[Wikipedia-l] Call for Boycott, Judea Declares War onGermany

Sun Sep 8 23:11:24 UTC 2002

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> 
> At 03:54 AM 9/9/02 +0800, Hekga wrote:
> >On wiki [[Berlin]] page I added  "text". Vicki, you objected.
> >
> >Around 1933, some 160,000 Jews were living in Berlin, a third of all
> >German Jews. They constituted four percent of the population. A third of
> >them were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe, who lived mainly in
> >Scheunenviertel near Alexanderplatz?. The Jews were persecuted from the
> >beginning of the Nazi regime. In March all Jewish doctors had to leave the
> >Charité hospital. "As apparent counter-measure a worldwide Jewish boycott
> >was called on March 24, 1933 with a Daily Express, London newspaper
> >article stating: Judea Declares War On Germany (complete text:[[2]]). The
> >many economic boycott actions were answered in the first week of April,
> >when Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at Jewish shops."
> >--
> >[[2]] = Shofar Nizcor website.
> >--
> >Vicki, would you object if I changed the last sentence to read:
> >
> >"In the first week of April, Nazi officials ordered the German population
> >not to buy at Jewish shops".
> >
> >instead of:
> >
> >"The many economic boycott actions were answered in the first week of
> >April, when Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at
> >Jewish shops".
> 
> Yes, I would. It puts far too much emphasis on a newspaper article that (a)
> almost certainly
> had no effect on future events, (b) was not published in Berlin, and (c)
> was not about Berlin.
> 
> --
> Vicki Rosenzweig
> vr at redbird.org
> http://www.redbird.org

Ms. Rosenzweig has captured some of my initial concern when
I read the proposed change as well.

The proposed sentence appears to me such that it would be an 
excellent NPOV compliant factual summary of a paragraph, phase 
or article regarding the rising tensions in the period if a list 
of typical boycott actions or announcements (perhaps including 
the specific article headline in question) were to precede it.

Particularly useful, in my view, would be whether other parties
were pursuing these economic actions as well.   Did the German
government eventually respond to most or everyone or only 
selectively: first to some of the Jewish activity, later to
other opposing interests as targets of opportunity.

Divide and conquer is an old strategy that the German 
government seemed (to me) to abandon later in the War.
Were they employing it initially in the economic arena of
the pre War era?

Were others (besides some Jewish interests) likewise engaged 
against German interests?   Perhaps we can usefully expand
"The many economic boycott actions" in the article above
the proposed new sentence.  This might help provide the reader 
with sufficient information to ask themselves useful questions
for further reading or research.

Regards,
Mike Irwin