Talk:Morris Alexander

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Morris Alexander/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Curbon7 (talk · contribs) 09:54, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Grnrchst (talk · contribs) 13:07, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Happy to take this on for review, as I'd be fascinated to know more about South African Jewish history. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:07, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Comments

• It could aid readability a bit to break the biography up into subsections. Something like "Early life and education" for the first two paragraphs, "Activism" for the following two, then "Political career" for the rest.

 Done I concur with this formatting.

• Consider reformatting the bundled shortened footnotes into sfnm. It's not necessary, it just aids readability by reducing the number of boxed citation tags.
• First sentence could be broken up for readability. Something like: "Morris Alexander was born on 4 December 1877, in Znin, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia in the German Empire. He was the eldest of seven children of Abraham Alexander and Flora Lewin."

 Done I concur with this formatting.

• Spotcheck: [1][2] Verified.
• "to help his parents" "help" is a bit vague, be more specific; "financially support" or something similar would be an improvement.

 Done Wording like this used to be in the article, but was edited out during the WP:GOCE copyedit.

• "began his studies" Suggest "enrolled" instead, as "began his studies" could imply he wasn't studying until then (which is contradicted by the previous paragraph).

 Done

• Spotcheck: [1][3] (Move and employment) Verified in Abrahams 1968, but I can't find any of this in the Westralian Judean.
• Spotcheck: [1][3] (Education) Verified all in both.
• "In 1919, Alexander was appointed King's Counsel." It seems like you're following too close to the sources by including this here, as it's quite chronologically confusing to jump from 1900 to 1919 and then back to 1902. I'd recommend moving this detail to later in the biography.
• Spotcheck: [4] Verified.
• "He also taught law at Diocesan College." When?
• Spotcheck: [5][6] Verified.
• "the pair "fought so that Yiddish might be considered one such language, and thus Jewish immigrants would be able to enter the country"" Rewrite this in your own words, there's no need to quote the source.
• Spotcheck: [3][6] Verified everything except "allowed thousands of Jews to immigrate to South Africa". I can't see where the sources specify the number of Jews that emigrated to South Africa as a result.
• "This represented a shift away from traditional Jewish politics (shtadlanut)" Unclear why "shtadlanut" is in brackets here, it's not explained.

As the source and article state, the shtadlanut was the middle man between a Jewish town and the state, but I do not think this context is particularly needed as the rest of the sentence explains it fine: as Jews were traditionally forbidden to represent themselves as Jews in matters not related to religion.

• Spotcheck: [7] Verified.
• Spotcheck: [1][8] Verified date of establishment in Abrahams 1968, verified it being the most significant Jewish organisation in Pimlott 2023.
• Spotcheck: [4][9] Verified.
• Spotcheck: [10][11] Verified.
• "An active Zionist," Recommend "A supporter of Zionism" instead.

 Done

• "and would serve as a member of parliament until his death in 1946" Then why are we citing a source from 1929 here?? If Neame 1929 is verifying some other part of this section, then it should be cited inline with the information it verifies.
• Spotcheck: [11][16] Verified.
• "– an acquaintance from his time at Cambridge and the daughter of Solomon Schechter, the president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America –" That's quite a long introduction to Schechter. This could be trimmed down.
• "became associated with Mahatma Gandhi."; "He was also associated with W. E. B. Du Bois and Bertha Solomon" How was he "associated" with them?
• Spotcheck: [18][20] Seems her being a Marxist feminist is verified by Atkinson, while her encouraging Alexander not to join the SA party is in SAHP. These sources should be inline with the specific information they verify, rather than bundled together after this whole passage.
• "Alexander was briefly out of parliament after his defeat in the 1929 election, but was re-elected in 1931" This footnote could be moved into the body of the article, between where it says he was the "sole parliamentary member from 1921 until 1929" and "He did join the South African Party in 1931".
• Seems like Ruth Schechter is notable enough for her own article, so consider adding a red link for her.
• Spotcheck: [23] Verified.
• These later paragraphs centre a lot on Ruth, which would be fine in an article about her, but as this is a biography on Alexander, he should be the focus. Consider moving text focused on Ruth to a new article about her, and rewriting and trimming this down so Alexander is in focus.
• "Throughout the 1930s, Alexander was a strong opponent of the growing Nazi movement in South Africa" This could do with more information. How did he oppose them? What did he do? This is more than a decade of his life which we are just glossing over.
• It would be helpful to add a bit more about his political career to the lead.

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   There's a couple cases where the prose is not clear or concise enough.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Lead could be slightly longer, and the biography section could be broken up into subsections.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   References are all properly formatted and presented.

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   A couple cases where the citations could be more inline with the specific information they verify, rather than bundled at the end of a passage.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Possible case of extrapolating from source, needs checking.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   No copyright violations or clear plagiarism. Earwig only flags source titles. Some borderline cases of close paraphrasing that could be fixed by rearranging text or minor rewrites.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Seems like his life during the 1930s, when he opposed Nazism, could do with more development.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Later section focuses more on his wife, which can be fixed by creating a new article about her and trimming information down to keep the focus on the subject.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Broadly neutral, not taking a stance for or against him in the prose.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   One minor reversion of a tag placement last year, but no great changes since the article was nominated for GA.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Image has a valid Public Domain rationale.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Only image is of the subject himself.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   This article needs some work, particularly on its prose and scope. Once the issues I highlighted are addressed, I think it could be brought up to GA criteria. Feel free to ping me once these comments are addressed and/or if you have any questions. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:07, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank for the review. I'll work on the points you bring up over the next days. Curbon7 (talk) 20:54, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

As a side note, his wife probably is indeed notable. This 253 page book is entirely about her (and probably contains additional information about her husband), and she has a South African History Project entry here. Curbon7 (talk) 22:29, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

In researching additional sources to fill in the gaps in his later life, I found the Bibliography of South African Jewry by Veronica Belling of the Kaplan Centre, which lists two journal articles about Alexander:

• Gustav Saron. "Morris Alexander and Jewish immigration: an historical overview." Jewish Affairs 21(4), 1966: 21-24. ()
• A. M. Melamet. "Morris Alexander: a Jewish South African." Jewish Affairs 9(1),1954: 4-8. ()

I will request these via WP:RX. Curbon7 (talk) 07:19, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

@Curbon7: Hey, it's been a week since I opened this review. Has there been any progress on this yet? --Grnrchst (talk) 09:50, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I was just about to start with the text-related fixes. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies - which publishes the journal Jewish Affairs - has some volumes of the journal on their website, but not as far back as these articles are, so I have emailed them directly asking if they can send these pages. Sorry for the delay, I have been going through RfA which has eaten a lot of my time. Curbon7 (talk) 09:54, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for getting started! I look forward to seeing if the SAJBD can help you with this. Good luck with the RfA btw! --Grnrchst (talk) 10:59, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

@Curbon7: Hey just checking in again. How's this coming along? --Grnrchst (talk) 08:28, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

@Curbon7: I'm still waiting on many of these comments to be addressed. Please see to them when you get the chance. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:02, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Grnrchst, Apologies, I have been quite ill recently and have not had much bandwidth for editing. Feel free to mark as F for now; I'll work on the article when I can and will bring it back for review later. Curbon7 (talk) 22:21, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

Ach, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you feel better soon. If you ping me when you bring it back to review, I can give it another look over then. --Grnrchst (talk) 07:33, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.