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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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The post Wikipedia’s ‘Supreme Court’ tackles alleged conspiracy to distort articles on Holocaust appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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California College Employee Calling Jewish Professor ‘Colonizer’ Was Antisemitic, Investigation Finds
Sign reading “Welcome to City College of San Francisco” above glass entry doors with building number 88, San Francisco, California, Aug. 29, 2025. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A City College of San Francisco (CCSF) staff member who called a Jewish professor a “colonizer” among other verbal attacks engaged in unlawful harassment and discrimination based on the academic’s Jewish identity, according to an independent investigation into the incident.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Center, two Jewish advocacy groups, on Tuesday celebrated the upholding of a disciplinary investigation’s finding as a “significant victory” for Jewish faculty and students.
“The outcome establishes a critical precedent for how universities must evaluate conduct often mischaracterized as political speech but that, in context, targets Jewish identity,” the groups said in a statement.
The investigation stemmed from a series of incidents which escalated to an explosive May 2025 confrontation in which CCSF employee Maria Salazar-Colon, president of the local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) union, allegedly launched a volley of anti-Jewish invective at computer science professor Abigail Bornstein. Calling Bornstein a “colonizer” and telling her to “shut the f—k up,” Salazar-Colon converted the professor’s name into a sobriquet by denouncing her as “Dumb-stein” during the public comment portion in a meeting of the community college’s board of trustees, according to the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs.
That utterance, combined with other comments related to Israel, indicated Salazar-Colon’s awareness of Bornstein’s Jewishness and her willingness to degrade her over it, the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs said — noting that a trivial discussion on college “governance,” not politics or the Middle East conflict, set the staff member off.
Salazar-Colon allegedly continued targeting Bornstein through email, denouncing her again as a “colonizer” and making other crude statements. The conduct drove the professor off campus. She reported the alleged harassment to the CCSF administration and filed a criminal complaint with the local police.
However, Salazar-Colon hit back, filing her own grievance in response to allege that she was the victim. Meanwhile, the college hired a law firm as a third-party investigator to look into the matter. Its findings were conclusive, determining not only that Salazar-Colon was fully culpable but that her conduct, rising to “workplace violence,” was intentionally discriminatory against a Jewish colleague.
CCSF ultimately dismissed Salazar-Colon’s “retaliatory” complaint, but the finality of its decision hung on the opinion of the college trustees. Salazar-Colon filed an appeal with the body. It took no action, crystallizing, the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs said, a consensus on the “seriousness of the underlying conduct and the strength of support for the [third-party investigator’s] findings.”
On Monday, Brandeis Center staff litigation attorney Deena Margolies told The Algemeiner that, in this case, justice prevailed but that many other Jewish members of academia suffer similar indignities.
“The college did the right thing here. They brought in an independent investigator. They made clear that this was about discrimination based on Bornstein’s protected identity, that being Jewish — not union advocacy — and that’s important and a necessary distinction that we don’t often see being recognized,” Margolies said. “I’m seeing many more of these disciplinary matters in the employee context, and I notice that what often happens is that when a Jewish professor or staff member is targeted or files a complaint, there is often a cross complaint, a baseless complaint which is retaliatory. And yet, they always end up coming through.”
CCSF will be taking disciplinary action. against Salazar-Colon.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, antisemitism promoted by university employees often disguises itself as politics, complicating higher education institutions’ response to it.
In September, a survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) found that staff and faculty accelerated the “antisemitism” crisis on US college campuses by politicizing the classroom, promoting anti-Israel bias, and even discriminating against Jewish colleagues. It found that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it.
Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent). Additionally, 50 percent of respondents said that anti-Zionist faculty have established de facto, or “shadow,” boycotts of Israel on campus even in the absence of formal declaration or recognition of one by the administration. Among those who reported the presence of such a boycott, 55 percent noted that departments avoid co-sponsoring events with Jewish or pro-Israel groups and 29.5 percent said this policy is also subtly enacted by sabotaging negotiations for partnerships with Israeli institutions. All the while, such faculty fostered an environment in which Jewish professors were “maligned, professionally isolated, and in severe cases, doxxed or harassed” as they assumed the right to determine for their Jewish colleagues what constitutes antisemitism.
