Yiddish Wikipedia

Infobox website
name = Yiddish Wikipedia



caption =
url = http://yi.wikipedia.org/
commercial = No
location = Miami, Florida
type = Internet encyclopedia project
language = Yiddish
registration = Optional
owner = Wikimedia Foundation
author =

Yiddish Wikipedia is the Yiddish language version of Wikipedia. It was founded in March 2004, but the first article was written November 28 of that year.

Current status

As of 6 June 2008 the Yiddish Wikipedia has 5057 articles. There are 1251 registered users (including bots) but only a minority are active.

Like all Wikipedias it generates hits from Yiddish words typed in Google, with Wikipedia articles on top of the results for that word.

In accordance with the norms for the Yiddish language, it is written almost exclusively in Hebrew script, and not in Latin script.

Milestones

The Yiddish Wikipedia reached 5000 articles 5 May 2008. The 5000th article is דזשיבעריש.

Point of view

The articles are currently written, to some degree, by Satmar Hasidim. Combined, the different Hasidic groups form the largest Yiddish-speaking community in the world today.

Controversy

Although it has a variety of interest in all worldly subjects, the edit wars are mostly driven by the make-up of the Yiddish-speaking community, that is the inside Hasidic politics, in particular among Satmar Hasidim. For instance the most heavily edited article is Aaron Teitelbaum a figure head who is the most talked about in Yiddish-speaking circles (see ).

Users and Editors

But the editors are very few, although it has over 700 signed up editors in any given day only 3 names or fewer are active. That might be because many Yiddish speakers do not have Hebrew graphemes on their computer. Also, most Yiddish speakers today are strictly observant orthodox Jews and their rabbis prohibit Internet use that is not strictly related to business.

External links

* [http://yi.wikipedia.org/ Yiddish Wikipedia]
* [http://www.newvoices.org/cgi-bin/articlepage.cgi?id=595 New Voices e-Gossip - If there ever was hope for our grandparents to turn tech-savvy and read about the latest in their mamaloshen, this is it.] newvoices.
* [http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3326215,00.html Go on the web: Aviv Gefen (with non-hebrew spelling)? Yes. Its not a mistake. It's Yiddish] . Ynet (Hebrew)
* Dr. Shalom Berger, [http://yiddish.forward.com/archive/forverts/2006/1027/item4.html An encyclopedia of people already in Yiddish] The Forward (Yiddish)
* [http://www.themarker.com/tmc/article.jhtml?ElementId=skira20061006_45454&origin=ibo&layer=headlines&layer2=&layer3= Is there such a think as a Free Encyclopedia?: - The Yiddish Wikipedia was the only wikipedia which did not delete an article which a Journalist has written his own autobiography] . TheMarker (Hebrew)