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Wikipedia’s ‘Supreme Court’ tackles alleged conspiracy to distort articles on Holocaust
(JTA) — When a pair of professors earlier this month published a paper accusing a group of Wikipedia editors from Poland of revising articles to distort the history of the Holocaust, their research went viral.
Most academic articles are seen by dozens or hundreds of people at best. This one, published in The Journal of Holocaust Research, hit more than 27,000 pageviews within weeks.
The paper’s reach was fueled by its analysis, unprecedented in the academic literature on Wikipedia, and its finding that a dedicated group has for some 15 years manipulated a source of information used by millions in ways that lay blame for the Holocaust on Jews and absolve Poland of almost any responsibility for its record of antisemitism.
The paper caught the eye of not just scholars and journalists but of the people in charge of resolving disputes over editing on crowd-sourced Wikipedia, the seventh-most popular website on the internet and one that is seen as the last bastion of shared truth in an ever-fracturing online environment.
Typically, disputes among Wikipedia editors are resolved through community consensus mechanisms, but occasionally those mechanisms fail and allegations are brought to Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, a panel of elected editors known as Wikipedia’s Supreme Court.
“Wikipedia is not exactly democratic but anarchistic in a way that actively discourages any sort of an authority coming to solve a dispute,” said Joe Roe, a veteran Wikipedia editor who served on the committee in 2019 and 2020. “The Arbitration Committee is a very limited exception.”
In this case, something especially unusual happened. The Arbitration Committee, or ArbCom, decided to look into the allegations without receiving a formal request to do so. No one could recall the committee taking such a step in its nearly two decades of existence.
“A myopic decision here could result in untold numbers of people being fed a distorted view of Jewish/WWII history, which could have very real consequences given the recent amplification of violently antisemitic rhetoric by mainstream public figures,” wrote a user named SamX in a public post about the case. “ArbCom needs to get this right.”
The article that triggered the opening of the case was published under the title, “Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust.” It accused 11 current and former editors of intentional distortions to numerous articles relating to the Holocaust in Poland. The paper referred to the editors by their usernames but also provided their real names if they had publicly identified themselves on Wikipedia message boards.
“Due to this group’s zealous handiwork, Wikipedia’s articles on the Holocaust in Poland minimize Polish antisemitism, exaggerate the Poles’ role in saving Jews, insinuate that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles, blame Jews for their own persecution, and inflate Jewish collaboration with the Nazis,” wrote co-authors Jan Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa, and Shira Klein of the history department at Chapman University in Orange, California.
Normally, mistakes on Wikipedia, whether intentional or not, can be quickly fixed by experienced editors who deploy a set of rules regarding sourcing and style. But in this case, the alleged distortionists know Wikipedia’s mechanisms well enough to at least appear to follow the rules and are willing to spend time arguing with other editors who step in to intervene. It becomes harder to get to the truth because they work to discredit established historians and prop up fringe voices to create the semblance of a real-world debate over historical events, according to the article.
In one of the dozens of examples documented in the study, the alleged distortionists have tried to pass the self-published work of an antisemitic Polish writer named Ewa Kurek as a reliable source. Kurek has said that COVID-19 is a cover for an attempt by Jews to take over Europe and that Jews enjoyed life in Nazi ghettos. An editor named Volunteer Marek argued in a backstage conversation among editors that Kurek should be cited as any “mainstream scholar” would be. And another editor, working on an article about a 1941 massacre of Jews in Poland, added Kurek’s claim that minimized the number of Jewish victims and exonerated Polish perpetrators.
Jewish school children pose for a portrait in the 1930s in Wizna, near Jedwabne, Poland. New research revealed that members of the Polish community killed their Jewish neighbors on July 10, 1941 during World War ll despite previous claims that Nazi Germans were entirely responsible. Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski apologized for the massacre of hundreds of Jews by their neighbors during ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the murders. (Laski Diffusion/Getty Images)
One thing the research didn’t discuss is what motivates these editors to invest so much time and effort into distorting Wikipedia. Klein said the omission was deliberate.
“We’ve been very careful not to make any assumptions on what drives them or what their politics are,” Klein said. “Instead, we’ve tried to focus just on what they’ve done, which is in the written record. And as we say in the article, we don’t see any evidence of them being tied to a government or being in the service of anyone else.”
