Talk:Jews in Madagascar

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the Jews in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 19:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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Malagasy legends of ancient Israelite ancestors often feature red zebu—a local adaptation of the biblical red heifer

• ... that millions of people from Madagascar claim ancestral ties to ancient Jews, according to a centuries-old origin myth called the "Malagasy secret"? Source: https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8322.12391 "the number of Malagasy adherents to normative (i.e. rabbinic) Judaism is eclipsed by probably millions within the larger society who casually affirm genealogical descent from ancient Israel"
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Nevoid melanoma

5x expanded by Zanahary (talk). Self-nominated at 10:15, 13 January 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Jews in Madagascar; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image eligibility:

• Freely licensed:
• Used in article: - The picture is used in the article but doesn't tie into the hook, so I don't think it's necessary.
• Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Good hook and article; everything checks out besides the picture (IMHO, this is a hook that isn't really possible to illustrate). Generalissima (talk) 18:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2024

History of the Jews in Madagascar → Jews in Madagascar – Per MOS:CONCISE and MOS:PRECISE, this article's undiscussed move should be reverted. "Jews in Madagascar" is more concise and also more clear that it doesn't refer to "the Jews" (who would be generally read as foreigners) in Madagascar, but also largely to indigenous Jewish conversion as well as indigenous Judaic syncretic mythologies and esoteric religions. A lot of the article's subject is also contemporary, and "history of" doesn't reflect that well. Zanahary (talk) 20:12, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@Omnis Scientia Zanahary (talk) 20:16, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I see this move has also broken the GA nomination, and I think resulted in its automatic failure (see my Talk page for the notice) Zanahary (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary, my apologies, I did not know it was a good article nominated page. I was merely changing the name of the article to the normal way it is written in just about every other page related to Jewish communities in any region of the world. Omnis Scientia (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I understand that's the standard, and maybe it makes sense for those articles' contents, but this one has relatively little information about the "history of the Jews in Madagascar", and maybe would be even better titled "Judaism in Madagascar". Is there any way you can revert your move, and open an RM if you maintain that it ought to be renamed? Zanahary (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes I can try to. Again, my apologies. Omnis Scientia (talk) 20:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much! Zanahary (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

So I tried to reverse it but it couldn't. Hence, I will lean support per @Zanahary's explanation and undo the name change. Omnis Scientia (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Closed—it’s been done by a page mover (I think) Zanahary (talk) 22:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Well that's good. Once again, apologies for any inconvenience I may have cause for your GA nomination and, if you will be trying again, good luck with it! :) Omnis Scientia (talk) 22:33, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries, and thanks! Zanahary (talk) 23:23, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Jfdwolff please see here. Similar undiscussed moves were also made and reverted at Jews in Hong Kong and Jews in Taiwan ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:22, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jews in Madagascar/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Zanahary (talk · contribs) 20:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 04:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello! Give me a week or so and I'll look over the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Yay! Thanks so much ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Zanahary, after looking at the sources, I don't believe that this article is ready for nomination. Of what I was able to verify, there were frequent inconsistencies between the sources and the article, as well as some close paraphrasing and unreliable sources. There are also possible gaps in coverage, though I understand that this might be a more difficult subject to find sources for. I tried to provide a few other general notes, but I didn't comb the article for copyediting issues.

This article can be renominated at any time, though peer review is also an option if you want more general feedback first. WikiProject Judaism seems moderately active and there's a chance someone there may have thoughts on this as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

References:

• CGTN is a deprecated source on Wikipedia, so Faces Of Africa: The Jews of Madagascar cannot be used.
• Global Security is considered unreliable.
• It's not clear what No Small Jew: Stories of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Infinite Value of the Individual is.
• Chabad is a questionable source that should be avoided.
• Citation 65 is simply labeled "US State Dept 2022 report", which isn't specific enough to be any more helpful than a bare link.
• What makes Mayyim Hayyim a reliable source?
• What makes Kulanu a reliable source?
• What makes Israel21c a reliable source?

