I came upon The Holocaust because it is generally an emotionally-charged topic, and some hold differing opinions about the subject. As I scrolled through the discussion page, one discussion in particular caught my eye. Abie the Fish Peddler suggested the page be moved to "Shoah", a Hebrew term denoting the Holocaust. Because most of the discussion was about the meaning of these terms, lets give some background. The term "holocaust" was originally derived from a Greek word meaning "a sacrificial offering to the gods". It eventually grew to denote massive sacrifices and massacres. During WWII, the term was used as it is understood today, to describe the atrocities of Nazi soldiers. The term "Shoah" is biblical in nature, meaning "calamity". It became the standard Hebrew term for the word holocaust since the early 1940s. This term is preferred by many Jews because of the theological reference to a Greek pagan custom.
The argument was based around the opinion that Shoah has a specific relationship to the Holocaust, and the term holocaust is broader in scope. The discussion was quite lengthy, partly because the user had good arguments for wanting to redirect the page. However, after much analysis, the consensus decided to keep the page as the Holocaust, merely because the term is better known in English speaking countries (Shoah is only used in some Jewish groups). I felt this was a fair assessment and I was honestly impressed with the amount of discussion it took to reach a conclusion.
(Parry, read the comment!! He found my blog!)
I like this article. And, I hope this is an appropriate place to add that Wikipedia is, by nature, never a finished product and would be much benefitted by carefully intelligent work, like that which KATEARONSON has here offered.
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