Round pewter keychain with 12 Tribes Breastplate.
The Twelve Tribes The Israelites were divided along family lines, each called a shevet or mateh in Hebrew meaning literally a "staff" or "rod". The term is conventionally translated as "tribe" in English, although the divisions were not small isolated distinct ethnic groups in the modern sense of the term. Some English speaking Jewish groups view the pronunciation, English transcription and Hebrew spelling of the tribal names to be extremely important. The transcriptions and spellings are as follows: Reuben: ?????, Standard R?uven, Tiberian R???en Simeon: ?????, Standard imon, Tiberian im?n Levi: ???, Standard Levi, Tiberian Lew Judah: ?????, Standard Y?huda, Tiberian Y?h?ah Dan: ??, Standard Dan, Tiberian Dan Naphtali: ?????, Standard Naftali, Tiberian Naptal Gad: ??, Standard Gad, Tiberian Ga? Asher: ???, Standard Aer, Tiberian Aer Issachar: ?????, Standard Yissa?ar, Tiberian Yiss?ar Zebulun: ?????, Standard Z?vlun, Tiberian Z??lun Joseph: ????, Standard Yosef, Tiberian Ysep, containing the tribes: Manasseh: ????, Samaritan Manatch, Standard M?nae, Tiberian M?naeh Ephraim: ?????, Samaritan Afrime, Standard Efryim, Tiberian Epryim/Eprayim Benjamin: ??????, Standard Binyamin, Tiberian Binyamn
