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Featured articleElias Abraham Rosenberg is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 14, 2015.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 11, 2012Good article nomineeListed
January 21, 2012Peer reviewReviewed
March 18, 2012Peer reviewReviewed
April 5, 2012Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 10, 2012.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Elias Abraham Rosenberg, a peddler from San Francisco, became an adviser to King Kalākaua of Hawaii due to his purported ability to predict the future?
Current status: Featured article

Sources

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Some sources I've located:

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great work! I've added a couple of them to the article. Mark Arsten (talk) 07:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Queen Victoria

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The letter from Queen Victoria is not visible in any of the sources available to editors such as me. How could this have come about? MathewTownsend (talk) 21:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The passage about the letter is from the Adler journal article. I think you should be able to access it, but here's the quote anyway

The Jewish Folklore in America book also mentions that he claimed to have lost a letter from her (though it doesn't mention anything about a newspaper ad). Mark Arsten (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Remarkable! MathewTownsend (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I guess there's no way to know for sure, but I really wonder what went on with this guy before he was in his 70s... Mark Arsten (talk) 21:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

just another fly-by copyedit

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notes on things changed:

  1. tightened up Hawaiian arrival just a little bit
  2. "predominantly" is more encyclopedic than "heavily" imo
  3. "autocratic" wikilinked, important term for the reader to know, doubt most do
  4. "king's efforts to revive Hawaiian religious tradition" changed to "king's efforts to revive traditional Hawaiian religious beliefs", "traditional" is almost always "historian code" meaning bad news for immigrants, (or anything else new) and ties in directly with the next half of the sentence, "helped convince foreign residents of Hawaii that action should be taken against the king"
  5. removed "of Hawaii", redundant, since we already referred to them as residents
  6. removed parenthetical bayonet rebellion reference, the "June 1887 Constitution" link explains what happened, and "bayonet rebellion" isn't likely to mean anything more (it's also mentioned almost immediately in the article that's wikilinked), added a adverb to indicate it was forced on the king (could remove "june" and add the "bayonet" instead too)
  7. swapped out traditional for autocratic, since it's more accurate, and we used "traditional" to describe religious values in the previous sentence
  8. 2nd "later" changed to "after that", otherwise we have "later this happened, later this happened"
  9. typo, "no" changed to "not"
  10. head of customs, and customs office, should be capitalized? dunno...(probably)(no change made)
  11. Changed Bayonet Const. for continuity, changed "enacted" to "imposed"
  12. died at "the german hospital", "the"? Was he german? was there something special about this hospital that pertains to the article? (no change made)
  13. "will" de-linked as per WP:overlink
  14. the next line says he requested cremation, and then we say he was covered in lime and water, I think that's accurate, but slightly confusing to the average reader, cremation and water don't make a logical connection (yes, they could read the quicklime article, which reads like a grade 12 chem text, but still). I don't have a better suggestion though (no change made)
  15. there is no mention of children anywhere in the article, until we get to the bequeaths of the will, then they just sort of appear, might want a mention of them somewhere above somehow (no change made)
  16. there is no mention of the wife, until the notes section, even though she is apparently in the will too, same remedy as above (no change made)

Please take all my edits as suggestions only, reversions won't offend me! I will be watching this page for a while in case any discussion on my edits is wanted, and my talk page is always available for any necessary flames! --Despayre (talk) 09:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks a lot for taking a look at this and giving thorough comments--just what I had hoped for. You raise some good points, I'm on my way out the door at the moment but I'll try to revisit this soon. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I think I've basically gotten everything. I moved the description of the cremation process down to the footnotes, it was kinda breaking up the text there. I added a bit about his last wife there too. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

question

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The first sentences says: he "was a Jewish merchant from San Francisco" - but he wasn't really, was he? That's just where a little documented history starts, but he was apparently born in Russia and did all sorts of things (probably) before he turned up in San Francisco. And he was a "peddler" which doesn't really qualify as a "merchant". Right? MathewTownsend (talk) 23:41, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, maybe I am stretching the definition of merchant a bit there, will revise. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
San Francisco wasn't his "hometown", was it? After all, he was born in in 1810 and didn't arrive there until the 1880's. I wish there were more known about this man! MathewTownsend (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I see your point, it's unknown when exactly he arrived in San Fran, could have been five years, could have been much longer. I was looking for a real concise way to say that he lived in San Fran before traveling to Hawaii though. I think the last version of the lead got too bogged down in details and didn't emphasize the major/interesting stuff enough. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:03, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

returning to San Francisco

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I suggest the reasons weren't "unknown" but related to the Bayonet Constitution; after that he could hardly have been popular in Hawaii. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think he actually left before the constitution was forced on the King, though there undoubtedly were signs of discontent brewing. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rosenberg and the new constitution

