Built with sources, dates, and care.
Baba Atlas is a living, visual guide to the Jewish world — the places, languages, words, migrations, communities, customs, texts, and stories that explain how Jewish life and Hebrew connect across time. It is built by Baba, the Hebrew understanding product, and it is held to a public standard: everything below.
Definition
What the Atlas is — and is not
It is
- A cultural and linguistic discovery product
- A visual explanation system
- A source-aware public learning tool
- A shareable story engine
It is not
- A generic encyclopedia with pins
- A substitute for scholarship, genealogy research, or community authority
- A map of sensitive or private data
- A product that treats Jewish communities as one identity
- A collection of unsourced "facts"
The non-negotiables
The source policy
Seven rules govern every record in the canon. Each rule names the interface element where you can verify it — this policy is a UI contract, not a promise in a footer.
- 01
Every fact-rich object has visible sources.
In the product: Look for the ◈ SourceChip next to any claim — click it for the full citation, link, and method note.
- 02
Every demographic value carries a source year.
In the product: Numbers always read ~150,000 (1947 · estimate) — the year is mandatory anatomy, never optional.
- 03
Estimates are labeled estimates — no false precision.
In the product: The tilde and the word "estimate" always appear. A rounded number is presented as rounded.
- 04
Historical and current data are never blended without labels.
In the product: Living records carry solid sage "Living" chips; historical records carry dashed chips with an era date range. The two grammars never mix without a label.
- 05
Every record has a confidence label.
In the product: ● confirmed · ● well-supported · ● contested · ● needs review — the badge sits next to the claim, not in a footer.
- 06
Zero invented geography, traveled paths, slang, or cultural claims.
In the product: Only locality records receive pins. Language, tradition, word, and migration relationships are not converted into synthetic points or reconstructed travel lines.
- 07
Jewish languages are never mislabeled as dialects of Hebrew.
In the product: Where the flag applies, every surface carries the permanent caption "A language, not a dialect."
Where the data comes from
| Source | What we use it for | The rule we follow |
|---|---|---|
| Sefaria | Texts, excerpts, and the textual canon (public-domain sources only). | Excerpts stay short and rights-safe; every text record links back to the source. |
| Berman Jewish DataBank | Contemporary community population estimates. | Figures render with year + "estimate" + methodology note in the SourceChip popover. |
| JewishGen Communities Database | Historical community presence, town names, and historical-name variants. | Historical names are labeled with their period; no sensitive or private records. |
| Natural Earth / world-atlas | Bundled 1:50m land geometry for flat and globe views; it does not supply Atlas record coordinates. | Pins use the modern locality or representative regional anchor stored on each Atlas place record. These are orientation points; record citations support the community history, not reconstructed historical coordinates or borders. |
| Wikidata / Wikimedia | Cross-checks for dates, names, and public-domain media provenance. | Used as corroboration, never as a sole source for contested claims. |
| Scholarly dictionaries & linguistic research | Etymologies, transliterations, speaker-vitality estimates (e.g. the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, standard slang and etymological dictionaries). | Where scholars disagree — speaker counts, origins — the record is labeled contested and both figures are shown. |
The confidence system
Every record in the canon carries one of four labels. When experts disagree, we say so on the label, not in a footnote.
Live in the canon: Baghdad — census figures, encyclopedia entries, and press accounts agree on the broad record.
Live in the canon: סבבה · sa-BA-ba — well-documented Arabic borrowing; nuances of the exact path still discussed.
Live in the canon: פלאפל · fa-LA-fel — its origins are genuinely disputed — we show the dispute on the label.
Live in the canon: Kubbeh — flagged for an editor; treat details as provisional until sign-off.
The dated-estimate anatomy
Baghdad's Jewish community: ~76,825 (1947 · estimate)
- ~ — an estimate, never false precision.
- 1947 — the source year, always attached to the number.
- ◈ SourceChip — opens the citation and the methodology behind it.
Historical ≠ current — the hard grammar
Living records: solid, saturated, bordered. Historical records: dashed, desaturated, and always paired with an era date range. The two are never blended without a label.
Corrections & contributions
What if it's wrong?
A human editor reviews every report. Corrections are not auto-applied — a person reads the claim, checks the source, and decides. Sensitive topics get a specialist review on top of that.
Revision history is kept: when a record changes, the change is logged against its sources and its confidence label. The atlas would rather carry a needs review badge than a quiet error.
The same promise is triggered site-wide — every detail page footer carries a “Report it →” link, and every dead-end search offers “suggest this for the canon.”
Contributor guidelines
What we accept
- Corrections with sources
- Documented variations of customs and words
- Place & community context
- Public-domain media with provenance
What we don't
- Unsourced claims
- Private records of any kind
- Genealogical assertions
The review path
Submission → human editor → specialist review for sensitive topics → revision logged. Community-contributed stories are editorially reviewed before they appear anywhere.
Safety, privacy & respect
What's off-limits
What we never publish
Private individual records; sensitive or security-relevant community details; unverified current operating status of institutions; anything that makes communities easier to target; genealogical claims presented as proof.
How we represent communities
Communities, languages, and periods are distinguished, never flattened. Jewish languages are never labeled dialects of Hebrew. Immigration stories are specific and sourced, never stereotypes.
On the Holocaust
Destruction is represented accurately and respectfully — and it is never the only story. Continuity, creativity, scholarship, and living culture stand beside it on every affected page; the quiet-mode ribbon always links onward.
The family route privacy note: everything you enter on /family is client-side only — stored in this browser, never uploaded, erasable any time with one click.
Baba Atlas is free and built to be useful on its own. It exists because Baba — the Hebrew translation and understanding product — believes understanding a word means understanding where it lives. When you want the next tool, Baba is there. When you don't, the atlas stands alone.
Open Baba Translate →Land geometry: Natural Earth 1:50m via world-atlas · Pins: modern localities or representative regional anchors stored on Atlas place records, not historical borders or reconstructed positions · Community data: JewishGen Communities Database & Berman Jewish DataBank · Texts via Sefaria · Linguistic data: HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project and scholarly dictionaries.
Atlas last reviewed 2026-07-30 · canon v1.0 — 186 words · 204 places · 20 migrations · 12 eras, each reviewed and sourced.
Sources & method · every record shows its own sources, confidence, and review date.