Klein’s disclaimer obliquely points to a larger challenge around the historical record of the Holocaust in Poland. A central tenet of the country’s ruling Law and Justice party is defending the image of ethnic Poles and imposing nationalist narratives on the past, especially the period of World War II. While history shows that many Poles participated in the persecution of Jews, Poland’s nationalist right insists on portraying Poles only as victims or heroes.
In 2018, the Polish government passed what’s known as the Polish Holocaust Law, which makes it illegal to slander the Polish nation or blame the country for Nazi crimes. In practice, the law has served to censor scholars and chill debate.
Grabowski, Klein’s co-author on the paper, has for years sparred with the nationalist right over Poland’s historical memory. He sued a Polish group that accused him of publishing lies about Polish history in 2018, and in 2021 was ordered by a Polish court to apologize for his research before an appeals court ultimately overturned the order.
Domestically, Poland’s ultranationalists have largely won the war over the public discourse, which has freed them to focus on the global scene, where English-language Wikipedia is regarded as a major battlefront.
In this atmosphere, even something as basic as the background of Yiddish novelist and Nobel prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer can become fodder for debate. For years, Singer was at the center of a fight between two editors over whether Singer was best described in the first line of his Wikipedia article as a Jewish or Polish author. The eventual compromise — “Polish-born Jewish American” — lasted for almost two years until Feb. 23 when someone again dropped the “Jewish.”
The Wikipedia editors now being accused of distorting articles to further nationalist narratives have rejected the allegations against them.
“I have not engaged in any ‘Holocaust distortion,’ on Wikipedia or anywhere else. I am not a ‘right-wing Polish nationalist,’” said Volunteer Marek in a public comment on a Wikipedia message board that was endorsed by at least one other alleged distortionist. “I am not part of some nefarious ‘Polish conspiracy’ on Wikipedia which seeks to manipulate content. All of these accusations are ridiculous and absurd. They are particularly disgusting and vile since they go against everything I believe in.”
In the debate about how to handle the case, dozens of arbitrators and ordinary Wikipedia editors — all volunteers — spoke of the situation on a Wikipedia message board as something close to an existential crisis for Wikipedia. Not only was the website accused of being used to spread antisemitic propaganda, but it was also alleged to be vulnerable to large-scale manipulation by a small group of bad-faith actors.
There is little confidence in the community that a solution is within reach. By its own rules, the committee isn’t supposed to decide on disputed information. It’s more of a disciplinary body that evaluates the behavior of Wikipedia editors and can ultimately decide whether to restrict their editing privileges or ban them outright.
But figuring out if the accused editors have indeed evaded safeguards and undermined Wikipedia’s integrity would seem to require that the arbitrators become experts on the history of the Holocaust in Poland.
The decision to take up the case serves to acknowledge that the committee failed to solve the problem when it last considered complaints about editing related to the Holocaust in Poland about two years ago. That was during Roe’s tenure and he says the committee was distracted by another dispute at the time.
“It can’t be escalated further than it already has in our mechanisms,” Roe said. “The best we can do is what’s currently happening now — just put it through those mechanisms again, and hope that something better will come out on the other side.”
In explaining why the committee must nevertheless take on the case, an arbitrator who goes by Wugapodes commented that the only other choice is to kick the can down the road.
“This will not be an easy issue to resolve, but the committee was not convened to solve easy issues,” Wugapodes wrote, pointing out that the timing is right given the attention and involvement of outside experts and editors. “We can leverage these resources now or wait for this decade-long problem to get still worse.”
By a vote of nine to one on Feb. 13, the committee decided to open the case. The proceedings, which start with an evidence-gathering phase, are expected to last up to six weeks, after which they can decide to ban and restrict offending editors.
Beyond that, an unorthodox last resort option is also available. Wikipedia’s so-called Supreme Court could ask for help from an even higher authority: the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit that owns the encyclopedia. The foundation intervened in 2021 in what some see as a similar scenario of a far-right takeover on the Croatian-language Wikipedia, hiring an outside expert to disentangle the web of obfuscation and banning a set of editors.
Roe said that his tenure on the committee in 2019 and 2020, which featured related complaints about the editing of articles on the Holocaust in Poland, helped lead him to believe that Wikipedia should embrace change, at least when it comes to controversial political topics.
“I would like to see these difficult and politically charged content problems be referred to a new body made up of external experts, and that we don’t insist on doing everything internally among the community volunteers,” Roe said.
But he acknowledged that such a scenario is unlikely to result from the Poland dispute.
“It’s not a popular view and it kind of goes against the general idea of Wikipedia,” he said.
