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Case file

Emil Fackenheim

Emil's older brother who refused to leave Germany was killed in the Holocaust .. Today: the act is described with no actor named. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Rabi and philosopher (1916–2003)”. It now reads “German-born Canadian rabbi and philosopher (1916–2003)”.
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 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Emil Fackenheim ( June 22 , 1916 – September 18 , 2003 ) was a noted Jewish philosopher and rabbi .1 Born in Halle , Germany , he was arrested by the Nazis on the night of November 9 , 1938 , known as Kristallnacht . Briefly interned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (1938–1939), he managed to get away for Great Britain , where his parents later joined him. Emil's older brother who refused to leave Germany was killed in the Holocaust .2 Held by the British as an enemy alien after the outbreak of World War II , Fackenheim was sent to Canada in 1940, where he received Ph.D. at University of Toronto (1945) and became Professor of Philosophy (1948–1984). Fackenheim researched the relationship of the Jews with God, believing that the Holocaust must be understood as an imperative requiring Jews to carry on Jewish existence and the survival of the State of Israel. He emigrated to Israel in 1984. "He was always saying that continuing Jewish life and denying Hitler a posthumous victory was the 614th law", referring to the 613 mitzvot given to the Jews in the Torah ( [1] ).3

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17095168.
Today
Emil's older brother who refused to leave Germany was killed in the Holocaust .. Today: the act is described with no actor named. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Rabi and philosopher (1916–2003)”. It now reads “German-born Canadian rabbi and philosopher (1916–2003)”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

Sections that no longer exist

Present on October 6, 2023, absent today, with no near-matching heading in the current article and the article shorter overall, so this is not a renamed heading or a topic absorbed into a fuller treatment. 3 sections of 400 characters or more gone since October 6 2023, with the article 4,956 characters shorter.

  • Terminology
  • Intermarriage
  • Conclusion
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.

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