the Open Siddur Project ✍︎ פְּרוֹיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַa community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources for those crafting their own prayerbooks and sharing the content of their practice בסיעתא דשמיא | ||
Publicly launched in 5769 (2009), the Open Siddur is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, and non-prescriptive community project growing a vast collection of digitized Jewish prayers, liturgies, and related works (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure), composed in every era, region, and language Jews, adjacent communities, and fellow travelers have ever prayed. For those working with the content of Jewish devotional practice, e.g., on סִדּוּרִים (siddurim, prayerbooks), our goal is to provide text, tools, and resources shared under open/libre terms for adaptive reuse. Through this effort we hope to empower personal autonomy, to preserve customs, to cross-pollinate wisdom, and to foster openness and vitality in religious culture.
In an era in which cultural creativity is mediated by concerns over attribution, authenticity, and integrity, we believe that open-source strategies are key to keeping religious Jewish practice vital, relevant, beautiful, and liberating. Jewish prayers, liturgical customs, and ritual praxes were all developed as part of a cultural commons, built collectively over hundreds of generations. We think of siddurim not only as containers of Jewish identity and spiritual heritage, but also as public repositories of effective exercises, prompts, and methods — shared praxes and cultural technologies for growing the creative and emotional intelligence in those utilizing them in their committed practice. And for those who seek a more expansive cultural literacy, an open siddur is a gateway into the diverse customs and languages of the historic and contemporary Jewish world. We are a community spanning students studying private and communal Jewish prayer in its literary and historical context, educators preparing curricular resources, authors of new prayers and liturgies, translators of prayers new and old, transcribers of digital text from printed and handwritten works, and ultimately, living practitioners actively producing new siddurim for ourselves and others. We are opposed to the imposition of over-reaching access controls on the content of Jewish prayerbooks by proprietary interests, whether they be prestige-driven, sectarian/denominational, private/commercial, or any other self-interest. (We take no issue with the layout, arrangement, and design choices of any one or group so long as the underlying semantic data remain accessible for redistribution and adaptive reuse under open standards and proper attribution.) If we truly believe that our avodah (sacred labor/work/craft) is life changing and integral to the repair of the world, then it should remain shareable in every channel available to its distribution, and guarded from monopolization by proprietary interests. In short, public resources should be shared with open licenses. We grow and maintain this archive of words, insight, and ritual praxis as a repository for those "whose hearts have been stirred" to craft and contribute just as their spiritual forbearers offered their art to the Mishkan (Tabernacle, cf. Exodus 36:2). Almost every resource shared through our project that is not already in the Public Domain is shared by its creator or copyright steward with a libre Open Access content license. This is very important to us because we believe that everyone engaged in Jewish prayer should always possess the autonomy to craft their own prayer resources — but do so with careful attention to the attribution, provenance, and lineage of these texts. Open Content licenses require that our value of preserving attribution is grounded in the sacred work of editing, arranging, remixing, and redistributing these works — creative processes where details of authorship, origin, and provenance are easily lost when their importance is not underscored. From the verse "And Esther said in the name of Mordekhai" (Esther 2:22) we learn that through attribution, our world is redeemed (Megillah 15a:20, Pirkei Avot 6:6): the lineage of the source is preserved, the creator is honored, and the lattice of kindness supporting the selfless creative act is reinforced. Cultures breathe creativity like we breathe oxygen. Our multilingual cultural infrastructure ossifies with the imposition of artificial scarcity; with arbitrary and proprietary barriers to access, our diversity devolves into monoculture. Our individual creativity calcifies without the freedom to process the spiritual insights of our deepest selves and our received traditions. Without consideration for personal autonomy, religious tools structured to complement the most profound experiences and relationships can devolve into instruments of control, inhibiting imagination, vision, and possibility. As personal and communal prayer remains one of the most primary and private experiences of Jewish devotional practice, and siddurim are the primary means for accessing and engaging in Jewish prayer, we want every practitioner to afford all the resources that would otherwise limit them in compiling their own prayerbook. (One committed at heart to the craft of their own prayerbook should really only be limited by their knowledge of prayers and liturgical customs.) So that Jewish religious culture may continue to grow and thrive, the resources and technologies collected and utilized by this project are shared freely: gratis (without cost) and libre (without restriction). Our commitment to collaboration and sharing is why we call our siddur project “open.” We aspire to be a resource of Jewish prayer as freely shared as the Torah of Loving-kindness (תּוֹרָת חֶסֶד) described in Sukkah 49b, transmitted as openly and earnestly as the Torah was shared in the Midbar Sinai, as free a resource for all who enter into the world as fire, water, and wilderness (cf. Mekhilta d'Rebbi Yishmael § Baḥodesh 5.11). In observing this principle, we align our project values with the definition of open content and open data maintained by the Open Knowledge Foundation, the definition of open-source maintained by the Open Source Initiative, and the four values of libre/free culture maintained by the Free Culture Foundation. Have a favorite prayer, piyyut, or praxis? If it's not yet in the archive, then please upload it! Make it available to others studying Jewish prayer or crafting their own prayerbooks. ☞ Read more about our mission and project history, and copyright policy. If your question isn't answered there or in our FAQ, please contact us. Read more Main Categories:For Upcoming Festivals, Feasts, & Fasts:For Upcoming Civic Days on Civil Calendars:Additional Prayers & Readings:Recently Added Prayers, Songs, and Other Resources
Contributor HighlightIsaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also authors his own original works and transcribes Hebrew and Aramaic text, adding niqqud and t'amim as needed.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog. Author SpotlightJessie Ethel SampterJessie Sampter (March 22, 1883 – 1938) was a Jewish educator, poet, and Zionist pioneer. Born in New York City to Rudolph Sampter, a New York attorney, and Virginia Kohlberg Sampter, she contracted polio at thirteen which prevented her from leaving home. Unable to attend school her family hired tutors. Later she audited courses at Columbia University. In her twenties she joined the Unitarian Church and began writing poetry. Her poems and short stories emphasized her primary concerns: pacifism, Zionism, and social justice. Around this time, she began spending time in the home of Henrietta Szold and began to appreciate the Eastern European Jews of New York City. She moved into a settlement house on the Lower East Side, then to a Young Women's Hebrew Association. Assuming the role of Hadassah's leading educator, she produced manuals and textbooks and organized lectures and classes, training speakers and leaders for both Hadassah and other Zionist organizations like the Federation of American Zionists (then the Zionist Organization of America). She composed educational manuals with Alice Seligsberg and edited a textbook on Zionism. In 1919 she settled in Palestine where she helped organize the country's first Jewish Scout camp. Sampter developed a strong commitment to assisting Yemenite Jews, founding classes and clubs especially for Yemenite girls and women. She adopted a Yemenite orphan. At the time of her death she had established a vegetarian convalescent home at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Recently Imaged Prayerbooks
Project Archives (2009-present)
The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libré Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture. ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established."–Psalms 90:17Download all posts and pages: ZIP (via github) Copyleft 2002-Present, Contributors to the Open Siddur Project. חלק מהזכויות שמורות | Some Rights Reserved.All works published on opensiddur.org that are not yet in the Public Domain remain under the copyright of their respective creators and copyright stewards. Unless otherwise indicated, all creators and copyright stewards have graciously shared their work under a libre/free-culture compatible Open Content license until the term of their copyright expires and their work enters the Public Domain. The default license under which all content is shared on this site is the Creative Commons Attribution/ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International license. All fonts rendered through CSS @font-face are licensed with either an SIL-Open Font License (OFL) or a GNU Public License with a Font Exception clause (GPL+FE).The views expressed in contributed works represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners. | ||
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