The Yiddish Wikipedia is the

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

-language version of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. It was founded on March 3, 2004, and the first article was written November 28 of that year.

Current status

The Yiddish Wikipedia has

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

as of . There are registered users (including

bots The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...

); are active, including

administrators Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * ...

. Like all Wikipedias it generates hits from Yiddish words typed in

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and other

search engines A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

, with Wikipedia articles often appearing at the top of the results for that word. In accordance with the norms for the Yiddish language, it is written almost exclusively in

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish ...

, and not in

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...

Milestones

The Yiddish Wikipedia reached 6,000 articles on March 8, 2009. The 6,000th article is יהושע העשיל תאומים-פרענקל, a rabbi. The 7,000th article is חנינא סגן הכהנים, a page about the tanna

Hanina Segan ha-Kohanim Hanina ananyahSegan ha-Kohanim ( he, ר' חנינא (חנניה) סגן הכהנים, lit. ''"R. Hanina (Hananiah) heSegan (Deputy) Ha-Kohanim (High priest)"'') was of the first Generation of the Jewish Tanna sages. He was the father of Rabbi ...

created on December 24, 2009.

Point of view

Combined, the different Hasidic groups form the largest Yiddish-speaking community in the world today. Therefore, many new articles are about Hasidic rabbis. Other examples of Yiddish Wikipedia's extensive coverage on

Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses ...

in general, and Hasidic Judaism in particular, are: *Yiddish Wikipedia's Main Page's covers Jewish topics extensively. Generally, at the top of the Wikipedia Main Page, Main Page of any language Wikipedia is a list of links to portals or categories of general topics, for examples the arts, history, mathematics, and science. However, on the Yiddish Wikipedia Main Page, in addition to the usual links, there are links to the all-Jewish categories of Judaism, Hasidism, ''Sifrei Kodesh'', the Holocaust, and Rabbis. *Yiddish Wikipedia's page about Wikipedia:User pages, user pages lists the rules a user must follow when making his user page. As a suggestion, the article says a user should not write untrue things about themselves on their user page, for example "if you live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Williamsburg, it's not proper to write that you live in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, Lakewood." The two places mentioned in the example, Williamsburg and Lakewood, are home to very large and influential Orthodox Jewish communities. *On the Yiddish page for ''Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, What Wikipedia is not'', one of the sections is named "Wikipedia is not a mikveh". The name is based on the idea that Jews who find themselves together in the ''mikveh'' (Jewish ritual bath) share with each other the latest news and rumors. This section tries to convey that short news tidbits and rumors should not be written on Wikipedia, especially when unsourced. *On the Yiddish page about Yiddish Wikipedia, five reasons are listed as to the purpose of Yiddish Wikipedia in addition to simply being a free encyclopedia, with four of them being Judaism-related, and more specifically, related to the Haredi Jewish community (a subgroup of Orthodox Judaism which includes Hasidic Judaism). For example, about one of the reasons − to create Torah study, the following is written: "One [user] writes a ''sevara'' (Torah thought), reason, halakha, law, Minhag, custom, or understanding [of the Torah], another [user] jumps up and questions it on the wp:talk page, talk page, and changes it according to his conclusion, and the third makes a compromise. And so on until...a complete [discussion of] Torah is learned up." :Additional Judaism-related goals of Yiddish Wikipedia are to spread Judaism and to create a virtual community, virtual Jewish community online.:yi:יידיש-וויקיפעדיע

Statistics

References

External links

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Yiddish Wikipedia
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Yiddish Wikipedia mobile version
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New Voices e-Gossip - If there ever was hope for our grandparents to turn tech-savvy and read about the latest in their mamaloshen, this is it.
New Voices (magazine).
Go on the web: Aviv Gefen (with non-hebrew spelling)? Yes. It's not a mistake. It's Yiddish
Ynet (Hebrew) * Dr. Shalom Berger
An encyclopedia of people already in Yiddish
The Forward (

)
Is there such a thing as a Free Encyclopedia?: - The Yiddish Wikipedia was the only Wikipedia which did not delete an article which a journalist has written his own autobiography
TheMarker (Hebrew) {{Wikipedias in Germanic languages Wikipedias by language Yiddish-language mass media Internet properties established in 2004 Wikipedias in Germanic languages