Spot checks:

• Miles (2017) – Checked the first three uses. The source doesn't mention lowlands, and the source says it's a "compatible" belief, not the same one. Also, is the "10th century Arabs" belief specific to Lucien Razanadrakot? If so, it should be attributed to him.
• Jennings (2017) – Checked the first five uses. It references the Merina and Betsileo peoples, but I don't see that it actually says these two are the two that make "prominent" claims about their descent. There's also close paraphrasing in the ones I checked here, where a lot of the same wording and structure is used from the source. It can still be a copyright violation even if a few words are switched around.
• Lieb (1946) – It's misleading to imply he only attributed to the Jewish people when he said there were several influences. And this is using his own writing as a primary source, which brings into question whether this opinion is important enough to add to the article if no one else has analyzed it.
• Dolsten (2016) – Checked both uses. I don't see where this supports that they were reluctant to become Orthodox because they already considered themselves Jewish.
• Greenspan & Zivotofsky (2017) – Good.

Broad coverage:

• I'm still not entirely sure how widely accepted the Jewish origin theories are or who believes them, which feels to me like it should be the most important detail in the article.
• Were it not for the population count in the infobox, I would have no idea how prominent the Jewish community is in Madagascar.
• I'd like to see an overview of any Jewish practices or traditions in Madagascar. Are there any Malagasy traditions for Purim? That sort of thing.
• Is there antisemitism in Madagascar or discrimination toward any of the Jewish communities, now or historically?
• Does the Jewish community have a voice in local or national politics?

Other notes:

• There are a lot of quotations in this article where the exact wording isn't important, and it would better serve the article to paraphrase them.
• I'd think about rearranging the information throughout the article, as right now it feels like a scattering of details and opinions where you have to dig to figure out the main ideas. This is especially the case with the theories section, where I have no idea how important any of the information is. Articles like this usually have a history section so the reader can understand it chronologically, which is something I had trouble with while reading the article.
• There's some MOS:SANDWICH going on with the images, at least in Vector 2022.
• Avoid one sentence paragraphs per MOS:PARA.

Not directly related to GA but hamper verifiability and should really be fixed:

• A lot of the references lack information or use difficult-to-read formatting, which can make verification a challenge.
• Page numbers make a world of difference for verification if the source has multiple pages. Template:Sfn and Template:Rp are the most convenient ways to add them.
• There are several duplicate citations that should be merged together.

Hi @Thebiguglyalien! Thanks for your feedback. To answer some of your specific inquiries:

1. Chabad is a questionable source that should be avoided. In this case, it's cited to relate a story about a Chabad rabbi in Madagascar. It's corroborated by a South African news story, which is reproduced in No Small Jew. I think it's fine to use, since it's just Chabad's own archive.
2. What makes Mayyim Hayyim a reliable source? That source is a firsthand account of the group conversion of Madagascar's Jewish community.
3. What makes Kulanu a reliable source? They facilitated the conversion; their account should be fine to cite.
4. I'd like to see an overview of any Jewish practices or traditions in Madagascar. Are there any Malagasy traditions for Purim? That sort of thing. There is no source about this. The community had never been studied before 2013, and they didn't really exist before 2011, so the majority of scholarship is about their conversion and their conception as Jews. The only scholars to ever go and document them are Nathan Devir, William F.S. Miles, and Marla Brettschneider, with Tudor Parfitt having gone but never written about them in any depth. None of them talk about specific practices.
5. Is there antisemitism in Madagascar or discrimination toward any of the Jewish communities, now or historically? For the current Jews, there's no source besides the US State Department reports cited. Historically, I think the article explains pretty thoroughly how the Jews were treated in the Vichy period.
6. Does the Jewish community have a voice in local or national politics? No source discusses this; same situation as the Purim question.

