This is an untitled prayer offered in the Evening Service for the Sabbath from the Union Prayer Book (Newly Revised) (CCAR 1924), pp. 68-69, as a reading between the Shema and the Amidah. As a prayer for protection it fits as a paraliturgical haskivenu, and in New York City, it makes sense in the context of the terrifying news of mass-murder, rape, and genocide being reported from Ukraine at the time. (Find Nokhem Shtif’s “פּאָגראָמען אין אוקראַיִנע : די צײַט פֿון דער פֿרײַװיליקער אַרמײ (The Pogroms in Ukraine: the Period of the Volunteer Army)” (1923) offered in Yiddish and in English translation at In Geveb.) The Ukrainian context of this prayer is further underscored in that the prayer is not found in the 1918 “revised” edition of the Union Prayer Book, but in the later 1924 “newly revised” edition.

The prayer is further remarkable as an early expression of Religious Zionism within American Reform Judaism. This prayer was later adapted into a prayer for Israel “Land of Hope and Promise” found in the 1975 Gates of Prayer (CCAR), and as the “Prayer for Israel” in the 1984 JWB prayerbook for Jewish US military personnel. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

“A Prayer for Protection from Oppression and Persecution (CCAR 1924)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Unknown Author(s)

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Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR)

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada.

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The distribution of Jewish pogroms according to their organisers. (Jewish Social Committee for the Relief of Victims of Pogroms (Evobshchestkom 1923) from the collection of YIVO Institute Archives

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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 90:17

Works of related interest:

 

“Coal Miners’ Prayer” (CCAR 1924)

Land of Hope and Promise, a prayer for Israel (CCAR 1975)

📖 Evening Service for the Sabbath from the Union Prayer Book, Newly Revised (CCAR 1924)

תפילה לעזרת היהודים תושבי גרמניה | Prayer for German Jewry under Nazi oppression before and after Kristallnacht (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1938)

[Prayer on] the Decline of Religious Observance, by Rabbi Abraham Cronbach (1924)

[Prayer for] the Ninth of Aḇ, by Rabbi Abraham Cronbach (1924)

תפלה בלחש | A Whispered Prayer (for protection from noxious air and people), by Tsvi Hirsch Robinson (1909)

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