Administrative officials responded inconsistently to antisemitic hatred, affording additional rationale to the downstream of hatred. More than half (53.1 percent) of respondents described their university’s response to incidents involving antisemitism or anti-Israel bias as “very” or “somewhat” unhelpful, and a striking 77.3 percent thought the same of their professional academic associations. In totality, alleged faculty misconduct and administrative dereliction combined to degrade the professional experiences of Jewish professors, as many reported “worsening mental and physical health, increased self-censorship, fear for personal safety,” and a sense that the destruction of their careers and reputations was imminent.
“Antisemitism cannot and should not be downplayed as political, academic, or workplace disagreement. Antisemitism is, clearly and concretely, insidious discrimination,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus, a former US assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said in a statement released with the news of the outcome of the CCSF incident. “Institutions have both the authority and the obligation to intervene, and we are hopeful that these outcomes encourage those who wish to report incidents of antisemitism to come forward without fear of retaliation.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Turkish Intel Chief Hosts Hamas Leaders as New Report Warns of Turkey’s Ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a ceremony for the handover of new vehicles to the gendarmerie and police forces in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Turkey’s extensive ties with Hamas and other terrorist groups and Islamist movements are raising alarm bells among analysts, highlighting Ankara’s controversial pivot away from its traditional Western alliances amid ongoing regional conflicts.
This week, Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalın met in Ankara with Khalil Al-Khaya, a senior Hamas negotiator, and the terrorist group’s political bureau delegation to discuss prospects for advancing the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire — marking the second such meeting in under two weeks.
Last week, Kalın also met with senior Hamas leaders in Istanbul, underscoring Turkey’s ongoing diplomatic engagement with the Islamist group.
Notably absent from both meetings’ public summaries was any mention of Hamas’s disarmament — a key condition of the US-backed peace plan, which the terrorist group continues to reject, further complicating ceasefire efforts.
Earlier this year, the US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza hit major roadblocks after proposals surfaced that would allow Hamas to retain some small arms — an idea strongly denounced by Israeli officials who insist the Islamist group must fully disarm.
Israel has previously warned that Hamas must give up its weapons for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the terrorist group’s control.
Last week, US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” reportedly presented a disarmament plan to Hamas that would require the terrorist group to allow the destruction of its vast Gaza tunnel network as it lays down its arms in stages over eight months. Palestinian officials indicated Hamas would not accept the proposal without “amendments and improvements.”
Under Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, phase two would involve deploying an international stabilization force (ISF), beginning large-scale reconstruction, and establishing a Palestinian technocratic committee to oversee the territory’s administration.
Conditioned on Hamas’s disarmament, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would also withdraw from the approximately 53 percent of the enclave they currently occupy.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Turkey has repeatedly tried to position itself as a regional mediator, maintaining direct intelligence channels with Hamas to advance ceasefire talks and solidifying its role in US-backed diplomatic efforts.
However, Turkey has also been a long-time backer of Hamas, hosting senior officials multiple times over the years and refusing to designate the group as a terrorist organization. Ankara has also provided Hamas with both political and financial support by allowing its leadership to operate networks from Turkish soil.
Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Hamas operatives of using Turkey as a base for recruitment, financing, and operational coordination.
On Monday, Israeli intelligence services uncovered a Hamas terror network in the West Bank, directed by an operative based in Turkey, revealing ongoing coordination between the group’s cells abroad and on the ground.
According to Sinan Ciddi, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Turkey’s high-level meetings with Hamas and growing engagement in Gaza reflect a stark gap between its public diplomacy and private dealings, revealing a calculated effort to maintain influence in the region.