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Irish national soccer team won’t shake hands with Israel after win
(JTA) — It only took 25 minutes of play for the Irish national soccer team to build a 3-0 lead over Israel in the countries’ UEFA Nations League B match on Sunday. But there were decades of bad blood that preceded Ireland’s shutout victory in a game dominated more by the geopolitics of the Gaza war than about sports. One soccer writer described it as “arguably one of the most contentious football matches of this century.”
At the match, held in a mostly empty stadium in the neutral site of Debrecen, Hungary, the Irish players wore black armbands and bowed their heads in protest during the Israeli national anthem. There were no pre- or postgame handshakes, and one Irish player declined to participate altogether, citing his “personal belief that the killing of innocent people is wrong.”
Ireland’s soccer federation did not reserve tickets for its fans, and the country’s public broadcaster scaled back its coverage of the game. The teams are set to meet again on Oct. 4 in Serbia, this time with Ireland as the “home” team.
Ireland and Israel have a long history of icy relations. Ireland became the first member of the European Union to call for an independent Palestinian country in 1980, and was among the first of the Western European countries to recognize an official Palestinian state in 2024. Israel closed its embassy in Dublin in response. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has rejected claims that his country’s sharp criticism of Israel bleeds into antisemitism.
In the months leading up to Sunday’s match, Ireland’s football governing body faced intense pressure to boycott the match. At a meeting in July, the Football Association of Ireland voted 75-32, with three abstentions, in favor of proceeding with the match, “while acknowledging the strength of feeling regarding support for Palestine.” The motion also noted that a boycott would come with UEFA sanctions, both financial and competitive: In League B matches, mid-tier nations seek to advance to the top division and boost their chances of qualifying for the quadrennial World Cup tournament. The Irish team itself also held a last-minute vote over whether to participate.
Earlier this month, more than 160 Irish athletes and sports figures signed an open letter calling on the national team to pull out of the match. The signatories included former Irish national team head coach Brian Kerr — who had led Ireland to a 2-2 draw against Israel in a 2005 match in Dublin that also took place amid protests.
Former Irish national team star Kevin Kilbane also authored a column in The Irish Times, writing, “Ireland should not play Israel. Not in Dublin, not in Hungary, not in Serbia. Not when Israel is committing genocide.” Israel denies the charge of genocide.
There were also a number of public barbs exchanged between leaders of the two countries and their football associations.
At a press conference last week, Irish coach Heimir Hallgrímsson replied to questions about the match by saying, “We are not playing with genocide, we are playing against genocide. We are playing against Israel; we are not playing with Israel.”
Israel’s football association responded to that comment with a post on X, writing, “We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by the @IrelandFootball team coach. We’re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity. We’re playing against the coach who embodies them.”
That drew a rebuke from Martin, who told reporters, “They are unacceptable remarks and should be withdrawn.”
And on Sunday, the morning of the match, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar posted a lengthy tweet referencing the 1939 Irish squad that gave a Nazi salute before a game against the German national team.
“Almost 90 years have passed. Ireland’s unique talent for finding itself on the wrong side of history remains intact,” Sa’ar wrote. “Back then, they gave the Nazi salute. This time, they stand on the side of Palestinian terrorism. Above the black armbands the Irish players will wear tonight flies the black flag of jihadism.”
After the match, Israeli captain Manor Solomon said the Irish players who bowed their heads during the Israeli anthem “don’t interest me.”
“We have a country 10 times better than theirs, stronger, an amazing country with amazing people,” said Solomon, who plays in the English Championship league. “We are proud to wear the team shirt and to be Israelis. We are proud of our state and of our soldiers. [The Irish] can play all their tricks. We are Israelis and love the country. And that will always be the case.”
The post Irish national soccer team won’t shake hands with Israel after win appeared first on The Forward.
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Why is Karl Rove supporting a progressive Jewish candidate in Texas?
(JTA) — Progressive Jewish Texas state Sen. Jon Rosenthal has earned an unusual distinction: He is the first Democrat to win the vote of GOP guru Karl Rove in more than 30 years.
What did the only Jew serving in the Texas state house do to earn this distinction? It’s more what he didn’t do: run for statewide office with a track record of spewing racially charged and antisemitic comments.
Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad commissioner, has a history of rhetoric targeting people of color, Muslims and Jews, including a social media poll last year asking whether “Jews” or “Muslims” pose “a bigger threat to America.”
