As the Jewish year comes to a close, The Jerusalem Post took a deeper dive into the digital world, uncovering who and what Israelis, Jews, and the rest of the world were most interested in over the past 12 months.
On Google, the most frequently asked question when it came to the Jewish State was also a very simple one: “What is happening in Israel?”
The question was followed by others that took unsurprising interest in Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza that has unfolded over the course of the year.
“Why are Israel and Palestine fighting?” and “Who supports Israel?” were the second and third most-asked questions respectively regarding Israel this year. These were followed by “How many died in Israel?” and “Is Gaza in Israel?,” a show of particular interest in Israel’s defense and security following Hamas’s invasion and murder of thousands, taking hundreds more captive.
Indeed, the Israel-Hamas War was one of the most searched topics on the internet as a whole, with some 93 million people reading related articles on Wikipedia over the past 12 months.
Israel’s Wikipedia entry was the most searched of those relating to the war, amassing approximately 14,769,946 views in a year, more than Israel’s entire population. “Israel” was followed by “Hamas” and “the State of Palestine” with 13,409,268 and 12,758,706 Wikipedia entries respectively. “The Gaza Strip” closely followed with 11,864,446 views on Wikipedia.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israel-Hamas War pages amassed close to nine million and seven million total views respectively, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s page amassed 6,974,993 views in the past year.
Iran garnered more interest on Wikipedia with 6,446,927 searches of its page registered this year, while its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah was searched 5,061,839 times in 12 months. Wikipedia’s page on Zionism was viewed 6,436,829 times.
The interest in Jewish figures also grew on Wikipedia; however, Benjamin Netanyahu’s six million-odd searches were only enough for second spot, as American actor Scarlett Johansson came out on top with over seven million views on the online encyclopedia.
Legendary physicist Albert Einstein’s entry was viewed over 6,713,922 times, more than US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (6,302,631) and actor Jake Gyllenhaal (5,475,848). Actress Natalie Portman amassed 4,440,193 views on Wikipedia in the past year, while Adam Sandler fell just short with 4,307,397, and Harrison Ford’s entry was viewed 4,247,599 times.
Cultural searches
Rounding out the list are musicians Bob Dylan (4,056,698) and Barbra Streisand (3,828,309). Some notable names that did not make the top 10 include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, US Senator Bernie Sanders, and Israel’s own Hollywood actress Gal Gadot.
On the video front, the most watched video relating to Israel was the feisty debate on the war in Gaza between influential political commentators Ben Shapiro and Destiny, which received some 10 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube in January earlier this year. The second-most watched video was a segment from John Oliver’s HBO talk show, Last Week Tonight, discussing the October 7 massacre and IDF actions in the Gaza Strip, which amassed some nine million views on YouTube.