Wikipedia's first sentence called it “jewish paramilitary”. Today it says “jewish spy for the british in ottoman palestine”.
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 2010 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 2010
Yosef Lishansky ( ; 1890 – 16 December 1917) was a Jewish paramilitary, and a spy for the British , in Ottoman Palestine . Upon his arrival in Palestine, Lishansky sought to join HaShomer , but denied membership and he founded a rival organization, HaMagen .1Several years later, he proceeded to join the Jewish espionage organization Nili .2 Lishansky was wanted by the Ottomans for his activities, and was betrayed by HaShomer when he sought refuge with them. He escaped capture several times, but was eventually caught and sentenced to death in Damascus .
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 370082376.
The opening as it stood in 2015 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Yosef Lishansky ( ; 1890 – 16 December 1917) was a Jewish paramilitary and a spy for the British in Ottoman Palestine . Upon his arrival in Palestine, Lishansky sought to join HaShomer but, denied membership, he founded a rival organization, HaMagen . Several years later, he joined the Jewish espionage organization, Nili . Lishansky was wanted by the Ottomans for his activities and was betrayed by HaShomer when he sought refuge with them. He escaped capture several times, but was eventually caught and sentenced to death in Damascus .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 659680904.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Israeli spy and martyr (1890–1917) Yosef Lishansky ( Hebrew : יוסף לישנסקי ; 1890 – 16 December 1917) was a Jewish spy for the British in Ottoman Palestine . Upon making Aliyah , Lishansky sought to join HaShomer but, denied membership, he founded a rival organization, HaMagen . Several years later, he joined the Jewish espionage organization, Nili . Lishansky was wanted by the Ottomans for his activities and was betrayed by HaShomer when he sought refuge with them. He escaped capture several times, but was eventually caught and sentenced to death in Damascus .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1264888919. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “jewish paramilitary”. Today it says “jewish spy for the british in ottoman palestine”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
martyr
0
0
0
0
1
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
jewish paramilitary
Now
jewish spy for the british in ottoman palestine
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.
