I wrote to Mike Stangel (he is Geni.com's general manager) about this on March 24, 2017 and he replied -- promptly and courteously. I appreciate his taking time with this issue.
This is what I said to him in my initial email:
A year ago, I signed up for a Pro subscription to Geni.com at a cost — as you know — of $119 a year.
At first, I was very interested in the information that Geni.com was putting in front of me about my ancestry, much of it previously unknown to me.
And then, in June 2016, a curator named Randy Schoenberg decided to sever one of the pivotal connections in my ancestral line. It was the connection to the Benveniste HaLevy’s of Spain. Mr. Schoenberg, who as you know, is a volunteer curator, decided that there was not enough information to warrant retaining this link, and he said he was working with a Rabbi Marmorstein (whoever that may be) who said that this connection was spurious.
The hue and cry when this happened came from numerous people, not only from me. Many people were affected by what Mr. Schoenberg took it upon himself to do.
Mr. Schoenberg said in a discussion email on June 30, 2016, “There does not appear to be any real support for the late 19th century claim that the Horowitz family descends from Benveniste. The same is probably true of Epstein. If you have any support for these claims, please let me know.” Then he cited this article: http://www.avotaynuonline.com/2016/03/does-the-horowitz-family-from... <http://www.avotaynuonline.com/2016/03/does-the-horowitz-family-from...; <http://www.avotaynuonline.com/2016/03/does-the-horowitz-family-from... <http://www.avotaynuonline.com/2016/03/does-the-horowitz-family-from...;
Among the immediate responses to Mr. Schoenberg were these:
I think YDNA results do prove that. You might want to consult Mr. Meir Gover, https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home <https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home&gt; <https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home <https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home&gt;&gt; (This came from David Zelikovski, who has a Pro next to his name.)
And this was what curator Yigal Burstein said: "To kill many family traditions or to create "new" ones should take more than an article in Avotaynuonline. No disrespect to the Journal and its important mission or to its editorial board.”
A woman named Catherine Anna Manfredi Yronwode (also a Pro), wrote: "I agree with Yigal Burstein -- a change this large, affecting potentially thousands of Geni members, should have been based on more than an opinion in an article in one online source.”
And a woman named Rhea Tannenbaum (a Pro) wrote: There should be a review committee for decisions like this so that they don't rest with one individual. There should also be protocols for how this type of situation is handled so that those who are affected are informed in a timely manner. While this is not a scientific issue it seems to me that the argument that the Horowitz family are not descended from the Benvenisti family can neither be proven nor disproven. The status quo should stand until such time as it can be definitively disproven.
In summation, if Geni.com wants people like me to renew our Pro memberships, the unilateral action of a volunteer curator — in this case — Randy Schoenberg should not be permitted.
In addition, what he did should be undone.
I would appreciate the favor of a reply.
Thank you.
MIKE Stangel immediately wrote back to me as follows:
Thank you for reaching out to us. You are correct that such major changes should have the benefit of deliberation by as many scholars and stakeholders as possible.
It is my understanding that Mr. Schoenberg started a public discussion on the profile for https://www.geni.com/people/Yeshaya-HaLevi-Horowitz-The-first-Horow... <https://www.geni.com/people/Yeshaya-HaLevi-Horowitz-The-first-Horow...; <https://www.geni.com/people/Yeshaya-HaLevi-Horowitz-The-first-Horow... <https://www.geni.com/people/Yeshaya-HaLevi-Horowitz-The-first-Horow...; on March 14, 2016 entitled, "Yeshaya HaLevi Horowitz - The first Horowitz - Should we sever the connection from Horowitz to Benveniste?" and that several users including curators advised him to leave it and allow time for the scholarly community to process the article referenced. After much discussion, on July 2 Mr. Schoenberg disconnected Daniel Gittinger... <Daniel Gittinger...; <Daniel Gittinger... <Daniel Gittinger...; from his father https://www.geni.com/people/Benvenisti-ben-Josef-Ha-Levi-in-numerou... <https://www.geni.com/people/Benvenisti-ben-Josef-Ha-Levi-in-numerou...; <https://www.geni.com/people/Benvenisti-ben-Josef-Ha-Levi-in-numerou... <https://www.geni.com/people/Benvenisti-ben-Josef-Ha-Levi-in-numerou...; with the comment, "The legend of Spanish descent seems almost certainly to be a late 19th century fabrication, perhaps originating with Rabbi Yosef Levenstein, who already 20 years ago was called 'completely unreliable' by Rabbi Meir Wunder in his article 'The Reliability of Genealogical Research in Modern Rabbinic Literature' (Avotaynu, Vol. XI, No. 4 Winter 1995, p. 34)." I hope I've summarized the problem correctly.
Please give me a couple days to discuss this with some of the people involved and I will get back to you. I can say that sometimes it happens that curators overstep their authority, and sometimes it happens that collaboration means enduring the disappointment of having long-held beliefs challenged. It would be premature for me to immediately declare which applies, here.
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So I wrote back to Mike Stangel (in part) as follows:
Thank you for your prompt reply to my email of March 24 questioning what curator Randy Schoenberg did in severing the ancestral lines that connected the Horowitz family with Benveniste. This unilateral action on his part affected many Geni.com subscribers. I don’t know exactly how many, of course, but one person who responded to a discussion about this on the Geni.com message board said that it was “thousands”. (I have found, much to my surprise, that there are certain pivotal links in any long ancestral line, and this is one of them.)
In response to your email: I was unaware of what Mr. Schoenberg had done or of any previous discussions that he MIGHT do what he did — until suddenly my direct ancestral line of grandparents was diminished from many thousands of people including Kings David and Solomon, a number of Roman emperors and a few pharaohs — to just 511 people. Now, I realize, of course, that some of this, and maybe a lot of this, is highly unlikely, but it sure was interesting. And I also realize that the further back you go, the less likely there is to be accuracy and that Geni.com deep ancestral lines often are self-contradictory.
I ended this email by saying:
To sum up, Mr. Stangel, I hope that you will reverse Mr. Schoenberg’s action and also make it clear to the curators what Geni.com's policies are about severing pivotal links in the ancestral lines. This should not be done lightly. In fact, I think Geni.com should create boards of experts in various aspects and time periods of genealogy who could evaluate any potential action of this sort. You would probably have to pay these people, but I suspect that you would more than make up this revenue by not losing disgruntled Geni.com Pro subscribers.
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MIKE Stangel replied to that email on April 11. He said:
Thank you for your patience while I investigated this matter. We appreciate the tremendous religious and cultural significance of the connection between the Horowitz progenitor, Joseph HaLevi, and the Benvenisti line, however we cannot find fault in Mr. Schoenberg's decision to sever the connection. Our decision is not intended as a statement of absolute fact regarding Horowitz heritage, but rather simply a reflection of the fact that the evidence for such a connection does not meet the rigorous standards set out by the Genealogical Proof Standard -- a standard to which I've encouraged our curators to aspire. We encourage our curators and other users to keep abreast of the academic findings that will no doubt follow the Avotaynu Online article, and to keep the World Family Tree updated with the best available information. In the meantime the "About" text on Joseph HaLevi, [Horowitz progenitor] has been updated with explanatory text regarding the controversy.
I'm sorry this is not the decision you were looking for.
Kind regards,
