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Case file

Jewish peoplehood

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “conception of the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual a part of the jewish people”. Today it says “concept of the jewish people as a collective and the sense of belonging across religious”.
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 2025 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 2025

The concept of peoplehood has a double meaning. The first is descriptive, as a concept factually describing the existence of the Jews as a people , i.e., a national ethnoreligious indigenous group. The second is normative, as a value that describes the feeling of belonging and commitment to the Jewish people. The concept of Jewish peoplehood is a paradigm shift for some in Jewish life. Insisting that the mainstream of Jewish life is focused on Jewish nationalism ( Zionism ), they argue that Jewish life should instead focus on Jewish peoplehood, however the majority of Jews see peoplehood as encompassing both Jews living inside Israel and outside in diaspora. The concept of peoplehood, or " Klal Yisrael " has permeated Jewish life for millennia, and to focus on it does not constitute a shift from the focus on Jewish nationhood. Jews have been extremely effective in sustaining a sense of joint responsibility towards their people and its members for over 2,000 years, since their displacement by the Romans, subsequent enslavement, dispersal as a refugee community throughout the world, and subsequent return to their homeland in 1948. The concepts of Jews as a nation and as a peoplehood are not necessarily at odds with one another. The very concept of defining Jews as a nation, people, or civilization is historically accurate, and suggests a wide variety of values within the context of Judaism also.

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1284666574.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “conception of the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual a part of the jewish people”. Today it says “concept of the jewish people as a collective and the sense of belonging across religious”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
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 October 7, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

conception of the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual a part of the jewish people

Now

concept of the jewish people as a collective and the sense of belonging across religious

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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