In Jerusalem They Used to Say

The Israeli publishing house Yedioth Ahronoth published Rachel Dvir’s new Hebrew book In Jerusalem They Used to Say: The Wisdom of Jerusalem Yiddish in Modern Hebrew, with Humor. It describes specific idioms that were widely known in Jerusalem Yiddish several decades ago and that are still used by the speakers of the local variant of Lithuanian Yiddish. This unique dialect developed among the Ashkenazi Jews of the Old Yishuv, the Jewish population who lived in the Land of Israel over two centuries ago, before the politically motivated Zionist Aliyah of the late 19th century. Each expression in the book is given in its Yiddish original, accompanied with a Hebrew translation and a commentary explaining the context of its practical usage. The book is richly illustrated with old photographs.