Wikipedia's first sentence called it “famous posek”. Today it says “well-known hasidic rabbi”.
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
Chaim Elozor Wax (1822, Tarnogród - 1889, Kalisz ) was a well-known Hasidic rabbi , posek , and a Jewish leader in Poland . He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud . He is especially known from his responsa work Nefesh Haya , and as the president of Kupat Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes Kollel Polen, Warsaw region. Neil Rosenstein in an article about matching up Rabbinical sources and Polish records points to the difficulty in tracing Rabbi Wax's records. This is due to the use of the surname Gerymter (sometimes together with the surname Waks) that appears in Kalisz vital records as indexed in JRI-Poland , a name that does not appear in any Rabbinical sources. Analysis of other Polish vital records, including records from Jozefow Ordynacki that are the marriage records of 2 siblings of Chaim Elozor from Tarnogrod, use the Gerymter surname. It is clear that his family used the name Gerymter and not Waks. One of these records show that he had a brother-in-law named Zrul WAKS, and this might be the source (reason unknown) of the Waks name used by Rabbi Chaim Elozor, a surname that he used together with the name Gerymter in Kalisz vital records.
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 926903995.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Chaim Elozor Wax (1822, Tarnogrod - 1889, Kalisz ) was a famous posek , a Hasidic rabbi , and a leader in Jewish Poland . He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud . He is especially known from his responsa work Nefesh Haya , and as the head of the Kolel of the Warsaw region, Kollel Warschau . Neil Rosenstein in an article about matching up Rabbinical sources and Polish records points to the difficulty in tracing Rabbi Wax's records. This is due to the use of the surname Gerymter (sometimes together with the surname Waks) that appears in Kalisz vital records as indexed in JRI-Poland , a name that does not appear in any Rabbinical sources. Analysis of other Polish vital records, including records from Jozefow Ordynacki that are the marriage records of 2 siblings of Chaim Elozor from Tarnogrod, use the Gerymter surname. It is clear that his family used the name Gerymter and not Waks. One of these records show that he had a brother-in-law named Zrul WAKS, and this might be the source (reason unknown) of the Waks name used by Rabbi Chaim Elozor, a surname that he used together with the name Gerymter in Kalisz vital records.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 312773641.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Chaim Elozor Wax (1822, Tarnogrod - 1889, Kalisz ) was a well-known Hasidic rabbi , posek , and a Jewish leader in Poland . He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud . He is especially known from his responsa work Nefesh Haya , and as the president of Kupat Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes Kollel Polen, Warsaw region. Neil Rosenstein in an article about matching up Rabbinical sources and Polish records points to the difficulty in tracing Rabbi Wax's records. This is due to the use of the surname Gerymter (sometimes together with the surname Waks) that appears in Kalisz vital records as indexed in JRI-Poland , a name that does not appear in any Rabbinical sources. Analysis of other Polish vital records, including records from Jozefow Ordynacki that are the marriage records of 2 siblings of Chaim Elozor from Tarnogrod, use the Gerymter surname. It is clear that his family used the name Gerymter and not Waks. One of these records show that he had a brother-in-law named Zrul WAKS, and this might be the source (reason unknown) of the Waks name used by Rabbi Chaim Elozor, a surname that he used together with the name Gerymter in Kalisz vital records.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 633855945.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Chaim Elozor Wax (1822, Tarnogród – 1889, Kalisz ) was a well-known Hasidic rabbi , posek , and a Jewish leader in Poland . He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud . He is especially known from his responsa work Nefesh Haya , and as the president of Kupat Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes Kollel Polen, Warsaw region. Neil Rosenstein in an article about matching up Rabbinical sources and Polish records points to the difficulty in tracing Rabbi Wax's records. This is due to the use of the surname Gerymter (sometimes together with the surname Waks) that appears in Kalisz vital records as indexed in JRI-Poland , a name that does not appear in any Rabbinical sources. Analysis of other Polish vital records, including records from Jozefow Ordynacki that are the marriage records of 2 siblings of Chaim Elozor from Tarnogrod, use the Gerymter surname. It is clear that his family used the name Gerymter and not Waks. One of these records show that he had a brother-in-law named Zrul WAKS, and this might be the source (reason unknown) of the Waks name used by Rabbi Chaim Elozor, a surname that he used together with the name Gerymter in Kalisz vital records.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1288825926. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “famous posek”. Today it says “well-known hasidic rabbi”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
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
famous posek
Now
well-known hasidic rabbi
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.