I think some of these spot check issues come from the way this article was moved around and reworked, with stray citations ending up where they don't belong. I'll get to work on that. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Disputing Zanahary's move/s

I have started a discussion disputing your moves at History of the Jews in Madagascar, History of the Jews in Taiwan, History of the Jews in Hong Kong at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests#Contested technical requests. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 21:08, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 1 November 2024

• Jews in Madagascar → History of the Jews in Madagascar
• Jews in Taiwan → History of the Jews in Taiwan
• Jews in Hong Kong → History of the Jews in Hong Kong

– For over two decades on WP all articles about Jews in countries and in other areas, whether from ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years ago, has been titled as "History of the Jews in ____", see over 150 examples of this in Category:Jewish history by country (as well as in Category: Jewish history by city etc etc.) The only times that an article is reduced to the topic of a type of Jew is when writing about sub-groups within Jews themselves, such as Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews, which has nothing to do with the countries they are in per se. These articles record the Jewish history of Jews, all kinds of Jews, in any country or region regardless of how long those Jews have existed or been recorded there or what types of Jews they are, whether "imported" or "home-grown" it makes no difference, they are part of the "History of the Jews in ____" series of articles on WP. See Talk:Jews in Madagascar#Requested move 31 May 2024 where @Zanahary: made up a new set of "criteria" and moved the article/s without major WP:CONSENSUS from other editors, based on all sorts of unfounded and fanciful reasons such as "conciseness" and "Jews as foreigners" that undermined the original connection of these articles to the main scholarly subject of Jewish history. IZAK (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 12:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Copied from RM/TR

There were multiple technical requests on different articles being made, but essentially of the same essence. I have combined all of theme into this one discussion as such.

Jews in Madagascar request

• I oppose this move because the topic is best concisely and accurately named “Jews in Madagascar”. The article encompasses the history of ethnic and religious Jews in Madagascar, a contemporary community of indigenous converts to Judaism, and contemporary information about that community’s social situation in Madagascar. Also included is a lot of information on the Judaic origin myths and beliefs of Israelite origin in Madagascar, which is not the “History of the Jews in Madagascar”, but does fit much better under the topic of "Jews in Madagascar" as pertaining to beliefs about Jews in Madagascar (and definitely not their history, as no source treats these beliefs as historical). The sources also overwhelmingly do not frame the content of the article in context of history at all, let alone Jewish history.
  See Chinese people in Madagascar, Armenians in Lebanon, and Kurds in Iraq for examples of articles whose scopes are best summarized with their current shorter, broader titles.
  I’ll also note that reverting a undiscussed move, particularly one which ignores previous discussion and consensus, is totally standard and proper. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: I apologize if I can across as too vehement. I was expressing opposition to your own personal WP:POV that runs against a clear WP:CONSENSUS of hundreds of editors over two decades on WP who have stuck to naming articles about the Jewish history of countries and cities etc as "History of the Jews in ___" and NOT as you would like to have it "Jews in ___". Your so-called "consensus" is virtually non-existent because you took advantage of a limited number of articles (3 it seems) and had one or two editors agree with you that over-ran what has been the accepted norm for over 20 years on WP. I am truly alarmed and my fear is that you will use your own precedents to overthrow the existing order of all the articles on WP titled as "History of the Jews in ____" and change them to your POV outlook. By the way, you seem to be coming at this from the narrow point of view of sociology while all that is really included in the older field of plain old history. It does not matter what kind of Jews exist in Madagascar/Taiwan/Hong Kong because just as the History of Madagascar, History of Taiwan, History of Hong Kong are the grand all-inclusive topics for those countries' histories, so too is History of the Jews in Madagascar, History of the Jews in Taiwan, History of the Jews in Hong Kong the correct over-arching name for everything about Jews in those countries including all the types and things you mention about those Jews. IZAK (talk) 02:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support the move as the content of the article is not just about a few Jewish people currently in Madagascar, but about the collective Jewish history of Madagascar. The existing title creates a clear misconception and the suggested move target is far clearer. With all due credit to the remarkable work by Zanahary in the tremendous expansion, the scope of the article and the details of theories of Jewish descent / connection to the Malagasy peoples is the clearest possible evidence that the scope goes far beyond a mere discussion of Jews in Madagascar; it is a history that deserves to be titled as such. Alansohn (talk) 00:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  The theories of Jewish descent are not historical and not treated as historical by any source; they are regarded as an ethnic myth about Jews in Madagascar. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Also, @Alansohn and @IZAK: What do you think about History of Jews in Madagascar? I don't see what the definite article adds, and I find it potentially misleading. I still oppose the move, but I find History of Jews in Madagascar much better than History of the Jews in Madagascar. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: The answer is NO, because there was already a decision with WP:CONSENSUS at Talk:History of the Jews in Abkhazia#Requested move 5 June 2020 to KEEP the name/s "History of the Jews in ___" and to NOT change them to "History of Jews in ____". IZAK (talk) 03:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