He also faced bipartisan blowback for a recent post targeting college students of color, and this week a CNN investigation revealed that French, in since-deleted posts, had called for public executions for former President Barack Obama, Jewish California Sen. Adam Schiff and government workers targeted by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency last year.
The controversy has elevated the race for an obscure statewide office – albeit one that regulates the state’s all-important energy industry – into a larger referendum on the GOP’s tolerance for bigotry, including antisemitism, among its nominees.
Rove, for one, has made it clear where he thinks the party should stand.
“The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches — and not only in Texas,” Rove wrote in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month in explaining his decision to back Rosenthal.
Rove singled out growing antisemitism in the party: “There are ‘just asking questions’ Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.”
Rove isn’t the only GOP stalwart to turn on French.
“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized,” outgoing Texas Sen. John Cornyn wrote in condemning French’s social media musings. “This is how great political parties self-destruct.”
Cornyn has stopped short of backing Rosenthal, instead saying he might leave the ballot blank.
Texas Rep. Jon E. Rosenthal inside the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol in Austin on Aug. 18, 2025. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Rosenthal and French have agreed to a debate on Oct. 22. French leads the race in polling released last week from Texas Southern University, but by a much slimmer margin than GOP candidates are accustomed to in Texas. Rosenthal’s campaign could also see a boost from fellow statewide Democratic candidate James Talarico, who is polling neck-and-neck with his opponent in the U.S. Senate race.
On social media, Rosenthal celebrated Rove’s endorsement, writing, “When GOP architect Karl Rove breaks a 30-year voting streak to endorse our campaign, it proves this race isn’t about party lines, it’s about competence vs. chaos.”
A former county Republican Party chair who defeated the incumbent GOP state railroad commissioner in a runoff primary, French spurred widespread backlash earlier this month after posting a photo of students of color at the University of Texas celebrating a football win to the social network X.
“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it,” French had captioned the photo on Sept. 13. “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” He has since doubled down on the sentiment, replying, “I weep for the families in Texas who can’t get into UT because they prioritize foreigners over Texans,” and using the backlash to solicit donations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state House Speaker Dustin Burrows were among the other Republicans who criticized French for the post, though neither formally rescinded their support, and French continues to list Abbott’s endorsement on his site.
It was not French’s first brush with bigotry. In 2025, during his stint as Tarrant County GOP Chair, French posted an online “poll” asking his followers whether “Jews” or “Muslims” pose “a bigger threat to America.” In a follow-up post, he argued, “You may not like Jews, but to suggest they are a bigger threat to Americans is Jew Derangement Syndrome.”
French later deleted both posts, and has few visible tweets about Jews today. In later posts, he claimed, of himself, “There has never been any evidence of antisemitism. It would certainly be surprising to my Jewish partners.”
Jewish Republicans in the state and beyond are largely keeping their distance from French, with one exception. His campaign site currently touts an endorsement from American Jewish Conservatives, whose only listed chapter is in Dallas.
Neither French nor the group, formerly Dallas Jewish Conservatives, responded to JTA requests for comment on the endorsement. A spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition also did not return a request for comment on French.
Last month French cited a desire to combat antisemitism when arguing that Texas should not use mosques as polling places. In other posts, he accused a university in the state of “harboring radical left/antisemitic professors,” identified himself as both pro-Israel and pro-Tucker Carlson, the talk show host who has platformed antisemites and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and told one follower, “I have never served Israel. Don’t be a retard.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was among the GOP officials who condemned French’s tweet about Jews last year, calling on him to resign as county chair. “Antisemitism and religious bigotry have no place in Texas,” Patrick said then. French ultimately resigned months later in order to run for railroad commissioner.
Today, French lists Patrick as one of his endorsements. A spokesperson for Patrick, who recently told JTA he supported Texas schools assigning books on the Holocaust after public remarks apparently to the contrary, did not return a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment.
French’s other listed endorsements include Texas congressional candidate Brandon Herrera, who has made jokes about Hitler and the Holocaust in YouTube videos.
Rove’s essay led to President Donald Trump wading into the controversy, calling Rove “so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often,” in a post on his social network Truth Social. Trump’s post did not mention French, nor address his past post about Jews.
The Texas railroad commission, composed of three members, oversees the state’s large and powerful oil and gas industry. It has no oversight into immigration or religion. Even so, French’s campaign has drifted far afield from energy issues: One of his pledges is “Stop the Islamic Invasion of Texas.”
