Wikipedia's first sentence called it “small but militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv”. Today it says “small militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv in the 1920s to”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2020 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2020
Battalion for the Defence of the Language ( Hebrew : גדוד מגיני השפה , pronounced: Gdud Meginei Hasafa ) was a small but militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv , Israel in the 1920s to urge Jews to use only the Hebrew language .1The group campaigned against the use of other languages under the slogan "Jew, speak Hebrew." Its most prominent supporters were Mordechai Ben-Hillel Hacohen, a Hebrew writer, Zionist and one of the founders of Tel Aviv, and Zvi Yehuda Kook , the son of the chief rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook . The Jewish (mostly Yiddish ) press tended to portray the group as "a gang of fanatic, insolent hoodlums" and although the battalion was sometimes involved in violence it acted largely "as patriotic watchdog, barking loudly and baring its teeth but seldom actually biting." On 15 August 1929, the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av , 300 youths led by Jeremiah Halpern , who were mostly from the Battalion with some from Betar and other youth movements, made political speeches, raised the Zionist flag and sang the Zionist anthem at the Wall. A counter-demonstration by Muslims on the following day was followed by violent incidents and subsequently led to the 1929 Palestine riots and especially the destruction of the Jewish community in Hebron .2
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 930087560.
The opening as it stood in 2010
The Battalion for the Defence of the Language was a small but militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv , Palestine in the 1920s to urge Jews to use only the Hebrew language . The group campaigned against the use of other languages under the slogan "Jew, speak Hebrew." Its most prominent supporters were Mordechai Ben-Hillel Hacohen, a Hebrew writer, Zionist and one of the founders of Tel Aviv, and Zvi Yehuda Kook , the son of the chief rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook . The Jewish (mostly Yiddish ) press tended to portray the group as "a gang of fanatic, insolent hoodlums" and although the battalion was sometimes involved in violence it acted largely "as patriotic watchdog, barking loudly and baring its teeth but seldom actually biting." On 15 August, 1929, the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av , 300 youths led by Jeremiah Halpern , who were mostly from the Battalion with some from Betar and other youth movements, made political speeches, raised the Zionist flag and sang the Zionist anthem at the Wall. A counter-demonstration by Muslims on the following day was followed by violent incidents and subsequently led to widespread rioting in Palestine.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 361114819.
The opening as it stood in 2015
The Battalion for the Defence of the Language ( Hebrew : גדוד מגיני השפה , pronoinced: Gdud Meginei Hasafa ) was a small but militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv , Palestine in the 1920s to urge Jews to use only the Hebrew language . The group campaigned against the use of other languages under the slogan "Jew, speak Hebrew." Its most prominent supporters were Mordechai Ben-Hillel Hacohen, a Hebrew writer, Zionist and one of the founders of Tel Aviv, and Zvi Yehuda Kook , the son of the chief rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook . The Jewish (mostly Yiddish ) press tended to portray the group as "a gang of fanatic, insolent hoodlums" and although the battalion was sometimes involved in violence it acted largely "as patriotic watchdog, barking loudly and baring its teeth but seldom actually biting." On 15 August 1929, the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av , 300 youths led by Jeremiah Halpern , who were mostly from the Battalion with some from Betar and other youth movements, made political speeches, raised the Zionist flag and sang the Zionist anthem at the Wall. A counter-demonstration by Muslims on the following day was followed by violent incidents and subsequently led to widespread rioting in Palestine.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 579114599.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in 1936.The Battalion of the Defenders of the Language ( ) was a small but militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv in the 1920s to urge Jews in then Mandatory Palestine to use only the Hebrew language .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1176304328.
The opening as it stood in 2025
The Battalion of the Defenders of the Language ( Hebrew : גדוד מגיני השפה , romanized : G'dud meginei ha-safa ) was a small militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv in the 1920s to urge Jews in then Mandatory Palestine to use only the Hebrew language .The Battalion campaigned against the use of other languages under the slogan עברי, דבר עברית ( Ivri, daber ivrit ; "Hebrew [i.e.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1298345702. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “small but militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv”. Today it says “small militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv in the 1920s to”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
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militant
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
small but militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv
Now
small militant body established by jewish students at the herzliya hebrew gymnasium in tel aviv in the 1920s to
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
