Rabbi Morris Jacob Raphall (1798–1868), born in Stockholm, Sweden, was a prominent rabbi and orator in the United States in the mid-19th century. At the age of nine Raphall was taken by his father, who was banker to the King of Sweden, to Copenhagen, where he was educated at the Hebrew grammar school. "He was educated for the Jewish ministry in the college of his faith in Copenhagen, in England, where he went in 1812, and afterward in the University of Giessen, where he studied in 1821-24." He devoted himself to the study of languages, for the better acquisition of which he subsequently traveled in France, Germany, and Belgium. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Erlangen (Germany). After lecturing on Hebrew poetry in 1834 he began to publish the Hebrew Review, and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature, the first Jewish periodical in England; he was forced to discontinue it in 1836 owing to ill health. For some time he acted as honorary secretary to Solomon Herschell, chief rabbi of Great Britain. He made translations from Maimonides, Albo, and Herz Wessely; conjointly with the Rev. D. A. de Sola he published a translation of eighteen treatises of the Mishnah; he also began a translation of the Pentateuch, of which only the first volume appeared. In 1840, when the blood accusation was made at Damascus, he traveled to Syria to aid in the investigation, and published a refutation of it in four languages (Hebrew, English, French, and German). He also wrote a defense of Judaism against an anonymous writer in the London Times. Raphall was also the author of a text-book of the post-Biblical history of the Jews (to the year 70 C.E.). In 1841 he was appointed minister of the Birmingham Synagogue and master of the school. He continued in these capacities for eight years, and then sailed for New York City in 1849. That year, he gave a series of lectures on biblical poetry at the Brooklyn Institute, and was appointed rabbi and preacher of Manhattan's Bnai Jeshurun congregation, at the time called the Greene Street Synagogue. He continued there until 1866, his duties then being relaxed owing to his poor health. He died in New York on June 23, 1868.

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.)