What language did Palestinian Jews speak before Israel?

There were 3 main groups of Jews in Palestine before the Zionist enterprise and the first major Aliyah in the late 1800s. These groups were distinct in culture, practice and language. ladino was spoken by the traditional sepharadi Jews. read more

Hebrew began to be spoken by young Jews in Palestine in the 1890s, and by the 1910s it was already a language of an emerging nation—used in elementary and higher education, in business, in self-government, and in regular speech on the streets of Jewish neighborhoods, towns, and villages. read more

Palestinian Jew is the term used to refer to a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine (known in Hebrew as Eretz Israel, the"Land of Israel") prior to the establishment of the modern state of Israel. The common term for the Jewish community of Ottoman Palestine during the 19th century, and British Mandatory Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel is Yishuv ("settlement"). read more