(July 9, 2026 / JNS)
Jewish Wikipedia editors said they felt “traumatized” and emotionally exhausted after editing topics related to Jews and Israel, according to a recent study in the journal Convergence by University of Haifa researcher Shlomit Lir.
Lir conducted video interviews with 19 veteran Jewish editors between February and August 2025. Most remain active on the platform, though several have stopped editing.
There was a “great sense of fear” among the editors to even talk about the subject, Lir told JNS. Some participants kept their cameras off during Zoom interviews, and one used a pseudonym.
“Editing on Wikipedia is a great part of their identity, and the fear of being banned is great,” she said. “Some of the conversations were very alarming.”
Wikipedia editors are unpaid volunteers, and anyone can contribute to the online encyclopedia.
The editors interviewed live in the United States, Europe and Israel and have between two and 24 years of editing experience. All have contributed to articles about Israel, and some identify politically with the Left, according to Lir.
Several said their experience on Wikipedia was largely positive until they began editing articles related to Israel after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
One editor cited the lead section of Wikipedia’s article on the Gaza war, saying it emphasizes devastation in Gaza, with only a brief mention that “there was an axis of resistance led by Iran and its proxies.”
Another said that after Oct. 7, “all kinds of entries related to Palestinian terror and such things were deleted.”
Other participants said efforts to correct anti-Jewish, inaccurate or “libelous” content, even in articles unrelated to Israel, were often quickly reversed by editors they described as “condescending” and “exclusionary.”
One editor said anti-Israel contributors “have more time and they are more numerous,” adding that they “know all the relevant books, so arguing with them is very difficult.”
Several participants also accused anti-Israel editors of engaging in “data attacks,” using Wikipedia’s dispute-resolution process to seek sanctions against them.
“They will contest your edit, and then they will make false reports against you,” one said. “They will go through, like, months, if not years, of your past edits, and it’s almost like being knocked—like someone’s threatening your front door, and then all of a sudden they send somebody around to the back door.”
One participant said they felt “traumatized” but believed reporting harassment would accomplish little, Lir told JNS.
“As long as you didn’t touch the sensitive topics, then things were OK,” she said. “Once you started editing Israel-related or conflict-related articles, then the problem began.”
‘Physical feeling of not being safe’
According to the study, one editor has received threatening messages warning, in effect, that others would ensure the person could no longer edit Wikipedia. “We’ll get to you,” one of the messages stated, according to the study. “You won’t be editing here much longer. We’ll make sure of it.”
The editor realized that “if someone is really interested in me, they can find me very easily.” While he has continued editing, the realization made him “stop and think,” the study stated.
“There’s an actual physical feeling of not being safe,” Lir told JNS.
Another editor quit editing after feeling “shocked and deeply hurt” as well as a “sense of personal risk and betrayal” over anti-Israel content. Lir also noted a doctoral researcher interviewed for the study who suffered a heart attack after stressful editing experiences on Wikipedia.
The latter can’t go back on the site because “she was so upset by it,” she told JNS.
Lir said some “extremely biased editors have been banned” by Wikipedia, but argued that more needs to be done to safeguard neutrality.
“Wikipedia is a place of knowledge,” Lir told JNS. “It cannot be a place of manipulation, and if the manipulation occurs, then there’s a need to examine how it happens, why it’s not diversified, what can be done.”