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I don't think religion had much to do with the new constitution. "KING KALAKAUA LED A DUAL LIFE. Publicly Posing as Dr. Jekyll and Privately Playing Mr. Hyde. The family from which Kalakaua was descended was noted among the Hawaiians for the possession, in an exaggerated form, of the vices and cruelties of the tribal nobility. If Kalakaua inherited these faults the opportunity was wanting..."[1]

Seems to me like Rosenberg left because the king the lost power to keep him around. (The articles on Hawaii are so bad that it's hard to figure anything out.) MathewTownsend (talk) 15:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh hey, thanks for looking into this. This source is an interesting read on the subject. The constitution-pushers were primarily motivated by curtailing the kings power, but the king's autocracy and nativism were intertwined. Do you think I can use that source in the article? It doesn't mention Rosenberg by name but does refer to the King's circle of sorcerers (of which Rosey was a part). Mark Arsten (talk) 15:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked and looked, and nothing on the history of Hawaii mentions Rosenberg. Peripherally, your article mentions that he and the King drank beer. The King was involved in opium and seems like he was a bad egg. He and Rosenberg may have gotten along for that reason, since Rosenberg was somewhat on the wrong side of right, also. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, that part didn't occur to me. But yes, Rosenberg was in poor health and in need of painkillers... The king wasn't really a bad egg, just a free spirit (in my view, anyway) Mark Arsten (talk) 15:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I just revised a bit more, I was worried about too much detail in the lead. I think it still does an Ok job of summing up the situation now? Mark Arsten (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"by a powerful bloc of Caucasians in Hawaii who resented the King's autocratic governing style and revival of Hawaiian traditions." -- I think this skirts the sources. Some non Caucasians also resented the King, and he was apparently corrupt and had a family history of such, according to some sources. I wish there was a good history of Hawaii somewhere available. Currently, native Hawaiians are privileged. But I don't know the intervening history. MathewTownsend (talk) 18:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Tried again, how'd I do? This sure is tricky to pin down. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On a tangentially related note, Quentin Kawānanakoa is a fascinating read. Maybe we should put him on our list? Mark Arsten (talk) 18:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Factual issues concerning Judaism

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Resolved
by The Call of Cthulhu
Thanks! הסרפד (Hasirpad) [formerly Ratz...bo] 16:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two of the footnotes, have comments that seem inaccurate. In both cases, the footnotes seem well-sourced; the error seems to be in the source, but there should be a way to correct this.

  • Footnote b:
"According to Nodel, Rosenberg had obtained a religious, but not civil, divorce from his third wife in the 1880s. (Nodel 1996, p. 360)".
A Jewish religious divorce is cannot "obtained" by a husband from his wife. He can grant a divorce willingly (or sometimes less willingly); to a certain degree, his wife can resist accepting the divorce, but under no circumstances can a divorce be "obtained". See get (divorce document).
  • Footnote c:
"The yad was filigreed, contained inexpensive gemstones, and included a representation of a priest's arm."
A home-spun theory of the writer (Nodel?) or the jeweler cited. A yad is a pointing hand, nothing more, see the Wikipedia's article and the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article.

הסרפד (Hasirpad) [formerly Ratz...bo] 16:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second Paragraph phrasing? Suggestion Spelling/grammar correction

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"Rosenberg and Kalākaua often held long friends and enjoyed drinking alcohol together;" - should 'friends' be 'conflabs' or 'conversations' or 'spent a lot of time together in each others company'... just a thought.

I think that error was just added by an IP. Should be fixed now. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:28, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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