The transcription of Hebrew in this book reflects the pronunciation of modern Hebrew rather than Ashkenazi pronunciation used by the Hasidim themselves. No attempt is made to indicate the distinctions between alef and ‘ayin (both represented by apostrophe), tet and taf, kaf and kuf, and sin and samekh. However, the distinction between het and khaf has been retained, using h for the former and kh for the latter. The dagesh is not indicated except where it affects pronunciation. However, transcriptions that are well established have been retained even when they are not consistent with the system adopted. On similar grounds, the tsadi (usually represented by “ts”) is rendered by “tz” in such familiar words as bar mitzvah or when it could create a confusion before “h”; hence, Yitzhak instead of Yitshak. The final heh is indicated too, though numerous exceptions appear. Prefixes, prepositions, and conjunctions are followed by hyphens: be-toledot ha-’am. Sheva na’ is represented by e.
The transcription of Yiddish follows the YIVO system.
In both Yiddish and Hebrew, capital letters are used only in cases of proper names and for words that are capitalized in English, for example, r. Yisra’el mi-Ruzhin u-mekomo be-toledot ha-hasidut. For names of people in both Yiddish and Hebrew, the spellings they used or became common in popular use—for example, Assaf (not: Asaf), Peretz (not: Perets)—have been retained.
With regard to place names, we have used the Yiddish forms in their standard northeast dialect for all localities in territories of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in their first appearance followed by their Lithuanian, Polish, Russian or Latvian equivalents if significantly different from the Yiddish name. Exception has been made for cities that have well-known English names (e.g., Warsaw, not Warszawa). However, when Yiddish form differs from the other forms only by omission of diacritics or very minor alteration, we use the former only: Slonim, not Słonim; Polotsk, not Połock.