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Jewish languages

Yona Elfassi (L), founder of Limud Darija, with students at an event, in a video published on October 25, 2023. (YouTube screenshot/Limud Darija)
January 31, 2026, 7:18 am
Moroccan language course revives lost Jewish culture while bridging Mideast divide
Yona Elfassi, one of the few remaining Jews in Morocco, teaches Darija to Moroccan Diaspora Jews, inspiring Muslims in the country to reach out to learn Hebrew
By KYLE DESROSIERS-LEVINE
Cover art from Nani Vazana's most recent album, 'Ke Haber.' (Courtesy)
October 8, 2023, 11:39 am
This Israel-born musician is spearheading a Ladino revival, from Taiwan to Toronto
Taking her show on the road, singer and trombonist Nani Vazana brings a lost language and culture to audiences familiar with it and to newcomers alike
By Martin Rosenberg
Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi men in Jerusalem, c. 1900. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research via JTA)
September 9, 2023, 10:57 am
NYC exhibit shows Israeli Hebrew didn’t kill Yiddish, it gave it a new nest to live in
‘Palestinian Yiddish: A Look at Yiddish in the Land of Israel Before 1948,’ opens this week, shows how the old language survived in the new Israel – sometimes hiding in plain sight
By Ghil‘ad Zuckermann
The HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project’s multilingual Omer counter highlights Jewish linguistic diversity by presenting each of the 49 days in a different language or dialect. (HUC-JIR via JTA)
April 7, 2023, 11:17 am
New project translates ritual Omer counting to 49 Jewish languages
On each of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, researchers will post recitation in different language, including Ladino, Yiddish and more obscure tongues like Judeo-Georgian
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
Israel Ogalbo and Mali Levi in 'The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem from Yes Studios (Courtesy Nati Levi)
May 26, 2022, 7:49 am
‘Beauty Queen of Jerusalem’ joins short list of TV and movie shows featuring Ladino
The language was spoken by Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa who had fled the Spanish Inquisition; today, their descendants are seeking to reclaim it
By Gabe Friedman
(Wikimedia Commons; collage by Grace Yagel/ via JTA)
October 15, 2021, 11:44 pm
Oxford courses on 12 rare Jewish languages aim to keep heritages alive
The classes, which began this week, run for an hour a week online and are free for all students
By Michelle Krasovitski
The October 13, 2015 launch of the Knesset Caucus for the Reconnection with the Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities. (Jeffrey P Worthington)
August 1, 2017, 1:17 pm
Spain announces bid to preserve the Judeo-Spanish language — in Israel
Spanish Royal Academy to found a special Israeli center for Ladino, still spoken by some 525 years after the expulsion of the country’s Jews
By Sue Surkes
Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath holding her 'Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary.' (The Jewish Standard)
November 1, 2016, 8:59 pm
New dictionary updates Yiddish for era of transgender, tablets and tweets
Need a new pair of ‘fingershikh’? Building on her Yiddish linguist father’s corpus, Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath publishes the first English-Yiddish resource guide in four decades
By Renee Ghert-Zand
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