Talk:George Mantello

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External links:

http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/press/el-salvador-schindler-s-list.918.htm

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~lamperti/holocaust_hero.html

http://www.zionnet.net/62164/494.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:cYNLSgQEMqIJ:www.geocities.com/eproceeding/hillelkookmemoriallecture20030827/pdf/elsalvadors-wo-pictures.pdf+%22george+mantello%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=53&gl=us

http://www.jfk-online.com/jpsgmpolgen.html

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Manual of style

Religion or ethnicity should not generally be mentioned in the opening sentence, and then only in context where it cannot be confused with nationality. See MOS:ETHNICITY. In the case of Jewish people, there are daily occurrences in which editors tag people as Jewish in concert or ahead of their nationality, usually with malign intent. I realize that it is not the case here, but there's a reason why the MoS requires this. The lead sentence doesn't even mention his nationality, which is a problem., especially if "Jewish" is so prominent. Mantello's Jewsih heitage is important, but let's find a way to mention in in accordance with the MoS, and explain his nationality likewise. I would suggest in this case a construction be found to mention nationality first, and then mention Mantello's heritage. Hyphenated constructions like "Jewish-Hungarian" are strongly deprecated. Acroterion (talk) 17:49, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Mandl was a Jew, who identified as such, and helped fellow Jews. What's your problem?

I might half-understand that an edit or two ago somebody removed "ethnicity" (Jewish) from the Infobox, because the template apparently didn't support it and it didn't show on the page anyway (User_talk:108.56.139.120, is that right?). Although the constructive way of going about things is always to keep the relevant information, and adapt the formal aspects to the substance: find the rigt template or go around code glitches by improvising. The user doesn't care what & how the editor does it, they want to get the relevant info. But I certainly don't understand how Acroterion found it necessary to remove the ethnicity (Jewish) also from the lead. His citizenship was a game of staying afloat & alive. He's one of the best examples for proving how the fixation with citizenship as a defining attribute can sometimes be utterly useless and the almost random result of a game of crazy circumstances. Judaism for most Jews isn't just a religion; for some it's not even connected to religion (see for instance Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger). Mend[e]l was Jewish first, and anything else came second. In his time most European Jews who did attempt to leave any Jewish identity behind them, were forced by the non-Jews to slip back into the shoes they thought they'd left behind; the more so those who never tried to change their identity. Talking citizenship: He was born in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary; most likely became a Romanian citizen only once the Romanian government was pressed by the European Powers into giving citizenship to the Jews it "inherited" when Romania took over Transylvania & the Banat, Bukovina & Bessarabia after WWI - so much so that he became the envoy of the Romanian king, Carol II, to fascist Hungary's leader, Admiral Horthy; he got fake Salvadorian citizenship papers to escape deportation by the Nazis and I'm not sure he ever went through a proper, legal naturalisation process with the Salvadoran authorities; lived in Switzerland, probably on his Romanian passport, but maybe on another one; and moved to Italy, where I think he got naturalised, but maybe not. And in all this, the one thing that didn't change (other than being an educated, mid-class Central European man of the world), was his ethno-religious identity: he was, was seen by others, and acted as a Jew. If anyone has a doubt, check out where he was buried. And at Har Hamenuchot Cemetery there are only religious Jewish burials - no secular ceremonies or headstones, no cremation, none of that; only with rabbi and the whole show. So yes, Jewish he was, I'm sure his parents gave him a Jewish first name under which he was married and buried, and his surname was Mend[e]l until his benefactor and saviour, Coronel Castellanos, Latinised it to Mantello. The German WP editors, who've done their homework in denazification and post-WWII liberal education, have titled their article George Mandel-Mantello; because that was his name, I'm not sure if and when a proper name change ever took place beyond the FAKE papers issued by Castellanos. Maybe later, in Italy. The Hebrew article also uses this double name, and justifiably so, this time not out of a narrow-minded parochial attitude. And not just that, in Italy György/George became known as Giorgio. And I'm sure he couldn't care less. Altogether, the Hebrew article deals with his entire life, including his family and what he did after the war. A person, not just an actor in a historical drama. The same anonymous editor, 108.56.139.120, took the effort to also remove the grandfather from the infobox, w/o putting him back in inside the article. It might not be a pattern, aka bias/agenda, but if "Jewish" is erased twice and the rabbi grandfather is kicked out too, it starts looking like one.

