Latest Argument in Jerusalem Over Fried Innards

Jerusalem’s bustling Mahane Yehuda Market, popularly known as the shuk, has long been a late-night culinary destination for Middle Eastern standbys like hummus and falafel, as well as more recent additions like burgers and burritos.

But there is one dish that is considered authentic: a local concoction known in Hebrew as meorav Yerushalmi, or Jerusalem mixed grill, made of kosher innards that might otherwise end up in the garbage.

The traditional ingredients include chicken hearts, livers and spleen fried with lamb fat and copious amounts of onion and spices. The takeout version is generally stuffed in a pita.

The recent death of a shuk food legend, Haim Piro, at 73, revived an old argument over who invented the market’s signature dish. Older Jerusalem residents credit Mr. Piro and his partner Gideon Amiga, who opened a hole-in-the-wall steakhouse here in 1968. A year later, they named it Makam, the Hebrew acronym for radar, in honor of an Israeli mission to capture an Egyptian radar system during the War of Attrition.

The restaurant served the inexpensive and satisfying dish to the mostly poor inhabitants of the area, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Makam closed long ago, but Mr. Amiga’s son Shimon, 34, now runs a gluten-free falafel joint on the premises. A sign on the wall bears the insignia of the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel, which certifies the spot as the birthplace of “the famous meorav Yerushalmi.”