Hamichlol

Hamichlol
Type of site
 censored wiki-based Internet encyclopedia project for the Torah-observant public
Available in Hebrew
Owner Institute for Literacy and Proper Knowledge
Website hamichlol.org.il
Alexa rank 1,359 in Israel (August 2018)[1]
Commercial No
Registration You must register to edit articles
Launched January 11, 2015 (2015-01-11)

Hamichlol (Hebrew: המכלול‬ "The Entirety") is a censored wiki-based Internet encyclopedia project for the Torah-observant public (ציבור שומר תורה ומצוות). The site is managed and operated by the Institute for Literacy and Proper Knowledge, which was established for the purpose of creating the site. The articles mainly censor any mentioning of homosexuality, information that contradicts a creationist worldview, and other behaviors deemed immodest.[2] The site is referred to by the site owners as an aspeklaria (Hebrew: אספקלריה‬), which means in Latin "mirror", as it is a re-edited edition of the Hebrew Wikipedia.

The site was launched on January 11, 2015. As of August 9, 2018 the site contained 111,466 articles for a total approximating half the number of articles found on the Hebrew Wikipedia.

As of August 9, 2018, the site's Alexa's ranking was 1,359 in Israel.[3]

Background

In 2014 the Israeli Hasidic rabbi Yosef Kaminer founded the Institute for Literacy and Proper Knowledge (Hebrew: המכון לאוריינות וידע כהלכה‬) through which the site would be produced.[4] According to the site owners the site is intended to be used by the Torah-observant public (ציבור שומר תורה ומצוות), and especially by the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox Jewry) whom are very conservative and refrain from using Wikipedia's content according to their stringent interpretations of halakha. Hamichlol aspires to be "the largest Jewish encyclopedia in history, which includes articles on all issues pertaining to the Torah, Jewish values and the history of the Jewish people, but also knowledge pertaining to mankind and from all the secular" (Hebrew: חולין‬ [transliteration: hulin]) "fields–written in clean language according to the Jewish worldview."

Kosher considerations

In order to create the site's foundation, the creators of the site chose, as part of the initial development of the site, to import the entire Hebrew Wikipedia and re-edit or delete the content which is not proper for the Torah-observant public, and specifically the ultra-Orthodox readers. The content is imported from the Hebrew Wikipedia in accordance with Wikipedia's free license, which enables editors to perform such a "split". Since much of the existing content is copied from Wikipedia and re-edited it is easy to find information which was omitted by comparing specific articles on the site with the parallel articles at the Hebrew Wikipedia. Examples of such differences include:

  • In the Biology article[5], which was initially copied entirely from the Hebrew Wikipedia and then re-edited, the "Evolution" (Hebrew: אבולוציה‬) section was re-named to "The Order of the Creation of Creatures" (Hebrew: סדר הבריאה של היצורים‬) and the content of this section was changed so that instead of saying that all organisms on the Earth have descended from a common ancestor, it was changed to say that all forms of life were created in the Six Days of Genesis.
  • In the Beit Zeit article[6], which was initially copied entirely from the Hebrew Wikipedia and then re-edited, the mentioning of the "Dinosaur Footprints" site in Israel was omitted as it is a site which contains a layer of ancient rock that contains some 200 traces of dinosaur tracks from tens of millions of years ago. Other articles and references on the site which present dates or periods that contradict the age of the world according to the Torah are removed from all the articles imported from the Hebrew Wikipedia.[7]
  • In the article about The Holocaust[8], which was copied entirely from the Hebrew Wikipedia and then re-edited, the mentioning in the intro that homosexuals were also murdered by Nazi Germany in World War II was completely removed. Other articles and references on the site to homosexuality or homosexuals are removed from all articles imported from the Hebrew Wikipedia.
  • Because many Haredi avoid pictures of women, any pictures on the site that include women, such as historical pictures or group photos inclusive of men and women (for example, a photo of the thirty-fourth government of Israel's cabinet) are photoshopped to remove women.[9][10] In other instances, with articles about prominent historical female figures the portraits of the women are replaced with pictures of their graves.

As of August 25, 2018, out of the 121,929 articles imported from Wikipedia, 22,791 of the imported articles currently are not accessible to the readers as long as the editorial team hasn't yet produced a censored and/or re-edited versions of these articles. The owners of the website explicitly state that in the instances in which imported articles from Wikipedia contain content deemed "problematic", the editorial team of the website will gradually review all of these articles and determine whether the content is appropriate - problematic articles with proper content will be rewritten while problematic articles with inappropriate content will eventually be permanently deleted. As of August 25, 2018 of all temporarily blocked imported articles awaiting to be reviewed, some of the articles that are most sought-after at the Hebrew Wikipedia include: YouTube, Gal Gadot, Ten Commandments, Eyal Golan, Harry Potter, Ofra Haza, Sigmund Freud, Christianity, Independence Day (Israel), Judaism, New Testament, Sports, Racism, Academy Awards, Human evolution, Woman, Status quo (Israel) Age of Enlightenment, Breast cancer, Tower of Babel, Muslims , The Simpsons, Apocalypse, Hell, Table tennis, Homo, Platonic love, Sport in Israel, Bourekas film, Handball, Race (human categorization), Jewish and democratic state, Maccabiah Games, Catholic Church, Satire, Paganism, Samaritanism.

Copyrights

All content on the site which was originally imported from Wikipedia is provided under the free license CC-BY-SA. The copyrights of all the rest of the site's content is reserved to the Institute for Literacy and Proper Knowledge.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Hamichlol.org.il Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ "Hamichlol.org.il Traffic, Demographics and Competitors". Alexa. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  4. ↑ Nochi Gold (December 10, 2017), Rabbi Yosef Kaminer presents 'the Haredi Wikipedia', m.ch10.co.il, retrieved March 3, 2018
  5. ↑ "ביולוגיה – המכלול". Hamichlol.org.il. 2001-01-30. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  6. ↑ "בית זית – המכלול". Webcache.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ "השואה – המכלול". Hamichlol.org.il. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  9. ↑ Benjakob, Omer (1 March 2018). "Without Women or Evolution: 'Ultra-Orthodox Wikipedia' Is Literally Rewriting History" – via Haaretz.
  10. ↑ "המכלול:אודות – המכלול" (in (in Hebrew)). Hamichlol.org.il. Retrieved 2018-08-09.
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