, he wrote "thats all you have to say?" and I just agreed with him and wrote that I'm careless about Vagner (sorry, I fail to see how he's great men) and I politely asked him why he removed my comments because checking on the TP history I surprisingly find that most probably he did it. However, I wasn't 100% sure (only after I find the smoking gun/diff that leave him the only option), it seem more logic that one who hold opposite opinion did it so I posted new comment asking the one who did it (without accusing anyone specific) to restore my comments. Now, just keep decent language and AGF -really, behind aggressive with the keyboard don't contribute here.--Gilisa (talk) 17:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't fool yourself. You accused me of removing your posts at 16:05(UTC) → [23], I did let you know about your "mistake" at 16:20(UTC) → [24], and you adressed Guitar hero on the roof about one hour later, at 17:19(UTC) → [25]. Canvassing-"brethren"?? You have been canvassed into this discussion - that's not an accusation - it is a fact → [26].--IIIraute (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC)