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With kavod (honor) to “all whose hearts were stirred to share” (kol asher nasa libam, cf. Exodus 36:2-3), this is a searchable index of all liturgists, translators, transcribers, etc. whose work on Jewish prayer, on prayer books, and on public readings is being shared through the Open Siddur Project. After ten years, the total number of project contributors is nearly 800. A little over half have shared their work either directly with the project with an Open Content license, or indirectly by contributing their work into the Public Domain as a contributor to a government publication. Nearly fifty are institutional copyright stewards (operating or defunct for-profit and non-profit entities). The remaining contributors have had their works transcribed from material that has passed into the Public Domain after their deaths. Some transcribed works shared through the Open Siddur project remain unattributed due to unknown authorship. If you find an uncredited or improperly attributed work, please contact us.
To join this community of contributors, please share your work. Making prayers and related religious works available for creative reuse and republication through Open Content licenses is crucial for keeping Jewish culture cross-pollinating, vital, and relevant under the current climate of denominationally identified silos and proprietary-by-default copyright strictures. Prospective contributors should read our Mission Statement, Terms of Use, and Copyleft Policy. The Open Siddur is a non-prescriptive, non-denominational project and invites participation without prejudice towards ethnic heritage, skin color, nationality, belief or non-belief, sex, gender, sexuality or any other consideration.
Dr. Morris M. Faierstein is a Research Associate at the Meyerhoff Center of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.
Jacques Faitlovitch (1881–1955), an Ashkenazi Jew born in Łódź, Congress Poland, studied Ethiopian languages at the Sorbonne under Joseph Halévy. He traveled to Ethiopia for the first time in 1904, with support from the French banker Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He traveled and lived among the Ethiopian Jews, and became a champion of their cause.
Marcia Falk is a poet, liturgist, painter, and translator who has written several books of poetry and prayer.
Maurice Harry Farbridge (1893-1959) from Manchester, Lancashire, was a scholar, professor, and author. He studied at the University of Manchester (M.A., 1916), and was appointed a fellow there and assistant lecturer in oriental studies. He delivered a course of lectures at the Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, in 1924, and was at the same time acting librarian. In 1927, he was appointed the first professor at the University of lowa’s school of religion, where he taught Judaism from 1927 until 1929, when he was succeeded by Moses Jung. Thereafter he returned to England, where he continued his writing. Prof. Farbridge is the author of Studies in Hebrew and Semitic Symbolism (1923) and Judaism and the Modern Mind (1927); Life—a Symbol (1931); and Renewal of Judaism (1932). He edited the Festival Prayer Book for the United Synagogue of America (1927). Farbridge contributed an article on Semitic symbolism to James Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (1922). He died in Brighton, Sussex, England.
Born in Damascus, educated in Beirut and London, Dr. Hillel Yaacob Farḥi (1868-1940) was a well-known Cairo physician who treated the poor free of charge. He was also a considerable scholar, grammarian and poet who wrote and translated many books - both religious and secular. Besides his siddur, he published maḥzorim in Arabic for the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well a number of editions of the Passover Haggadah with his own running commentary.
Avraham ben Mordekhai Faritsol (אַבְרָהָם בֵּן מֹרְדְּכַי פָרִיצוֹל, also Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, Latin: Abrahamus Peritsol; c. 1451–1525 or 1526) was a Jewish-Italian geographer, cosmographer, scribe, and polemicist. He was the first Hebrew writer to consider in detail the re-discovered continents west of the Atlantic Ocean.
Patrick Farrell is an accordionist, composer and bandleader from the USA, currently living in Berlin. His ongoing projects include newly composed Yiddish song duets with soprano Sveta Kundish, the avant/traditionalist klezmer ensemble Yiddish Art Trio, unique and unusual duets with New York trumpeter Ben Holmes, and chamber/folk group Ljova and the Kontraband. Farrell has appeared on dozens of recordings in many different musical genres, including with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Adrienne Cooper, and Never Enough Hope. A passport-carrying citizen of Yiddishland, he has performed with many of Europe and North America's leading klezmorim, including The Klezmatics, Alicia Svigals' Klezmer Fiddle Express, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, and the Strauss/Warschauer Duo. Over the years, Farrell has taught klezmer music and composition at KlezKanada, Yiddish Summer Weimar, Shtetl Neukölln, and at universities and in workshops throughout North America and Europe. He can be found at www.pattysounds.com
Rabbi Hyman (Chaim) Boruch Faskowitz (d. 1998) was a prominent Orthodox rabbi in the United States. A student of the Novardok Yeshiva, he was a musmakh of Rav Avraham Yafen, and a member of the presidium of Agudas Harabbanim. In the United States, Rav Chaim Boruch was chief rabbi of the kehillah of Rochester, New York, the Brisker shul in Williamsburg, and eventually founded what is today Yeshiva Madreigas HaAdam in Queens. We know little more about Rabbi Faskowitz. If you know more, please contact us.
Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz is rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Madreigas HaAdam in Flushing Meadows, New York.
Dena Feingold is the rabbi of the Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rabbi Sam Feinsmith teaches Judaic Studies and coordinates Jewish Life at Chicagoland Jewish High School, IL. Since his recent arrival to Evanston, he has been a regular teacher at the Center for Jewish Mindfulness, where he weaves in the depths of Chassidic and Kabbalistic wisdom. He holds degrees from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and Jewish Theological Seminary. Passionate about prayer and contemplative Jewish practice, he has consulted for a number of innovative prayer and minyan-related projects, and has conducted Jewish meditation workshops and retreats for teens and adults. As a tikkun olam ambassador, he served as a Kol Tzedek Fellow and volunteered in Asia and Central America for American Jewish World Service.
Efraim Feinstein is the lead developer of the Open Siddur web application.
Shir Yaakov is an aba, singer, composer, designer, producer and teacher. Whether as Romemu's Musical Director, an officiant at weddings and lifecycle events, or as one-half of the world-hop duo Darshan; in synagogues, yeshivas, and intentional communities around the world; and in Jewish, multi-faith, and non-affiliated spiritual contexts, Shir Yaakov weaves a tapestry of Kabbalistic wisdom, contemporary songwriting, and deep personal spirituality. He has recorded and released four albums of original music. As a spiritual leader, he has led services and ritual in a wide variety of contexts, from Hasidic yeshivas to multifaith, LGBTQ, and earth-based spiritual groups.
Berthold Feiwel (1875–1937) was a Zionist leader and poet. Born in Pohrlitz, Moravia, Feiwel began his higher education in Brno, where he founded the Zionist student organization Veritas. In 1893 he studied law at Vienna University and became Herzl's close associate, helping to organize the First Zionist Congress in 1897. He contributed to the central organ of the Zionist Organization, Die Welt, and became its editor-in-chief in 1901. In his articles he emphasized that Zionism cannot content itself with the political and diplomatic activity of its leaders; it must also bring about the renewal of Jewish spiritual and social life in the Diaspora. At the first Conference of Austrian Zionists at Olmuetz (1901), Feiwel introduced a program of Zionist Diaspora activity, arguing that Zionism means not only the Jewish people seeking refuge in Ereẓ Israel, but also preparing itself (in the Diaspora) for its future commonwealth. Diaspora work covered the whole range of Jewish life in the countries of dispersion: political, economic, cultural, and sporting activities. When his program was rejected by the Zionist Executive, Feiwel resigned as editor of Die Welt and, together with Martin Buber, Chaim Weizmann, and others, created the Democratic Fraction as an opposition group at the Fifth Zionist Congress. Together with Martin Buber, Davis Trietsch, and the painter E.M. Lilien, Feiwel founded the *Juedischer Verlag, a publishing house that distributed mainly German translations of Hebrew and Yiddish literature.In 1903, after the *Kishinev pogrom, Feiwel published Die Judenmassacres in Kischinew under the pseudonym Told. Based on an on-the-spot investigation, this book shocked public opinion. Feiwel had close contacts with Jewish authors in Eastern Europe and became a gifted translator of their works. In the book Junge Harfen (1914) he presented their modern poetry. The Juedischer Almanach (1902), an anthology edited by Feiwel, as well as Lieder des Ghetto (1902, 1920), translations of poems of the Yiddish poet Morris Rosenfeld with drawings by E.M. Lilien, also had considerable literary influence. After World War i (1919), Feiwel's friend Weizmann summoned him to London to become his political and economic adviser. When Keren Hayesod was founded (1920), Feiwel became one of its first directors. In 1933 he settled in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Edward Feld has published widely on Jewish theology, prayer, the Hebrew Bible, and on halakhic and ethical issues. He is the author of Joy, Despair and Hope: Reading Psalms (Cascade Books) and The Spirit of Renewal: Faith After the Holocaust (Jewish Lights). He is the senior editor of the new Mahzor Lev Shalem, published by the Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, for which he was listed as one of the Forward 50 – the 50 outstanding American Jews of 2010. Currently, Rabbi Feld is at work on a companion Siddur Lev Shalem for Shabbat and Festivals. In his distinguished career, Rabbi Feld has served as Rabbi-in-Residence at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America functioning as an advisor and mentor to rabbinical students, Rabbi of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, and Hillel Director of Princeton University. He is a noted teacher, lecturing throughout North America. He is married to Merle Feld, a poet and playwright and Director of the Rabbinic Writing Institute.
Abraham Jehiel Feldman (June 28, 1893 – July 21, 1977), born in Kyiv, Ukraine, was a prominent American rabbi in the Reform movement. Feldman immigrated to America in 1906 and settled in the Lower East Side in New York City, New York. While there, he attended the Baron de Hirsch School of the Educational Alliance. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in 1917. He received a B.H.L. from Hebrew Union College, and in 1918 he was ordained a rabbi from there. Following his ordination, he served as a fellowship assistant at the Free Synagogue of Flushing in Flushing, Queens, a branch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, from 1918 to 1919. He then ministered at Congregation Children of Israel in Athens, Georgia, from 1919 to 1920, followed by the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1920 to 1925. While he went to the latter congregation as an assistant rabbi under Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, Krauskopf's illness in 1920 led him to take on most of the rabbinic duties. He was elected rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1925, and he served as rabbi there until his retirement in 1968. Feldman was an associate editor of the English-Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary from 1910 to 1911 and editor an English translation of Zvi Hirsch Masliansky's Sermons in 1926. He also published twelve volumes of his own sermons. He wrote Judaism and Unitarianism (1930), The Faith of a Liberal Jew (1931), The American Jew (1937), A Companion to the Bible (1939), The Rabbi and His Early Ministry (1941), Why I am a Zionist (1945), and American Reform Rabbi (1965). He was also the author of a tract called Contributions of Judaism to Modern Society, which was published by the Tract Commission of Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in the 29th issue of the Popular Studies in Judaism. He was a contributor to the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia as well as historian and editor of the Bulletin of the Alumni Association of Hebrew Union College. He delivered the alumni lectures at Hebrew Union College on the subject of the rabbi and their early ministry in 1940, and in 1941 he was appointed chairman of the New England district of the National Town Hall Meeting Committee of the UAHC. He was also a member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College, president of the Alumni Association of Hebrew Union College, a publications committee member of the Jewish Publication Society, a National Committee member of the Jewish Book Council, an administrative board member of the School of Religious Education of Hebrew Union College, and a member of the UAHC in New York City. As a member of UAHC's Committee on Ceremonies, he designed atarah a number of Reform rabbis used instead of a tallit, and he participated on the committee that revised the Union Prayer Book in 1940. He received an honorary D.D. from Hebrew Union College in 1944. He was also president of the Jewish Ministers of Philadelphia, the Federation of Jewish School Teachers of Pennsylvania, the Jewish Teachers' Association of New England Liberal Schools, and the West Hartford Public Library. During the New Deal, Feldman was educational director of the National Recovery Administration in Connecticut and State Chairman of the National Recovery Administration Adjustment Board. He founded the Connecticut Jewish Ledger with Samuel Neusner and served as its editor until 1977. He was president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1947 to 1949 and the Synagogue Council of America from 1955 to 1957. Seeing himself as a Jewish ambassador to the non-Jewish community, Feldman delivered an annual Thanksgiving message to the Hartford Rotary Club for 37 years, maintained extensive contact with the Christian clergy in the Hartford area, and taught a course on Judaism at the Hartford Theological Seminary every year. He was president of the Hartford Council for Adult Education, chaplain of the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Newington, a director of the Jewish Federation, the United Jewish Social Service Agency, and Mount Sinai Hospital, a member of the United War Community Fund of Connecticut, an advisory board member of the Salvation Army of Hartford, and a commissioner of the Hartford Fellowship Commission. In 1955, Feldman was designated Citizen of the Year in Hartford and received the Connecticut Valley Council B'nai B'rith Americanism and Civic Award. He received a George Washington Honor Medal for the Freedoms Foundation in 1956, an Achievement Award in Freedom from Phi Epsilon Pi in 1959, the Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts in 1961, and the Charter Oak Leadership Medal from the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce in 1964. In 1962, he was the first appointed Distinguished Alumni Professor of Hebrew Union College and became honorary rabbi of Temple Sinai in Newington (which he helped found). He also received an honorary S.T.D. degree from Trinity College, an honorary LL.D. degree from Hillyer College, and an honorary D.Hum. from Hartt College of Music.
Rabbi Moshe Feller is among the senior shluḥim (emissaries) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l. He has been reaching out to fellow Jews in his native Minnesota since the early 1960s.
Rabbi Daniel Fellman is the Rabbi at Temple Concord in Syracuse, NY. He formerly served as Assistant and Associate Rabbi at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, NJ. He graduated from Colorado College with a degree in political science in 1996 and the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion with a master’s degree in Hebrew Letters in 2004 and was ordained in 2005. Rabbi Fellman’s community involvements are many. He was selected for Forty Under Forty in Syracuse in 2011. He currently serves on the Board of Interfaith Works and on the City/County Human Rights Commission. He also serves on the board of the Jewish Federation, the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Central New York, and the University Hill Corporation. He served as a White House intern in the Clinton administration and was a Japan-US Senate Scholar.
Len Fellman is a mathematician, educator, and innovator of "transtropilation," the process of translating from cantillized Hebrew, as closely as possible, “word for word and trōp for trōp”, with the main purpose being to aid a person with minimal Hebrew training in following the Hebrew leyning of the Torah and Haftarah readings word for word.
Rabbi Meir Felman (1913-2006) was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States, He served as rabbi of the Judea Center in Brooklyn, New York. A four-time alumnus of Yeshiva University, he was the recipient of an honorary degree from YU. He served as president of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary Rabbinic Alumni. We know few other details of Rabbi Meir's life and career. If you can add more, please contact us,
Since 2004, Shamu Sadeh has been the program director of the Adamah Fellowship and educational farm. Drawn to the integration of soul and soil, Shamu works for the creation of a fruitful ecological landscape while building confidence, mindfulness and community among Adamah Fellows. Before co-founding Adamah, Shamu was a professor of environmental studies, writer, Jewish educator and wilderness guide. He directed the Teva Learning Center in its early years and completed a doctorate in Educational Leadership. In 2010, the “Forward” named Shamu one of the “Forward 50” who made significant contributions to Jewish life in America. Shamu has the yichus – ancestral connections – for Adamah from his great-grandparents and father, Jewish farmers and gardeners who practiced the mystical arts of composting and soil conservation.
Dr. David Fiensy is a graduate of Duke University where he wrote his dissertation on the Seven Benedictions as known in the Syrian Diaspora. He taught New Testament for the last 22 years at Kentucky Christian University and is now retired.
Tsvi Hirsch Filipowski (1816-13 July 1872), Hebraist and actuary, sometimes referred to as Herschell Phillips Filipowski. A maskil born in Virbalis, Lithuania, he arrived in London in 1839 and taught Jewish boys. In 1846 he published Mo’ed Mo’adim, a study of Jewish and other calendars, and in 1847 The Annual Hebrew Magazine (Hebrew title Ha-Asif, The Harvest’). His A Table of Anti Logarithms appeared in 1849, and his translation from Latin into English of Napier’s treatise on logarithms in 1857. In 1851, when he was listed in the Census as a London printer, he founded the Chevrat Me’orerei Yeshenim (Hebrew Antiquarian Society) in order to publish medieval Hebrew texts. Major works that he edited and printed for it included Menahem ibn Saruq’s Mahberet Menahem (1854) and Abraham Zacuto’s Sefer Yuhasin ha-Shalem (1857). During the late 1850s he worked in Edinburgh as an actuary, returning to London in about 1860. He compiled the Colonial Life Assurance Company’s 1861 Almanac and edited Baily’s Doctrine of Life Annuities and Assurance (1864-6). In 1862 he published, using a Hebrew type of his own design, Tefilot Yisrael, a pocket edition of the Ashkenazi prayer book with his own English translation. In 1867 he founded a short-lived periodical, The Hebrew National. His Biblical Prophecies (1870) dealt mainly with messianic passages in Isaiah.
Refoyl Finkl (a/k/a Raphael Finkel) is an activist for the preservation of the Yiddish language, promoting its use and providing fonts, various texts, and tools for writing Yiddish in personal computers. At the University of Kentucky, Dr. Finkel teaches computer science. He earned his PhD in computer science at Stanford University under the supervision of Vinton Cerf.
Louis Finkelstein (June 14, 1895 in Cincinnati, Ohio – 29 November 1991) was a Talmud scholar, an expert in Jewish law, and a leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) and Conservative Judaism. His major scholarly pursuits were works on the Pharisees (the second temple era sect from which rabbinic Judaism developed) and on the Sifra, the oldest rabbinic commentary on the book of Leviticus. Finkelstein authored a number of books, including Tradition in the Making, Beliefs and Practices of Judaism, Pre-Maccabean Documents in the Passover Haggadah, Introduction to the Treatises Abot and Abot of Rabbi Nathan (1950, in Hebrew with English summary), Abot of Rabbi Nathan, (a three volume series on The Pharisees), and Akiba: Scholar, Saint and Martyr. He also edited a four volume series entitled The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion in 1949.
Avraham ben Shmuel Firkovich (1786–1874) was born in Lutsk, Volhynia, then lived in Lithuania, and finally settled in Çufut Qale, Crimea. A famous Karaite writer, archeologist, and collector of ancient manuscripts, Firkovich's chief work was his Abne Zikkaron, containing the texts of inscriptions discovered by him (Wilna, 1872) which is preceded by a lengthy account of his travels to Daghestan.
Elli Fischer is a writer, translator, editor, and rabbi. Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, he studied at yeshivot and universities, earning a BA in computer science, an MS in Education, and rabbinical ordination from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. Since making Aliyah to Modiin in 2006, Elli’s keen understanding of Jewish culture has helped him build an excellent reputation as a translator and writer.
Gyula Fischer (also Julius Fischer; 1861–1944), Hungarian scholar and rabbi, Born in Sárkeresztur, Fischer studied at the Budapest rabbinical seminary and was appointed rabbi of Györ (Raab) in 1887, Prague in 1898, and Budapest (1905) where he was chief rabbi (1921–43). In 1905 he became lecturer in rabbinic literature and Midrash at the rabbinical seminary, and for a time was acting director of the seminary. A man of wide Jewish and general erudition, Fischer wrote a monograph on Judah ibn Tibbon (1885) and translated into Hungarian Philo's Life of Moses (1925). He contributed many articles and essays in German and Hungarian to Jewish and general periodicals. Fischer was a gifted orator and one of the first Hungarian Neolog rabbis to support the rebuilding of Erets Israel.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early 20th century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. In addition to bringing the Montessori method of child-rearing to the US, she presided over the country's first adult education program and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.
Born in 1954 in Brooklyn, Gabbai Seth Fishman grew up in a secular Jewish home though always felt spiritual. He was shaped by the social and political forces of the late 1960s and 70s. He received a B.A. from Yale in Music in 1976 and an MBA from Wharton School of Business in 1986. In 1989, he met Reb Zalman and began working for him as a gabbai the following year. Married with two daughters, he is active in the Jewish Ritual life of Bucks County, Pennsylvania where he davvens, studies and teaches Ḥasidus.
I have been teaching Torah and Chassidic writings for over forty years to students of all ages and backgrounds, both on the East Coast and the Midwest. I have been a director of several Jewish organizations in Santa Fe and Colorado. My articles and poetry on a wide variety of Jewish topics have been printed in many publications, and also are available online.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (May 24, 1878 – October 5, 1969) was an American pastor. Fosdick became a central figure in the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the early 20th century. Although a Baptist, he was called to serve as pastor, in New York City, at First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan's West Village, and then at the historic, inter-denominational Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.
Everett Fox is a scholar and translator of the Hebrew Bible. A graduate of Brandeis University, he is currently the Allen M. Glick Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies and director of the program in Jewish Studies at Clark University. Fox is perhaps best known for his translation into English of the Torah. His translation is heavily influenced by the principles of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. Buber in 1962 completed their translation of the Hebrew Bible into German. Fox co-translated their Scripture and Translation into English with Lawrence Rosenwald of Wellesley College (Weissbort and Eysteinsson 562). The main guiding principle of Fox's work is that the aural aspects of the Hebrew text should be translated as closely as possible. Instances of Hebrew word play, puns, word repetition, alliteration, and other literary devices of sound are echoed in English and, as with Buber-Rosenzweig, the text is printed in linear, not paragraph, fashion.
Michael Fraade is the JOFEE Director at the Louisville JCC, where he manages the J’s garden, runs educational programs, and coordinates the Gendler Grapevine Fresh Stop Market at the J, a sliding scale local produce market, with local nonprofit New Roots. His work has included creating community partnerships with other Louisville organizations, including within the Jewish and interfaith community, to organize around JOFEE and food justice.
Maimon Fraenkel (pseudonym: Maimon Fredau; March 28, 1788 - May 27, 1848) was a Jewish educator, founder of a school for Jewish learning, and an early advocate of Reform Judaism in Hamburg.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (אמתי פריימן) is American-Israeli former IDF Tank Commander. R' Fraiman co-founded “Jerusalem Midnight Biking”, an innovative bike touring company based in Jerusalem. R' Fraiman has professional and leadership experience in content development, advocacy, and relationship building in his work for Garin Tzabar and NYU Bronfman Center, The Arthur Project and most recently for LAVAN.
Rabbi Leon Fram (12 Dec 1895 - 24 Mar 1987), born in Raseinas, Lithuania, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. Hed grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and was ordained at HUC (Cincinnati) in 1920. His career began at Temple Judea in Chicago before he was invited to Temple Beth El in Detroit (initially as assistant to Rabbi Leo Franklin) in 1925. In 1941, he founded his own synagogue, Temple Beth Israel. He was an outspoken against antisemitism during the rise of fascism in North America in the 1930s, and helped to promote Zionism in the Reform movement.
Johann Franck (1 June 1618 – 18 June 1677) was a German politician (serving as mayor of Guben and a member of the Landtag of Lower Lusatia). A lyric poet and hymnist, he produced over a hundred Lutheran hymns.
Rabbi Emmet Allen Frank (1925-1987), born in New Orleans, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. He graduated from the University of Houston and received his ordination from Hebrew Union College's Jewish Institute of Religion. He was an assistant rabbi at his home congregation in Houston before moving to Alexandria in 1954. During his years in Alexandria, Rabbi Frank was an outspoken opponent of racial segregation. He was bitterly criticized by segregationists after a 1958 Yom Kippur homily in which he attacked Virginia's Democratic Senator Harry F. Byrd and other state officials for their role in Virginia's Massive Resistance to court-ordered school desegregation. After leaving Alexandria in 1969, Rabbi Frank served at congregations in Seattle and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, before founding in 1972 his All Peoples Liberal Reform Synagogue in Miami Beach.
