On Wikipedia is going dark for 24 hours on Wednesday, Jan. 18. If you need reliable info on modern Jewish experience, you may have to rely on us for a bit.
Which is perfectly OK: we have plenty of stuff that Wikipedia doesn’t.
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Since 1917, JTA has been a non-partisan Jewish news source covering "all the news concerning Jews."
Wikipedia is undeniably useful, and we’d like to see more of our content reflected in it. When it boots up again on Thursday, here 5 edits we’d like to see:
- Jews in China – The time China offered territory for a Jewish national homeland owing to an error in translation. [Wikipedia: Homeland_for_the_Jewish_people#Other_possibilities | History_of_the_Jews_in_China#Modern_times]
- Synagogue Council of America – Seriously? There are more than 1070 articles about this organization, which has about 5 words dedicated to it. [Wikipedia: Synagogue_Council_of_America]
- Mushroom Synagogues – Some entrepreneurial souls helped High-Holidays-only synagogues sprout like mushrooms. It caused some tension in the 20’s and 30’s. No wikipedia entry on this subject, but here are several entries from our Archive [query: "mushroom synagogues"]
- Flloyd B. Olson — the former governor of Minnesota spoke fluent Yiddish. Don’t you think this bears mention on his Wikipedia entry? [Wikipedia: Flloyd Olson]
- Jewish Telegraphic Agency – Okay, Let’s face it: this page doesn’t do justice to the legacy of JTA. Our Berlin bureau had to deal with some real Nazis. And not a Godwin’s law type of Nazi. I mean actual, bona fide Nazis. And one of our guys in Palestine was shot at — twice.
[Wikipedia: Jewish Telegraphic Agency]
Are you a Wikipedia editor with an interest in Jewish history? Do you want to be one? E-mail us. We’d like to hear from you.
To read about why Wikipedia is shutting down for a day, click here.
[h/t Dr. Jonathan Sarna for 2 of the items on this list.]
