Talk:Benjamin Disraeli

Minor Error

The photograph of Prime Minister Distraeli on the main page is identified as a portait:

"Portrait by Cornelius Jabez Hughes, 1878"

However the photograph itself correctly states:

"Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G. Photographed at Osborne by Command of H.M. The Queen, July 22, 1878 [Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)], 1878, Glossy collodion print on card"

It is a photograph. 2001:1C00:1E31:5F00:900D:4CE1:3B74:4276 (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it's a photograph. It's also a portrait. It's a photographic portrait. EEng 02:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Image of chair

Hello! I added an image of a chair that Disraeli had made in case of a win in the by election. This is part of a pilot project from the National Trust, further information is here & further images are here Lajmmoore (talk) 18:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Category:Jewish conservatives

This article is on my watchlist, and I notice that there seems to currently be an edit war over this category's inclusion on this article. (By the way, the category is at this moment a candidate for Speedy Deletion Category:Jewish conservatives.)

The bone of contention seems to hinge on Jewish ethnicity versus Jewish religious belief or practice. While it is a fact that Disraeli was unquestionably ethnically Jewish, he was an Anglican from the age of 12, and therefore a Christian rather than a practitioner or believer in Judaism. Since Category:Jewish conservatives has no description at the top of it, we have to decide which is meant (only one of those two -- practitioner of Judaism or ethnic Jewishness -- or either of those or both of those). It could be that since politics and religion are both optional belief systems, what is possibly meant by "Jewish Conservative" would be practitioners of the religion of Judaism rather than also those who by accident of birth happen to be ethnically Jewish. I suppose we could take our cues from whatever the inclusion criteria are for Category:Jews by political orientation, but that may be confusing or inconclusive also.

Pinging Dimadick and Wehwalt to discuss here (if necessary) rather than edit war any further. Softlavender (talk) 00:15, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by the term "ethnically Jewish". While there's some wriggle room, a Jew is something you either are or are not. Disraeli ceased to be one at age 12, long before he became a conservative. Incidentally, I did not remove the category until I commented on this situation on another page and received this reply by Thryduulf. I'm happy to settle this in whatever way seems appropriate, of course.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:58, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Wehwalt: You may want to read Who is a Jew? before being so absolutely certain about who is a Jew. FWIW I don't think we should ever categorise people by intersection of ethnicity and politics, that way lies Jewish Bolshevism and other such racist nonsense. DuncanHill (talk) 01:22, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, got all that. But although everyone from Bismarck on down called him "the Jew" or "the old Jew", the fact was he was, for most of his life, not Jewish. Certainly no one ever challenged his taking the parliamentary oath pre-Rothschild when it required to be taken "on the true faith of a Christian". But I think we're in agreement that such categorizations are a waste of time, so I'm not sure what's to be done here. If there is something to be done on whether Jewish categories should include Disraeli, it should probably be in some more general forum than this. Wehwalt (talk) 01:37, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes Prime Minister Disraeli was a Jew. The reliable sources all agree that "Jew" has two meanings in terms of 1) ethnicity (regardless of religion) and 2) religion (regardless of ethnicity). At birth Disraeli was both. From age 12 onward he was an Anglican in religion & a Jew by ethnicity and ancestry. We do have a problem with "conservative" does it refer to politics or religion? --in Jewish religion see Conservative Judaism (and it does not apply to Disraeli's parents). He was a top leader of the Conservative Party (UK) in British politics. I recommend not using the category "Jewish conservative" for Disraeli or anyone else. For a very good analysis of Disraeli-as-Jew see https://victorianweb.org/authors/disraeli/judaism.html Rjensen (talk) 01:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Rjensen, Category:Jewish conservatives has nothing to do with Conservative Judaism, which is a religious denomination just like Orthodox Judaism, Reformed Judaism, etc. Category:Jewish conservatives is a political category; its parent category (as I mentioned in the OP) is Category:Jews by political orientation. -- Softlavender (talk) 07:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Wehwalt, Disraeli was unquestionably a Jew by blood, as was Felix Mendelssohn, and as was every ethnic Jew hunted down by the Nazis no matter what their professed religion or conversion was. This is really basic, and I've never seen anyone on Wikipedia or anywhere else dispute this, so if your argument is that "Disraeli ceased to be a Jew of any sort at age 12", you're definitely going to lose that argument. "Jewish" is both an ethnicity and a religion a non-ethnic-Jew can convert to; anyone born that ethnicity cannot ever cease to be that ethnicity. In fact, to a Nazi, anyone with any Jewish blood at all was liable to be considered a Jew and sent to a concentration camp. There are and have been plenty of non-religious, non-practicing, atheistic, or converted-from-Judaism Jews, but they can never cease to be ethnic Jews if that is the genetic fact of their birth. Softlavender (talk) 02:09, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the category is a good idea for any number of reasons, but asserting that Disraeli stopped being Jewish at age 12 would be news to him and everyone who knew him. It's certainly true that he became an Anglican at that point. Mackensen (talk) 03:21, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

• Wehwalt, you've really stepped in it this time. EEng 03:15, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

The main article Jews speaks of "Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community". It also specifies that "Judaism is an ethnic religion, although not all ethnic Jews practice it." The statistics sections states that the Jewish population includes "approximately 4.5 million unaffiliated and secular Jews." At no point does Judaism play a role in Jewish ethnicity. Dimadick (talk) 08:08, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it's worth pointing out that the version that was promoted to Featured Article had the following categories: Category:19th-century Sephardi Jews, Category:English Jewish writers, and Category:English Jews. I haven't checked when/by whom they were removed. DuncanHill (talk) 17:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this might be of some help, following this. I do confess to this, but not this. Wehwalt (talk) 19:33, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Only British Prime Minister to have been born Jewish

That's what the article sz at end of 1st paragraph. Wonder if this should be changed to "have been ethnically Jewish." To me, the current construction implies other prime ministers may have been Jewish, though not at birth. 2602:306:BC65:40B9:6993:D575:B492:D4E5 (talk) 14:38, 6 July 2024 (UTC)