How do you say school in Jewish?

Answer 1

There isn't really a language called Jewish, as the term refers to the Jewish people and Jewish culture. However, there are two languages associated with Jewish people - Hebrew and Yiddish. In Hebrew, school is written בית ספר, bet sefer (pronounced bet seff-ER). Another Hebrew word for a school is yeshiva or ישיבה, the name given to a school specialising in Jewish - and especially rabbinic - studies, pronounced yesh-ee-VAH.

Whereas Hebrew is an ancient Semitic language originating in the Middle East, Yiddish is around a thousand years old and originated in Germany and those parts of Northern Europe inhabited by the Ashkenazi Jews (Ashkenazi means those Jews from Germany, but has come to mean all Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe. Jews from Spain, Portugal and North Africa are called Sephardic Jews and have their own language) and is very similar to Hochdeutsch, a German dialect, but using Hebrew letters. The name literally translates as Jewish, and thus the Yiddish word for school, shul, is the best answer to your question. However, you will not hear it used to mean a school where children go to learn, as it the word used by many Ashkenazi to mean a synagogue.