We're not supposed to go out on a limb guessing how smb. living in the 21st century, or even at some point in the 20th, self-identified. In his case he voted with his feet, so to say. I'm certainly NOT in the business of pigeonholing people on ethno-religious grounds, but when somebody's ethno-religious identity is so pivotal in their acts and existence, removing it becomes an insult. If not to anything else, then to one's healthy judgment and IQ. Arminden (talk) 18:47, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

You did read what I wrote above? If not, please do so, and leave out the accusations of bias. Mantello's heritage is pivotal, and should be mentioned, but not to the exclusion of all else, or in place of nationality. Your motivations are clearly good, but that's not always the case with edits of that kind - it's often done maliciously by editors with an anti-Semitic agenda. I've blocked dozens of them, and cautioned more. The MoS deprecates religion and ethnicity in place of or combined with nationality in part because 95% of such cases are inserted by malicious actors, a step down from placing triple parentheses. There's an edit filter to catch it because it's so prevalent. There are ways to accomplish what you want, please read the MoS section that I've linked, and don't try to personalize a simple editing problem. Acroterion (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@Acroterion: hi. No, I didn't read it, because I never thought "Manual of style" would have anything to do with this, it can cover anything and if I read the complete talk-pages of every article I care about, I wouldn't be doing anything else. See my heading? I apologise if it came out a bit on the aggressive side, but you can't miss the point.

I'm not big on technical pages and am a bit allergic to Wikipedial abbreviations, because they feel like being familiar to trees to a degree where one loses the forest. But now I did look over it, and it states prominently that "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability." That's all that should be said, case closed. Among Yad Vashem's first "filters" when dealing with potential Righteous Among the Nations is to go by the book (law) and check if they were Jewish: if they were, it's a totally different universe. Check the "Yad Vashem Law", and it's been discussed and amended for almost 70 years now, on a slightly better informed level than Wikipedia. Mandel-Mantello was Jewish, and that is so pivotal, that the lead makes zero sense if stripped of his birth-name (which I insist was his name through either all, or most of his life) and his ethno-religious identity. One needs to use reason to distinguish between Jew-calling done for antisemitic reasons, and calling a spade a spade, i.e. a Jew a Jew, if that specific person was happy to identify that way, did so, and that identity was crucial in their life. PC (political correctness) is a crutch that can only take you so far; the next step is by one's own thinking. African Americans have shown the way: the N-word is out, Negro is out, and good riddance, but Black is not, at least not in British English and Black Life Matter circles, and thank heavens for that, or we'd end up with ridiculous Orwellian Newspeak of the PC type, which would (and often is) as much a danger and a factor in dumbing down people as any dictatorial Newspeak has ever been. I appreciate your good intentions & the fact that you appreciate mine, but that's between us, we're trying to pull in the same general direction, but here re. the lead I'm disagreeing categorically - even under the "rules" of that not-so-sacrosanct (and user-written) Manual of Style. PS: I didn't address you alone, your edit came tight together in time with those two by our anonymous "friend" who might, or might not, have the same well-intended reasons as yours. And as I wrote: whether by intention or chance, the result of the 3 edits looks bad. Stripping a man of his identity when he made no noticeable effort, other than under the immediate danger of being sent to Auschwitz with wife & kid, to hide it. In larger terms, it's what the post-WWII German doctrine does ("Judaism is a religion", in reversal of the Nazi doctrine), by missing a point, and diametrically opposed to what radical Zionists do ("any Jew is first and foremost a Jew"), constraining people to enter a Procrustean bed and be chopped to size. And then there's reason. And context. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 22:02, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I really don't think we have any fundamental disagreement. It's amply clear that Mantello's identity as a Jew was vital and deserves early mention. However, since this is an encyclopedia, we need to cover the rest of him too. I had to read the rest of the article to establish that he was Hungarian in origin - my first reading of the lead implied that he was Salvadorean. We just need to be clear and reasonably consistent, and write a concise lead sentence that adequately covers the body of the article.

Unfortunately, anti-Semites outnumber advocates of proud Jewishness by an enormous amount, and as I noted, there's even an edit filter to highlight when that happens. I would point to articles on Martin Luther, Martin Luther King and Gautama Buddha as examples of how we deal with these things in less fraught circumstances. MLK would be the closest parallel, as his ethnicity was fundamental to his life. This approach is consistent throughout Wikipedia, and reflects the MoS. The best approach is a substantial summary in the lede. Acroterion (talk) 22:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

A particularly egregious example of the kind of crap that happens [1]. Acroterion (talk) 00:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Acroterion: we most definitely are on the same side of one of the barricades, but I still cannot see how ceding the field to antisemites because they're allegedly so numerous can, in any imaginable way, be a positive thing to do. That line of thinking, followed up with mathematical consistency, would lead to eliminating the term Jewish from Wikipedia. It's nothing about proud Jewishness, just about a reality check and keeping editing on the sane side of things. The fundamental difference to the truly disgusting, verminously insinuating "edit" you've linked is that this article is not about a person (currently) under attack for their political activity, but for someone who's only got to have a WP article because he's stood up to the Nazis and has saved Jews from being killed in the Holocaust. What you're "squaring of the circle" attempt represents to me is a typical case of "Rebbe, please tell me how I can slaughter my pig in a kosher way." For antisemites, saving Jews is a pity, for those who're not, Mandl being described as a Jew in the first sentence is no more than a welcome and essential piece of information about a man who unfortunately isn't as well-known as he should be, along with Coronel Castellanos. "Proud Jew" is a tall order; sanity a norm. As to his "nationality", well, that's a recent concept, nowhere as fluid as in the case of a person born before WWI in eastern Central Europe. To me, in identity terms, Mandl seems to be a Transylvanian Jew of initially Hungarian cultural affiliation, but probably fluent (also culturally) in German and Romanian already in his youth, who became a Romanian subject, probably never was in legal terms a Salvadorian (unless they did fix this AFTER him first being issued fake papers), and who possibly got some other citizenship(s) after the war (CH? IT?). In short, a Transylvanian-born, educated, Jewish mid-class person. That's in short :) He belonged to a cultural Mitteleuropa that doesn't fit in well with narrow bureaucratic notions of nationality - without giving antisemites the right to bring up the "Jewish rotlessness" canard yet again, as he obviously was very well rooted in a firm set of typical and wide-spread European values specific of a well-defined geographical, as well as historical space. Arminden (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I can assure you that ceding the field is not what we want, but we already have ways to address your desire that Mantello's Jewish heritage be mentioned. When I get a chance today between Zoom meetinga=s and other commitments I'll see if I can craft something that covers your concerns. In the meantime, if the article can be expanded with more sourcing, that gives us something more to work with. Raoul Wallenberg is worth a look too, though not Jewish he had some Jewish ancestry. Acroterion (talk) 13:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

In the lead nationality/(=citizenship) is identified first (if more, the latest, or the notables) are identified, ethnicity not necessarily (btw. I have no problem to mention also of Jewish heritage, like many Hungarian subjects, but per guideline rightfully ethnical reference may be abandoned). If the subject changed nationality, the standard from is X-born Y, where X is the country of birth, Y is the current/latest nationality, e.g. Any further details should go in the article's body's relevant section. He was a Hungarian Jew, so the "Jew" maybe linked to History of the Jews in Hungary, as usually done by other subjects, etc. (and it does not matter if he changed to Romanian citizenship once or other later, such happened nominally by many other Hungarien Jews because of the border changes).(KIENGIR (talk) 12:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, szervusz. Look, we're not discussing here the history & rightful ownership of Erdély. The topic is a specific man, and the target is the "normal" Wiki user. Who probably doesn't know much about any of this. Mandl György studied at the High School of Commerce in Budapest and was Carol's envoy to Miklós bácsi. The point that sets him apart from thousands of other Jews who were born Hungarian citizens and studied in Budapest [other than the rare fact that he was still alive at the end of 1944, against all honest efforts by Horthy (to a point), Sztójay and Szálasi (wholeheartedly)], is that he contributed in major ways to saving Hungarian Jews from Auschwitz. When he did this, what nationality did he have? Hungarian? Possibly, but he would have totally avoided to make mention, or use of it. Was he Salvadorian? Maybe, if Caballeros had made a point in legalising his naturalisation. Romanian? Same like the Hungarian one: useful for escaping to Switzerland, dangerous to make use of in Romania itself. The lead is not supposed to contain unessential info, nationality or ethnicity as such are not encouraged by the Manual of style (and, for a change, here I do support it, for reasons of substance, not for formal considerations). Like most Jews during the Holocaust, a citizenship/passport meant nothing by itself, all that mattered was a ticket out of the crematory. That's why I don't see the probable "Állampolgárság: magyar" entry in his birth certificate as relevant; the fact that he was from a province that ended up as much as a leaf in the wind as himself during those decades is much more relevant and evocative of what his life has meant. I don't see much informational gain for the Wiki user in knowing what citizenship he was born with, other than maybe the fact that he ended up being involved in saving Hungarian Jews, rather than Polish, Romanian, Austrian or such from southwest Abkhazia. If you want to "fight the good fight" for the Holy Crown, find your way to the Transylvania page, but here I deeply believe that you've ended up in the wrong forest. "Hier falsche Baustelle" 'wrong building site here', as a joke goes in Germany. Szép napot, uram. Arminden (talk) 23:19, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Arminden,

