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Murder of Reuven Shmerling: what Wikipedia removed

Reuven Shmerling, a 70-year-old Jewish man from Elkana, was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in Kfar Qasim in October 2017. Through 2020 the opening called it “a terrorist attack carried out by two young Pales[tinian men],” and described a related killing as carried out by “a group of three armed terrorists.” Today’s opening calls it only “an attack,” and the killers of the policewoman are simply “three” men who “killed” her, though the word survives seventeen times in the body. A reader today does not learn from the opening that Wikipedia’s own snapshot once called Shmerling’s killing a terrorist attack.

The word “terror” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 17. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”
word20206 October 20232025
terror200

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

Section titled “What was taken out”
  • The description of the men who murdered an Israeli policewoman as armed terrorists, reworded to remove both terrorists and murdered.

How it opened then, and now

Section titled “How it opened then, and now”

2020 (revision 961107810):

Jewish man from Elkana was murdered on October 4, 2017 in Kfar Qasim On October 4, 2017, Reuven Shmerling (70), a Jewish man from Elkana , was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in a warehouse owned by his son in an industrial zone of the Arab-Israeli city of Kfar Qasim in a terrorist attack carried out by two young Palestinian men who had entered Israel illegally. The two murderers claimed to be acting to avenge the death of a man from their town who was shot and killed by police when he was part of a group of three armed terrorists who murdered an Israeli policewoman at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate in February 2016. ^ “70-year-old Israeli murdered in apparent monetary dispute” . The Jerusalem Po…

2025 (revision 1294422806):

Jewish man from Elkana was murdered on October 4, 2017 in Kfar Qasim On October 4, 2017, Reuven Shmerling (70), a Jewish man from Elkana , was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in a warehouse owned by his son in an industrial zone of the Arab-Israeli city of Kfar Qasim in an attack carried out by two young Palestinian men who had entered Israel illegally. The two attackers wanted to avenge the death of a man from their town who was shot and killed by Israeli police as he was a part of a group of three who killed an Israeli policewoman at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate in February 2016. ^ “70-year-old Israeli murdered in apparent monetary dispute” . The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com . Retrieved 2017-10…

Section titled “Related”

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