@msh210 Hmm....but still, the question wasn't really phrased about "religious philosophy" so much as about whether or not the story actually happened....

"My question is does anyone have a reliable source for this story and is it true? And if not where does this story come from?"

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob Do you have the Kafih translation of Chovos HaLevavos?

dont they have it online for free

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob do they?

i think so google it

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob So far, I have found a lot of places where I can buy it.

@YEZ from the website that i thought had it doesnt have it

only ibn tibbon n goldman

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob יש לך?

i knew they had something

daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/mehkarim/shaar-2.htm

it was amunoth wa deyyo3th

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob Todah rabbah

not 7oboth halaboboth

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob oh that doesn't help me as much.

yea i knew they had something from mori that wasnt rambam

otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?14197 otzar has it if u have an account with them

web.archive.org/web/20111025155228/http://www.temani.net/http/… mori qafi7s rif on 7ullin if u ever learn rif on 7ullin lol

@MoriDoweedhYaa3qob rif on chulin was written in Arabic?

guess so

@Shokhet "This anecdote seems to be popular because it contradict (or at least mitigates) the uncompromising anti-Zionism that is reflected in R' Yoelish's published writings." - the motivation of the question is to verify the accuracy of the more moderated view of Satmar anti-Zionism. Questions of fact in any subject are on-topic if they are about Judaism

@Yishai Alright. I just got distracted by the whole "My question is [seemingly off-topic content]"; didn't pay that much attention to the line before it that provided context.

What would you say to a question that was exactly the same as the one under discussion, but missing that line?

@YEZ What happens if you delete your own comments that I flagged? Would that count as a helpful flag?

@Shokhet There's only one way to find out...

@DoubleAA Counted as helpful. Who deleted those, you (@DoubleAA), or @YEZ?

@DoubleAA Once we're here anyway.....what's the difference between a flag that's been declined, and one that's been disputed?

^^^ That question currently has a bounty, which may prevent close votes. Please comment there (or upvote my comment) if you think it should be closed.

@MonicaCellio Not that I think this is a particularly good question, but why should "disprove this anti-Judaism claim" be outside of our scope?

I think the question as it stands is decent and it had a good answer

It's only once you start reading the comments that the question starts to seem bad

@Shokhet I don't know that there's a practical difference for us non-mods, but I think disputed means it was reviewed by a non-mod with sufficient rep

@Daniel Hmm....

@MonicaCellio Looking at the question and the bounty text, it seems that this is a history question - "Why did the Jews in that time and place not accept Islam as their own faith?" Assuming that it can be demonstrated that this was an actual decision taken by said communities at the time, as opposed to, say my shul's not signing on to Pastafarianism, I think that it's probably in-scope to investigate the basis of that decision. It's likely, in fact, that there's extant literature from the ...

... rabbinic leaders of the time proclaiming and justifying such a decision. (Iggeret Teiman?) I'm not sure if existing answers that show how Islam is incompatible with Judaism are sufficient to answer the history question, but perhaps they (esp. ones that reference the Rambam) could be tweaked to do so.

... It could be that the question, as it stands, is under-specified and under-justified. Which communities are you talking about, and how do you know that they took such a decision?

@IsaacMoses that's a good point -- if we cast it as a history question that can work, though it's a weak question in presuming that just because somebody came up with a thing (Islam, Pastafarianism, whatever) means we have explicitly considered and rejected it. It's the "I think you should do X; why do you reject that?" formation that bugged me.

@IsaacMoses yes, good point.

I want to place more of the burden on the asker.

(Not just this asker, but any asker bringing an "outside" assertion about Judaism.)

@MonicaCellio How about: Close the question as Unclear. Explain that it requires specification and substantiation. If it gets those, reopen, and consider deleting [some of] the existing answers and/or noting on them that they addressed a pre-closure version of the question.

@Daniel you may be right; the comments are almost certainly influencing me. That said, I don't think we want a series of questions of the form "why isn't Jesus/Muhammad/Buddha/my uncle Bob/etc a prophet?" either. A question should show some work for why that might even be plausible.

Also, I'm not proposing deleting; Yisahai's answer there is very good. But closing signals "this, as written, isn't what we're looking for".

@IsaacMoses that works for me. @Daniel, any thoughts on Isaac's suggestion?

@MonicaCellio This stance is consistent with the standard you suggested somewhere for interfaith questions, justifying "Is Christianity A"H?" that it matters whether it's reasonable to assume that Judaism has considered this.

@MonicaCellio @IsaacMoses well I don't really think it's unclear, and I don't think it needs to be a history question.

For example, we allow this question which is similar

@Daniel It is one, though.

@IsaacMoses @MonicaCellio We have no obligation to ensure he likes his answers. The question is fine and the bounty text is fine. But I plan on watching the comments, edits and further bounty texts carefully. Any explicitly proselytizing or offensive claims will be removed. If he doesn't want to accept Yishai's correct answer, his loss.

@Daniel too.

There's nothing wrong with "looking forward to unbiased, logical answers based upon historical facts and authoritative knowledge" interpreted in a Jewish way. If he doesn't award his bounty, downvotes answers or doesn't accept one, there's nothing we can do. It's no worse than any other random downvote or absent user.

@DoubleAA I actually came to chat to say that I thought the question in scope but the bounty text, specifically: "What really made the Jews and Rabbis to act against him in Medinah and not to accept him as a Prophet from Yahweh or Allah." to be out of scope, and in general trying to take the question into comparative religion territory.

@Yishai I think that would be a valid question, but it's different from the question he asked

And we don't really allow people to change their question in a way that invalidates existing answers

@Daniel Yeah, but he didn't change the question, he made a bounty. I guess there are always ways to find grey areas in rules ...