French’s controversies have elevated the profile of Rosenthal, who was raised a Reform Jew in an interfaith household and whose Houston-area district is home to large Muslim communities. This year Rosenthal marked Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by sharing links to Chabad-Lubavitch webpages about the holidays.
Rosenthal’s campaign did not respond to a JTA request for comment, but he told the Forward last year that he identifies as agnostic and “multireligious,” and attends synagogues as well as mosques and churches.
Rosenthal is also a trained mechanical engineer, a background he has drawn on in his bid for railroad commissioner: one campaign ad, quoting a conservative radio host, approvingly calls him “a ‘drill, baby, drill’ Democrat.” He has accused French of “overt racism,” while French has dubbed his opponent “Radical Rosenthal” and posted images, generated using artificial intelligence, of cross-shaped Texas oil wells to promote his blending of energy policy with Christian iconography.
Last year, Rosenthal cited his Judaism in response to legislation that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. Rosenthal introduced an amendment that would have required a “Jewish” version of the commandments to be displayed alongside the “Protestant” one. The amendment failed, and the bill passed.
The post Why is Karl Rove supporting a progressive Jewish candidate in Texas? appeared first on The Forward.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill to create safe spaces around synagogues
(JTA) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has signed a law that will create protective spaces around religious institutions, after a pro-Palestinian protest at a Los Angeles synagogue last year turned violent.
The legislation, AB 2664, establishes 100-foot zones around the entrances to houses of worship. Within the zones, no one will be allowed to come within eight feet of a congregant without consent to distribute leaflets, hold a sign or engage in oral protests that aim “to harass, obstruct, threaten or intimidate the person.”
Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment of no more than six months, with second violations raising those bars to $5,000 and one year, per the law.
“Every Californian should be able to walk into a synagogue, church, mosque, or other house of worship without fear,” Newsom said in a statement.
“California is continuing to protect these organizations and the people they serve, and we’re strengthening that work from the front door to expanding security resources to community events statewide.”
Newsom’s status as a leading Democrat – and one considering a 2028 presidential run – makes his enthusiastic endorsement notable. Progressives in other locales, including New York City, have pushed back against similar laws, saying they endanger speech protections.
The bill’s signing came less than a year after a violent protest rattled the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. At the December event, pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked people from entering the synagogue and cut off parental access to the religious school. Protesters destroyed property and assaulted a security guard; one person was arrested for battery and another for vandalism.
At the time, Mayor Karen Bass denounced the incident, which took place at one of the largest synagogues in the city, as both “abhorrent” and antisemitic.
The following spring, California Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democrat, introduced the legislation, drafted by Jewish California, a lobby representing a number of the state’s Jewish groups.Newsom signed the bill on Friday inside Wilshire Boulevard Temple, joined by Jewish California leaders, synagogue clergy and members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and the broader community.
The legislation advanced despite vocal opposition. The Council on American-Islamic Relations slammed the bill for infringing upon free speech by creating “new criminal penalties that would put peaceful protesters and community advocates at risk.”
In a statement following Newsom’s signing ceremony, the council’s California CEO, Hussam Ayloush, argued that some sales of “illegally occupied land” are occurring “exclusively to Jewish Americans at events hosted by American synagogues.”
“If a house of worship in America chooses to serve as a platform for illegal land sales meant to normalize Palestinian displacement, Americans should be able to peacefully demonstrate against that immoral activity,” Ayloush said. The protest at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple did not target land sales, but a public safety and technology event organized by the Consulate General of Israel.
Jewish California stressed that the legislation not only gained support from dozens of Jewish groups but also from Muslim, Sikh, Christian and Hindu organizations. Ultimately, the bill passed with 34 out of 40 State Senate votes and 61 of 80 State Assembly votes.
“With the Governor’s signature, California is sending a clear message: everyone has the right to practice their faith safely and freely,” Bauer-Kahan said in a statement.
“Antisemitism is rising, and so is hostility towards other religious communities,” she added. “This law protects all worshippers of all faiths, and it ensures that faith can be practiced without fear.”
AB 2664 was one of six bills relevant to the Jewish community that passed in California’s state legislature last month. Newsom signed one of the other bills, AB 1853, on Monday afternoon — enacting a ban on including misleading or threatening information, like hate speech, in California voter guides.
The governor has until Sept. 30 to either sign or veto the other four pieces of legislation. Among the most contentious is SB 1387, a bill that would expand the definition of ethnicity “to include Jewish identity” on state agency data collection forms.
The post California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill to create safe spaces around synagogues appeared first on The Forward.