New consensus can, of course, override old consensus, as this request is seeking to do. The moves in question were all done through discussions with consensus. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support, per reasons stated by Alansohn.Davidbena (talk) 09:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Jews in Taiwan request

• Oppose for reasons above; the article contains a lot of information on a contemporary community; the article contains contemporary information including information about Jewish institutions and nonprofit and diplomatic projects in Taiwan; current title is most concise and clear. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  Support as stated above, the move as the content of the article is not just about a few Jewish people currently in Taiwan, but about the collective Jewish history of Taiwan. The existing title creates a clear misconception and the suggested move target is far clearer. Alansohn (talk) 00:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Do you find Chinese people in Madagascar to be similarly misleading? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Support, per reasons given by Alansohn.Davidbena (talk) 09:34, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Jews in Hong Kong request

• Oppose for reasons above; much of the article is about a contemporary community and the contemporary Jewish and Kosher institutions serving that community; the article contains contemporary information; current title is most concise and clear. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  Support as stated above, the move as the content of the article is not just about a few Jewish people currently in Hong Kong, but about the collective Jewish history of Hong Kong. The existing title creates a clear misconception and the suggested move target is far clearer. The pivotal historic role of Jews in the development, growth and administration of Hong Kong demonstrates that this is indeed covering a history that goes well beyond the present day. Alansohn (talk) 00:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Support, per reasons stated by Alansohn.Davidbena (talk) 09:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Please add to the discussion here. – robertsky (talk) 12:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I’ll add that the argument that even contemporary information about Jews is Jewish history is unconvincing—aside from the fact that if reliable sources agreed, they’d include that framing, which in this case they certainly don't—: by that logic, every article about a place, a group of people, a single person, a type of object, etc. should be renamed to "History of …" ꧁Zanahary꧂ 14:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Israeli Jews, History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel, no consistency there while the generic Jews, Jewish history, History of the Jews in Europe (the second one should be History of the Jews, its a redirect). Still, why not be consistent? Selfstudier (talk) 15:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Not to mention articles about ethnic and religious groups within countries which (AFAIK) never have a title like "History of the [x] in [y]"—it’s just Jews, which seems arbitrary and not a matter of following sources. In this case, I think consistency is not more compelling than concision and accurately reflecting the article’s breadth and the treatment of the topic by its sources—only one “Jewish history” source, the Encyclopedia Judaica, is used in the whole article. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Since we have the main subject of Jewish history which is the history of the Jews it therefore follows that we have articles about "History of the Jews in ____". Likewise we have articles such as History of Madagascar, History of Taiwan, History of Hong Kong all relating to the history of those countries, that includes everything that has ever happened in those countries and we do not call the articles People in Madagascar, People in Taiwan, People in Hong Kong. We do not judge the historical worthiness of an article solely by the type of "historical" sources only, rather we welcome information from all sorts of sources, such as newspapers, magazines, reliable websites, etc, to build up an article about the "History of the Jews in ___" articles. IZAK (talk) 17:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That the history of Jews in Madagascar is a conceivable topic within Jewish history does not imply that this article is about the history of the Jews in Madagascar. History of Madagascar is to History of the Jews in Madagascar as Madagascar is to Jews in Madagascar. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Of course, you’re welcome to write an article on the history of the Jews in Madagascar—it may not be long enough to justify a split—but this article is broader than that, and is just not that article. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: If so, then according to your understanding of the Jews in Madagascar article it should not have the name "Jews" in it at all, but some other name such as the various ones found in Category:Groups claiming Israelite descent and rename the article Madagascans claiming Israelite descent simply and clearly because they are NOT Jews as you keep on admitting. Then we'll figure out how much can be included in a standard History of the Jews in Madagascar article. In the meantime, based on your criteria, there is no reason to hold back from changing Jews in Taiwan to History of the Jews in Taiwan since by now it has a population of true Jews that exceeds 2,000 Jews, and Jews in Hong Kong can be moved to History of the Jews in Hong Kong because it is about the history of Jews in Hong Kong and not about people who "want" to or "claim" to be "Jews"! Shabbat Shalom! IZAK (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Your argument here does not really make sense to me. I’ll just restate my view that the most concise, clear, and accurate title for this page is Jews in Madagascar—and the same for Jews in Taiwan and Jews in Hong Kong. I find “History of the” awkward, long, and not quite accurate. The content in this article about Judaic origin myths in Madagascar is clearly still relevant, as it pertains to Jews in Madagascar in that it covers beliefs about Jews in Madagascar, and because every source on contemporary Jews in Madagascar discusses these myths at length, particularly because the myths greatly inform contemporary Malagasy Jewish conversion. But this is not really on the topic of the move, unless you are arguing that the article should be retitled because it should include no content on the origin myths and Judaic mysticism in Madagascar, which I would oppose for all the reasons explained above (and for which you would have to seek consensus to enact at a separate discussion from this move request). ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: I don't know whether to laugh or cry because what you are essentially saying is to cancel out the term/s "History" and "Jewish history". According to your POV Jewish history should now be merged into the Jew article, because having the word "history" is "awkward, long, and not quite accurate" since your preference is for a "concise, clear, and accurate" term such as plain "Jews", minus any "history" because, according to you, the record/s of Jews in any place should not have the term "history" attached to them! Following this way of thinking we may as well cancel the article about "History" and merge it into the "Humans" article because, according to you, history does not count. Again, I repeat, go ahead and create an article about Madagascar Judaic origin myths (these people that hold these myths are NOT Jews by the way, by any definition!) that would still potentially require another article about actual real Jews in a History of the Jews in Madagascar article, but as far as the other two articles, that do not cover "myths" about Jews in them, there is no logical reason to oppose moving Jews in Taiwan to History of the Jews in Taiwan and Jews in Hong Kong to History of the Jews in Hong Kong. IZAK (talk) 04:11, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I’m afraid your derivations of my views are wrong. My view is simply that this article is best titled "Jews in Madagascar", per my above arguments about scope, source treatment, and concision. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:26, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: While you keep coming back to the Jews of Madagascar article i.e. mythology, conversion, your arguments are different for the Jews of Taiwan and Jews of Hong Kong articles where you have other reasons, i.e. conciseness, awkward, so please be clear which line of reasoning you are following for each article to justify your position/s. IZAK (talk) 17:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: I think in all cases "History of …" is clearer. Among other things, it makes it clear that the focus is mainly historical, not simply present-day status. And whether we add "History of" to the title or not, an article about either "Jews in Madagascar" or "History of the Jews in Madagascar" should mainly be about actual Jews. Pseudo-Jews in that country presumably belong in a separate article except insofar as their story impacts or illuminates that of actual Jews, just as History of the Jews in the United States does not dwell on the Black Hebrew Israelites. - Jmabel | Talk 05:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

This article’s focus is not mainly historical—a major part of its content is contemporary Jewish identity and practice in Madagascar. Not that this move request is a content discussion, but a reading of the sources on Jews in Madagascar will show that the Malagasy origin myths, the colonial theories of Israelite origin, and the para-Jewish mystics are all ubiquitously covered in context of the contemporary rabbinic Jewish community, whose conversion and identity is directly tied to the origin myths and the syncretic para-Judaic groups (such as Messianics) that preceded the Jewish community in Antananarivo. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 05:50, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: There are potential converts and people who claim Israelite ancestry in many countries but that does not mean that they are Jews or that WP articles should cater to their whims by renaming articles about genuine "History of the Jews in ___" to the activities and mythologies of folks who may fancy themselves as part of the Jewish People but are in reality far-reomved from actual Jews or any form of normative Judaism. IZAK (talk) 17:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to initiate a discussion on removing mentions of the myths, colonial theories, and mystic groups. But I’d advise you to read the sources rather than base your argument on ones you imagine, because this article’s content follows the sources. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: The central argument here is to rename these three articles to their correct titles of "History of the Jews in ____" so let's stick to the main point for now. Editing, improving, correcting, splitting and fixing the articles can be done afterwards. IZAK (talk) 18:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)