@Shokhet I would say that it is on topic because the implication is there. Understanding someone who is a Jewish figure of that stature's position on something related to Torah (should you or should you not support Israel) is part of Judaism. Compare to Rabbi Akiva's marital bedroom behavior being Torah. IOW, I would take the text as presumed to be there.

@Yishai Aright.

Regarding the question everyone's discussing.....my own 2 cents. I think the question is on-topic, even though it is a little weak ( and I agree that it doesn't have to be a history question )......I'm just surprised that he asked on JUDAISM.se, and then rejects answers, saying that the JEWISH view is "incorrect".....if you ask a question here, expect a Jewish answer

If you want an answer from a different point of view, Mi Yodeya is not the place to ask the question.

Thanks for the input everybody! Given the discussion here I don't currently plan to take any further action. Other members of the community should of course feel free to comment, edit, and vote as they see fit.

Wow it looks like I missed a party.

@Shokhet It was me. :( sorry

@Shokhet Not much for you. There used to be a thing called flag weight which was a measure of your "goodness" at flagging for things like Deputy badge. Now they do it differently. I think enough declined flags will make you lose the ability to flag or something still.

If you get too many declined flags within a small time period, you start getting warnings when you go to flag. I suspect this is because there are people who never check their flag responses. If you aren't seeing your warnings you're probably fine.

@Shokhet a flag can be marked "disputed" if it goes through a review queue (you said VLQ, somebody else said "looks ok"), and sometimes if the post was edited subsequent to the flag (I'm fuzzy on the details here). Basically, the system detects some differences of opinion and marks things disputed; human flag-handlers either mark helpful or decline.

@MonicaCellio and @DoubleAA Thanks for the info!

@MonicaCellio Is there a MSE post on how that stuff works?

@MonicaCellio Didn't even have to find questions, just went to tags......disputed flags (=10K user) and declined flags (=mod)

@Shokhet there you go. BTW, that part about "moderator tools" (by which they mean the 10k tools) no longer applies; the 10k flag review is gone. But yes, I remember there being an "invalid flags" option there when that existed.

@MonicaCellio Oh....so did the definition of "disputed" change? Or is it just a question of who got the flag?

@Shokhet 10k users no longer see flags, so they don't have the option to dispute them. The other ways of getting disputed flags can still happen as far as I know. I think my disputed flags are generally the result of either edits or review queues.

@MonicaCellio Aren't low quality posts the result fo flags?

My understanding of how bounties work suggests that ray will receive the bounty for his answer here since it was posted after the bounty was offered even though yishai's answer had received fast more upvotes in that time

Is that correct?

It seems wrong

@Daniel Ray needs to get 2 votes, at which point he is qualified to receive half of the bounty amount. If it is manually awarded, it can go to anyone, including Yishai.

@Daniel If @Yishai wants to game the system, he could delete his answer and repost it, and hope he still gets the most upvotes. (I'd re-vote for his answer). I don't see him as the gaming-the-system type, though.

@Shokhet a flag (VLQ or NAA, now) will put a post into that review queue (unless it's already been through there, I think). Once a post is there, others can say "looks ok" (which counts as disputing the flag) or vote to delete. If everybody goes for delete then I believe the original flag is marked helpful; if there's a disagreement, it's disputed.

@Daniel I think it has to have a score of at least 2 (at the time the bounty is auto-awarded, if it's not manually awarded).

@Daniel that does seem wrong. Yishai's answer is excellent. The OP is presumably not willing to award the bounty to any accurate Jewish answer, though. :-(

@YEZ yeah, that wouldn't really be in the spirit of SE, and I also don't think he's someone who would do that.

@MonicaCellio @Daniel Nothing stopping you from awarding a bounty to Yishai for his outstanding answer.

@YEZ a very good point. "Reward existing answer" is one of the bounty reasons.

@MonicaCellio I think just to spite the OP, we should all give Yishai +50 bounties for "award existing answer" until he got +450. I'd contribute to that.

@MonicaCellio Aha

@Daniel @YEZ Haven't seen the rules in a while.....I think that the rule is a new answer with a score of 2+ gets half the bounty amount, not the whole thing

If you do not award your bounty within 7 days (plus the grace period), the highest voted answer created after the bounty started with a minimum score of 2 will be awarded half the bounty amount. If two or more eligible answers have the same score (i.e., their scores are tied), the oldest answer is awarded the bounty. If there's no answer meeting those criteria, the bounty is not awarded to anyone. ~judaism.stackexchange.com/help/bounty

@YEZ Ha. I saw you said that, but didn't see the word "half" :]

@YEZ I'd contribute also.

@Shokhet I'm counting the stars on my comment. We're up to 150.

@MonicaCellio Can I get Modular approval for my suggestion, in the form of pinning?

@YEZ yup.

@MonicaCellio Y"K

@YEZ we also don't actually have to get 9 people going along to do that

< 450 still counts

@Daniel indeed. And he's picked up several upvotes since the bounty was started, too. (I think that answer was at 17 the first time I saw it on the front page this time around.)

@MonicaCellio Yes, it picked up 7 votes. I'm not really sure what to make of this "spite bounty". Not deserved by me, that is for sure. Maybe I'll pay it forward to another deserving answer somewhere ...

And thank you everyone for the compliments about the answer. I'm blushing.

@Yishai the initial motivation might have been to counter an OP with questionable intentions, but I don't think the people starring that would do so if they didn't think your answer worthy.

@MonicaCellio Correct. @Yishai your answer is the correct one, so you are deserving of the bounty