Did Wikipedia remove the word "hostage" from the Kehat Shorr article?

Yes. "hostage" appeared 7 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 5. We saved the article's opening paragraph at 5 moments between 2010 and 2025, and the counts come from those saved copies.

When did the Kehat Shorr article stop using the word "hostage"?

The word appeared 7 times in the opening at its peak in 2010. It is absent from today's opening, the part search engines quote and AI systems train on, checked against the live article on 2026-08-01.

How can I verify what Wikipedia's Kehat Shorr article used to say?

Each snapshot on this page links the Wikipedia revision it came from, so you can open their own history and compare. We also keep our own copy of the text, which stays readable if the article changes again.

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Kehat Shorr

Kehat Shorr was the shooting coach for Israel's 1972 Olympic team, one of eleven Israeli athletes killed in the Munich massacre. Through 2010 the opening said he was among the members of Israel's Olympic team who were taken hostage and subsequently murdered by Black September operatives. Today the opening says only that he was "killed in the Munich massacre," with hostage appearing 0 times in the opening though it survives 5 times in the body. A reader today learns he was killed in a massacre and not that he was taken hostage and murdered by a named terrorist organization.

Read line by line and written up by hand.

Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “hostage” appeared 7 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 5.

We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 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 2010

Kehat Shorr (left) and Andre Spitzer (right) talk to German officials during the hostage crisis.¹ Kehat Shorr ( 1919 - September 6, 1972) was the shooting coach for the 1972 Israeli Olympic team.² He was one of the 11 members of Israel's Olympic team who were taken hostage and subsequently murdered by Black September operatives at the 1972 Summer Olympics .³ He was seen once during the hostage crisis, standing next to fellow coach Andre Spitzer at a second-floor window of their besieged building while terrorists trained guns on the pair. Kehat Shorr was born in Romania . There, he devoted himself to the sport of shooting and became an expert shooter. He moved to Israel in 1963 and lived in Tel Aviv with his wife and daughter. He joined the “Hapoel” shooting team and quickly became its coach, training many young Israeli marksmen. He trained the national team for the Twentieth Olympics Games in Munich. The Israeli team was sleeping in their quarters in the early morning hours of September 5, 1972, when the terrorist group Black September came in and took several of the Israeli athletes hostage after murdering two of those who resisted. The German authorities failed to rescue 9 hostages, including Kehat Shorr, resulting in their deaths. Neither of Shorr's two shooters, Henry Hershkowitz and Zelig Stroch , were harmed during the hostage crisis.⁴

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 337217086.

Today

“hostage” appeared 7 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 5. Read the current article and compare.

Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
	2010	2015	2020	Oct '23	2025
hostage	7	2	0	0	0
terror	2	0	0	1	1
massacre	0	1	1	1	2

image & license · Wikimedia

1. Removed: “…talk to German officials during the hostage crisis.” In the article until 2015 (rev), gone by 2020 (rev).

A caption noting Shorr and Andre Spitzer spoke to German officials during the hostage crisis, gone with the passage it captioned.

2. Rewrote: “Kehat Shorr ( 1919 - September 6, 1972) was the shooting coach…” Changed after our 2025 snapshot. Now reads: “Israeli coach and Munich Massacre victim Kehat Shorr ( Hebrew : קהת שור ; 21 February 1919 – 6 September 1972) was…”

An earlier birth-death line, reworded without changing the underlying fact of his death at Munich.

3. Rewrote: “…Israel's Olympic team who were taken hostage and subsequently murdered by Black September operatives…” In the article until 2010 (rev), changed by 2015 (rev). Now reads: “He was one of the 11 members of Israel's Olympic team killed in the Munich massacre .”

The statement that he and other athletes were taken hostage and murdered by Black September is gone from the opening.

4. Removed 9 sentences: “…window of their besieged building while terrorists trained guns on the pair. Kehat Shorr…” In the article until 2010 (rev), gone by 2015 (rev).

The detail that terrorists were seen training guns on Shorr and a fellow coach in their besieged building is gone from the article.

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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