What is "kehilla"

Not to be confused with " Kehila" a village in Estonia.

Kehilla (Hebrew: קהילה) meaning a "congregation" may refer to:

• Qahal, a theocratic organisational structure in ancient Israelite society, and a quasi-governmental authority in Jewish communities of the Middle Ages.
• Kehilla (modern) (pl. Kehillot), the elected local communal (secular as well as religious) Jewish structure in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland's Second Republic, the Baltic States, Ukrainian People's Republic) during the interwar period (1918–1940)
• Kahal, name of a moshav agricultural community in northern Israel

he:הקהילה היהודית

The Kehilla (pl. Kehillot) is the local Jewish communal structure that was reinstated in the early twentieth century as a modern, secular, and religious sequel of the Qahal in Central and Eastern Europe, more particularly in Poland's Second Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukrainian People's Republic, during the interwar period (1918–1940), in application of the national personal autonomy.

Unlike the ancient Qahal/Kehilla, abolished in the Russian Empire by Tsar Nicholas I in 1844, the modern Kehilla council was elected like a municipal council, with lists of candidates presented by the various Jewish parties: Agudat Yisrael, the religious and non religious Zionists, but also the marxist Bundists and Poalists, the liberal-minded secularist Folkists, etc.

The initial project, as submitted by the Jewish delegations to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, was to constitute a National Jewish Council for each state, out of representatives from the various kehilla councils, like the former Council of Four Lands.