| aliyah (plural: aliyot) | Hebrew: “ascent, pilgrimage.” The migration of Jews to Palestine/Israel. |
| Ashkenazi | Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. In the Middle Ages, this was the Yiddish term for Germans and Jews living on German territory. |
| galut | diaspora. |
| chalutz | Hebrew: “pioneer.” A term for the first settlers in Eretz Israel who undertook the work of setting up kibbutzim and working on the land. |
| hityashvut | settlement. |
| kibbutz (plural: kibbutzim) | a farm where the land and the means of production are communal. |
| lira (plural: lirot) | also known as the Israeli pound, the currency in Israel from 1952 to 1980. |
| maʿabarah (plural: maʿabarot) | a temporary camp for newly arrived immigrants. |
| maʿapilim | illegal Jewish immigrants who arrived in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel. |
| Mizrachi | Eastern Jews – that is, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. |
| moshav (plural: moshavim) | an agricultural cooperative where residents work on common land but, unlike on a kibbutz, have private property. |
| oleh (plural: olim) | Hebrew: “one who goes up.” A Jewish immigrant to Israel. |
| sabra | Derived from Hebrew tzabar, “cactus” – sweet on the inside, spiky on the outside – a term for Jews born in Israel. |
| Sephardic | a term for Jews in the Middle Ages living on the Iberian Peninsula, who were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the fifteenth century and who resettled in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, as well as Europe – mostly in Italy, England, and the Netherlands, but also a small number in France and Germany. |
| vatik (plural: vatikim) | Hebrew: “old-timer, veteran.” An established citizen of Israel/Eretz Israel. |
| yishuv | the Jewish community living in Palestine before the State of Israel was established. |
| yordim (plural) | a term that was used for Jews who decided not to settle in Israel, describing a process opposite to aliyah; it means going downhill and in Zionist symbolism signifies defeat, failure. |