Glossary
Term
Definition
Aliya / Aliyah [Hebrew]
Literally: ascent. The act or privilege of going up or being called to read from the Torah, especially to pronounce the blessings, in synagogue. The person who is "called up" to the Torah gets an aliyah, not just because he ascends the platform, but also for a spiritual elevation.
Aliyah [Hebrew]
The immigration of Jews to Israel; generally referred to in English as making Aliyah.
Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex
A phonetic algorithm invented in 1985 by Jewish genealogists Gary Mokotoff and Randy Daitch. It is a refinement of the Russell and American Soundex algorithms designed to allow greater accuracy in matching of Slavic and Yiddish surnames with similar pronunciation but differences in spelling.
Guberniya [Russian]
A Province of the Russian Empire. Based on the American administrative system "guberniya" could be qualified or understood as a state. There were 60 guberniyas in 1914, including 15 in the Pale of Settlement and 10 in the Kingdom of Poland. Each guberniya was divided into several uyezds (districts). The Old Russian administrative terminology was changed by the Bolshevik (communist) government. They used the term "Oblast" instead of "Guberniya". May also be spelled gubernia.
Kahal
The local governing body of a former European Jewish community administering religious, legal and communal affairs.
Kinnui [Hebrew]
A kinnui or kinui (translated as "nickname") is the secular name held by Jewish people in relation to the language spoken by the country they reside in, differing from their Biblical Hebrew name. Often, a kinnui is the Yiddish name which pairs with the person's Hebrew name. Examples:. Biniamin Ze'ev, Dov Ber or Shlomo Zalman for men. Chaja Liba, Tovah Gittel or Tzipporah Feige for women.
Landsmannschaften [Yiddish]
Organizations of displaced Jewish people organized according to the town or village from whence they came, generally in Eastern Europe.
Soundex
A phonetic coding system used to group together surnames that sound alike, but have variant spellings.
Uyezd [Russian]
The term "Uyezd" is very old and was in use for several hundred years up until Lithuania became an independent country in 1919. The Old Russian administrative terminology was changed by the Bolshevik (communist) government. They used the term "Oblast" instead of "Guberniya" and "Rayon" instead of "Uyezd." This new system is still being used in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine. Based on the American administrative system "uyezd" can be understood as a county.