I was not aware of this, though I guess the tour guides among us are, but the State of Israel has never authorized Yiddish to be used by tour guides when guiding tours in Israel. Not a single tour guide in Israel has been certified to guide in Yiddish.

I did not even know that it was necessary to be certified in Yiddish - I assumed tour guides are certified to guide, and they can talk to their "guidees", or clients, in whatever language they want. It turns out the State has to approve the language a guide can guide in, and Yiddish has not yet been included in the list of approved languages.

Why not? The problem, according to INN, is that they have had trouble finding testers who can test potential tour guides in Yiddish for certification.

That has now changed and one of the official testers has learned Yiddish and can now conduct certification tests in Yiddish for those guides who wish to guide in Yiddish.

A tour guide from Beitar, Yechiel Cherez, just upgraded his services and after passing the new test became the first tour guide certified to guide in Yiddish.

With the sharp increase in Haredi tourism, and the State's desire to encourage it to grow even more, this guide from Beitar, and others who follow in his footsteps, is going to rake in the Yiddish guiding business. Cherez said to the Tourism Minister that using Yiddish he will be able to bring the stories of Israel and the various sites to sectors that it was not open to until now, and thereby he will be able to increase their love for Eretz Yisrael..