Hebrew Wikipedia (, ) is the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

. This edition was started on 8 July 2003 and contains articles as of .

History

Timeline

*8 July 2003: The Hebrew edition of Wikipedia was launched. * 25 October 2003: The 1,000th article was written. * 22 July 2004: The first meeting of Hebrew Wikipedians took place in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. * 10 September 2004: The 10,000th article was written. * 20 September 2004: The Hebrew version of the

Flag of Kazakhstan The flag of Kazakhstan was adopted on 4 June 1992, replacing the Soviet-era flag. The flag was designed by Shaken Niyazbekov. Description The national flag of the Republic of Kazakhstan has a gold sun with 32 rays above a soaring golden st ...

article became the one millionth article created in all Wikipedias. * 24 December 2006: The 50,000th article was written. * 10 January 2010: The 100,000th article was written. * 29 August 2013: The 150,000th article was written. * 28 December 2016: The 200,000th article was written. *15 September 2019: The 250,000th article was written. * 3 August 2021: The 300,000th article was written. 5YearsHeWP02

Hebrew Wikipedia features several organized article writing projects, among them Wikitort - an academic project to write original articles about

tort law A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with crime ...

, PhysiWiki - a project to write and improve articles about

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

with the cooperation of

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

, and ongoing academic projects. Another major topic is

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their Jewish peoplehood, nation, Judaism, religion, and Jewish culture, culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and H ...

and the

History of Israel The history of Israel covers an area of the Southern Levant also known as Canaan, Palestine (region), Palestine, or the Holy Land, which is the geographical location of the modern states of Israel and Palestine. From a prehistory as part ...

. In 2006, the Elef Millim project () was launched to provide Wikipedia with free images. Groups of Wikipedians meet for field trips around the country to take pictures of Israeli sites.

Hebrew spelling Hebrew spelling refers to the way words are spelled in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonants, no ...

is a matter of debate. Since the standards published by the

Academy of the Hebrew Language The Academy of the Hebrew Language (, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of Givat Ram cam ...

are not always meticulously followed in common usage, the Hebrew Wikipedia community decides on problematic cases of spelling through discussion and polls to ensure consistency. When technically possible, spelling decisions are periodically enforced using automatic replacement by a

bot Bot or BOT may refer to: Sciences Computing and technology * Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language * Internet bot, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet **Spambot, an internet bot ...

. Hebrew Wikipedia's requirements for

notability Notability may refer to: * Notability (application), a note-taking IOS application * ''Notability'', a 1993 album by the Swingles * Notability in the English Wikipedia {{Disambiguation ...

standards are relatively strict. :he:ויקיפדיה:מה ויקיפדיה איננה Hebrew Wikipedia organizes yearly competitions, sometimes with the assistance of the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

, as well as social gatherings and picnics. ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

'' journalist Omer Benjakob said in 2023 in relation to the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israelis (; ) are the citizens and nationals of the State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Jews and Arabs, who respectively account for 75 percent and 20 percent of the national figure, followed by other ethnic and ...

that "Unlike many Wikipedias in languages with a global span, like English, Spanish or Arabic, Hebrew Wikipedia resembles its Polish or Hungarian counterparts in being more of an "Israeli Wikipedia." It can be seen as having an implicit pro-Israeli bias." Historian , comparing coverage of the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

on English and Hebrew Wikipedia in 2024, said that "where the distortions lie, are in the Hebrew Wikipedia."

2010 Knesset meeting

On the occasion of the 100,000 articles milestone, the Science and Technology Committee of the

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

(Israeli parliament) invited Wikipedia contributors and users to the 2 February 2010 morning meeting, to join in a debate about Wikipedia and other

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

resources. Some Wikipedia contributors at the meeting criticized "the lack of government cooperation with their efforts to compile a free online Hebrew-language encyclopedia," as well as sharing complaints from Wikipedia editors abroad that since the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

does not release photos for free redistribution on the Internet, the sole source of available pictures for entries such as the

Gaza War The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

and the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

are the

Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...

Hamichlol

Hamichlol ( "The Entirety") is a mirror of the Hebrew Wikipedia. It contains articles copied from the Hebrew Wikipedia which are edited to be acceptable to

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully tra ...

readers.

Statistics

As of January 2024, the Hebrew Wikipedia ranks among the best language editions in retention of new editors, while also having one of the highest edit revert rates.

References

External links

*
Hebrew Wikipedia
* * * * *Benjakob, Omer
Israeli PM Netanyahu's Son Asks to Be Removed From Wikipedia in Rare Request
''

'', 21 April 2024. Archived at

archive.today archive.today (formerly archive.is) is a web archiving website that saves snapshots on demand. It has support for JavaScript-heavy sites such as Google Maps and Twitter. Archive.today records two snapshots: one replicates the original webpa ...

Israeli PM Netanyahu's Son Asks to Be Removed From Wikipedia in Rare Request
{{Wikipedias Hebrew-language encyclopedias Wikipedias in Semitic languages Internet properties established in 2001 Hebrew-language websites