“Publicly, Turkey has presented itself as a diplomatic broker seeking a ceasefire. Privately, its continued high-level engagement with Hamas, particularly through intelligence channels, signals an enduring political alignment and a willingness to preserve the group as a relevant actor in postwar Gaza,” Ciddi wrote in a newly released report.
“Ankara’s maintenance of access to Hamas leadership is likely intended to help ensure Turkey retains influence over any future political settlement,” he continued.
Israel has consistently opposed any role for Turkish security forces in postwar Gaza, with Ankara seeking to expand its regional influence — a move experts warn could strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
Amid growing concerns over Turkey’s regional influence, a newly released FDD report underscored the country’s pivot under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from its traditional Western alignment toward closer ties with Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
The report identified Turkey as a key refuge for Muslim Brotherhood leaders from across the region, including Egypt and Yemen, a role that has intensified after many fled their home countries amid government crackdowns.
For years, the Muslim Brotherhood has faced bans or restrictions across the Middle East, with some European countries and the United States recently designating the group or specific branches as terrorist organization.
“There is an established track record … where Turkey significantly undermines the transatlantic alliance’s core security concerns,” Ciddi said.
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US Appeals Court Reinstates $655M Ruling Against Palestinian Authorities Over Terrorism
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looks on as he visits the Istishari Cancer Center in Ramallah, in the West Bank, May 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
A US federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a whopping $655.5 million judgment against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), delivering a major legal victory for American victims seeking to hold the groups responsible for the notorious “pay-for-slay” terrorism program.
The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit restored a jury’s earlier finding that the PLO and PA bore civil liability under the Anti-Terrorism Act for a series of attacks in Israel that killed and injured US citizens.
In its opinion, the court recalled its previous mandate vacating the initial decision, writing that doing so was warranted by “intervening changes in underlying law” and the need to prevent an unjust outcome after years of litigation. The panel emphasized that appellate courts retained the authority to revisit earlier decisions in “extraordinary circumstances,” a standard it found satisfied in this case.
The judges also addressed the issue of jurisdiction, which had previously served as an obstacle in the case.
In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled that US courts did not have the authority to hear certain lawsuits against the PLO and the PA stemming from terrorist attacks abroad that killed or injured American citizens. In a decision issued by Second Circuit court, the panel concluded that Congress could not compel foreign defendants to face litigation in US courts without sufficient ties to the country, dealing a significant setback to victims seeking damages through American legal channels.
But the court signaled that subsequent legal developments from the Supreme Court and evolving interpretations of the Anti-Terrorism Act altered the analysis enough to justify reinstating the judgment.
At the center of the case was the Anti-Terrorism Act’s provision allowing US nationals to seek civil damages for acts of international terrorism. A jury had originally awarded damages to victims and their families, finding a link between the alleged terrorists and attacks targeting civilians. Those damages resulted in the mandated enforcement of the more than $650 million judgment.
For victims’ families and advocates, the decision marked a significant step toward enforcing consequences against groups accused of supporting or incentivizing violence.
Supporters have argued that lawsuits play a critical role in deterring terrorism, particularly when criminal prosecution is not possible. By reinstating the judgment, the court appeared to endorse the broader principle that US law can serve as a tool of accountability, even in cases involving foreign actors and overseas attacks.
The court cautioned that enforcement presents a distinct set of legal and practical challenges. It pointed to potential obstacles including asset location, sovereign protections, and the complexities of executing judgments against foreign entities.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-governance in the West Bank and has long been riddled with accusations of corruption, has for years carried out a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Under this policy, official payments are made to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and Palestinians injured in terrorist attacks.
Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget has been allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
Skeptics suggest the hurdles in seeking financial retribution from the PLO and PA could prove substantial. The PLO and PA maintain limited assets within the US, and some may be protected from seizure. Efforts to enforce the judgment could also raise sensitive diplomatic concerns, particularly given the entities’ role in international negotiations and governance.
The case is likely to have far-reaching implications for future terrorism litigation, particularly as Congress continues to explore ways to expand the reach of US courts in holding foreign actors accountable.