Wikipedia's first sentence called it “a 19th century russian jewish intellectual and lawyer”. Today it says “a 19th-century russian jewish intellectual”.
Found by software in Wikipedia's own edit history. Not yet read by hand. The quoted words are Wikipedia's.
Compared with the live article on 2026-08-04.
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.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 2005
Osip Mikhailovich Lerner was a 19th century Russian Jewish intellectual and lawyer. Originally a maskil —a propagator of the Haskala , or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he later converted to Christianity and wrote a book denouncing Jews.1[Adler, 1999, 200] In 1881 , shortly after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II , Lerner leased the Mariinsky Theater in Odessa , Ukraine (then part of Imperial Russia ) to present Yiddish theater . He first presented plays by N.M. Sheikevitch and Moshe Leib Lilienblum , then was the first to present classic European theater in Yiddish , translating the material but not radically altering it or adding songs. He was the first to present Yiddish-language productions of Karl Gutzkow 's Uriel Acosta and Eugène Scribe 's La Juive . Jacob Adler , in his memoir, remarks that "both were works on Jewish subjects and both were in the repertoire of every important European stage of the time." [Adler, 1999, 200]2
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17214651.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Osip Mikhailovich Lerner was a 19th century Russian Jewish intellectual and lawyer. Originally a maskil —a propagator of the Haskala , or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he later converted to Christianity and wrote a book denouncing Jews. [Adler, 1999, 200] In 1881, shortly after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II , Lerner leased the Mariinsky Theater in Odessa , Ukraine (then part of Imperial Russia ) to present Yiddish theater . He first presented plays by N.M. Sheikevitch and Moshe Leib Lilienblum , then was the first to present classic European theater in Yiddish , translating the material but not radically altering it or adding songs. He was the first to present Yiddish-language productions of Karl Gutzkow 's Uriel Acosta and Eugène Scribe 's La Juive . Jacob Adler , in his memoir, remarks that "both were works on Jewish subjects and both were in the repertoire of every important European stage of the time." [Adler, 1999, 200]
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 331196033.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Osip Mikhailovich Lerner (1847-1907) was a 19th-century Russian Jewish intellectual and lawyer. Originally a maskil —a propagator of the Haskala , or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he later converted to Christianity and wrote a book denouncing Jews. [Adler, 1999, 200] In 1881, shortly after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II , Lerner leased the Mariinsky Theater in Odessa , Ukraine (then part of Imperial Russia ) to present Yiddish theater . He first presented plays by N.M. Sheikevitch and Moshe Leib Lilienblum , then was the first to present classic European theater in Yiddish , translating the material but not radically altering it or adding songs. He was the first to present Yiddish-language productions of Karl Gutzkow 's Uriel Acosta and Eugène Scribe 's La Juive . Jacob Adler , in his memoir, remarks that "both were works on Jewish subjects and both were in the repertoire of every important European stage of the time." [Adler, 1999, 200]
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 611997050.
The opening as it stood in 2020 5 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
(Yosef Yehuda) Lerner , was a 19th-century Russian Jewish intellectual, writer, and critic.Originally a maskil —a propagator of the Haskala , or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he became a pioneer in the fields of Yiddish theater and folklore, as well as literary criticism.Zylbercweig notes that the scholar Sh.Borovoy gives Lerner's birthdate as 1 January 1849.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 962088239.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
(Yosef Yehuda) Lerner , was a 19th-century Russian Jewish intellectual, writer, and critic. Originally a maskil —a propagator of the Haskala , or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he became a pioneer in the fields of Yiddish theater and folklore, as well as literary criticism. Zylbercweig notes that the scholar Sh. Borovoy gives Lerner's birthdate as 1 January 1849.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1145234081. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “a 19th century russian jewish intellectual and lawyer”. Today it says “a 19th-century russian jewish intellectual”. Read the current article and compare.
2005
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 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
a 19th century russian jewish intellectual and lawyer
Now
a 19th-century russian jewish intellectual
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.