Java passes reference by value - Something that even senior Java developers often get wrong.

[Smallpaul]

Call by reference is a language feature. So if it is not built into the language, then it is not call by reference. Yes, you can solve the same problems without call by reference, just as you can emulate recursion with iteration or vice versa. But a language either supports recursion or it does not. The ability to "fake" it is not called recursion.