if you consider I considered to discuss here the history & rightful ownership of Erdély, then you are mistaken. I followed the standard as by any subject and I demonstrated common guidelines and practices, thus I have to reject such classifications like "If you want to fight the good fight for the Holy Crown, find your way...". If you carefully read what I have written, I did not intervene to your debate regarding the Salvadorian issue or similar, I just confirmed a stable point, which have no doubt. That means regarding what nationality is adressed to the subject (we may discuss and I find a better solution like Salvadorian or Martian or anything appropriate) or his Jewish backgound is mentioned, I did not oppose (but even supported).(KIENGIR (talk) 23:40, 22 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, hi. Manual of style: "The opening paragraph should usually provide context for the activities that made the person notable. In most modern-day cases, this will be the country of which the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable." When was he notable? 1940s. What nationality was he using? Salvadoran. Where was he a permanent resident? Switzerland. What identity attributes "provide context for the activities that made the person notable"? The fact that he was Jewish, and the fact that he was Central European: multilingual & multi-national, who could intervene in Hungary as a Hungarian, be based in Romania as a Romanian and use his business there to sustain himself, and pretend to be a Romanian officer (and deal with either friendly or corrupt Romanian officials to get the necessary fake papers) in order to save himself.

So what are the clear constants in his identity equation (other than humanity, courage, intelligence, perseverance, imaginativeness - and luck)? He was Jewish. And he was from Lechința/Lechnitz/Szászlekence, near the county capital of Bistrița/Bistritz/Beszterce where his parents moved to, both places with predominantly German (Saxon) historical and cultural identity, both with names of Slavic origin, both part of Hungary and of Romania during important periods of his life (& relevant to his notability), with a strongly mixed population; in the historical province of Transylvania, with a history very unfit to be pigeonholed into modern nation-state patterns, like much of Central and Eastern Europe, which led to its ping-pong fate in the 20th century. So yes, according to both logic and the Manual of style, him getting a birth certificate from a Hungarian authority, and sometime in the 20s a Romanian passport issued very much against the will of the government, is only of relevance as to reflect his multicultural, multi-national, cosmopolitan, polyglot, culturally Mitteleuropa-defined identity, which includes a certain dominance of German culture sponsored by Austria/Vienna. There's no way a one-sided, faulty by omission and ultimately misleading "Hungarian-born" bit at the very head of the very first sentence of the article would have any justification (beside of clearly & plainly not being allowed by a - this time - rational WP Manual of style). We have actually nothing much to discuss in a case that is so clear-cut as this. I cannot logically see anything but a "crusade for Erdély" as a reason to even start debating here. I'm all in favour of editor flexibility in cases where the WP rules are not yet ripe and don't fit the concrete case, but here they've been filed and perfected to the right degree of detail by concrete and repeated use in practice, and they apply perfectly well. So both from a rational, and a regulatory point of view, this debate is senseless. Have a nice day, Arminden (talk) 09:10, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Arminden,

your argumentation is strained, it shows like you dislike the fact where he was born, even telling as "a one-sided, faulty by omission and ultimately misleading" (no, it is a fact where he born, one sided cannot be since I told earlier feel free to add any of his nationalities forward on), which is not the case, it is a standard practise for any people who changed later nationality, shall it be Hungarian, Romanian, Chilean or Swedish, and yes, even for Romanians Hungarian-born with linking to the country is exists, becuase it is fact (and it is irrelevant if the town or anything nearby was historically Saxon, or the etimology of the commune originated from Slavic, etc.). If you really see "logically" what you reiterated here, you're wrong, and this debate in fact you started, and not other editors kept it long. On the other hand, Transylvania was not a "province". Have a nice day you too.(KIENGIR (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2020 (UTC))