Helena Constance Frank (1872-1954) was a British translator and writer. The founder of the Anglo-Jewish Yiddish Literary Society, she was the first English translator of works by Y.L. Peretz and Morris Rosenfeld, having been introduced in 1902 to the Jewish Publication Society by Henrietta Szold. Her work introduced Yiddish as a literary language to the English-speaking world.
Rachel (Ray) Frank (April 10, 1861 in San Francisco – October 10, 1948) was a Jewish religious leader and educator in the United States.Frank was the daughter of Polish immigrants who emigrated to the far west of the United States. She described her parents, Bernard and Leah Frank, as "liberal-minded orthodox Jews." Her father, a descendant of the Vilna Gaon, was a traveling merchant whose livelihood involved commerce and trade with Native/indigenous peoples. As a young woman, Rachel Frank taught Bible studies and Jewish history at the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland's Sabbath school, where she began to hone her skills as a public speaker and make a name for herself within the California Jewish community. Her students included Gertrude Stein, later to become a famous writer, and Judah Leon Magnes, who would become a prominent Reform rabbi. At the same time, Frank worked as a correspondent for several San Francisco and Oakland newspapers and was a frequent contributor to a number of national Jewish publications.In the fall of 1890, Frank was visiting Spokane, Washington when she was invited to deliver a sermon on the eve of Yom Kippur (Jewish day of Atonement). The impassioned sermon she delivered after the service made a deep impression on the audience made up of townspeople- Christians as well as Jews. As the first Jewish woman to preach formally from a pulpit in the United States, inaugurating a career as "the Girl Rabbi of the Golden West" that would help to blaze new paths for women in Judaism. Despite the fact that Frank claimed to have no interest in becoming a rabbi, her actions forced American Jewry to consider the possibility of the ordination of women seriously for the first time.As a result, Frank spent much of the 1890s traveling up and down the West coast giving lectures to B'nai B'rith lodges, literary societies, and synagogue women's groups, speaking in both Reform and Orthodox synagogues, giving sermons, officiating at services, and even reading Scripture. Although headlines began to refer to Frank, incorrectly, as the first woman rabbi, and she was reportedly offered several pulpits, Frank insisted that she had never had any desire for ordination.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) was an American polymath: a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general.
Leo Morris Franklin (March 5, 1870 – August 8, 1948) was an influential Reform rabbi from Detroit, who headed Temple Beth El from 1899 to 1941.
Rabbi Simcha Freedman (1948-2018), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. He received his semikhah from Yeshiva University and held pulpits in Philadelphia and South Florida, including many years at Adath Yeshurun in North Miami Beach. He served as President of the Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, Florida Executive Director of Boys Town Jerusalem, and was an early leader of the South Florida Council for Soviet Jewry. His passionate activism, and most notably his vocal advocacy on behalf of Natan Sharansky, propelled him to the forefront of the effort to free Soviet Jewry.
Solomon Bennett Freehof (August 8, 1892 – 1990) was a prominent Reform rabbi, posek, and scholar. Rabbi Freehof served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Beginning in 1955, he led the CCAR's work on Jewish law through its responsa committee. He also spearheaded changes to Reform liturgy with revisions to the Union Prayer Book. For many years, he served as the pulpit rabbi at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh, PA. According to the congregation, "For more than 35 years, Dr. Freehof's weekly book review series attracted audiences of more than 1,500 Christians and Jews."
Rabbi Dr. Solomon (Shlomo) Freilich (1924-2021), born in New York City, was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. He attended Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, and was given his semikhah by Rav Yitsḥaq Hutner. He received his doctoral degree from Yeshiva University in Biblical Studies. With a friend, he led the Hebrew Institute of St. Paul, Minnesota, and afterward served as rabbi of Anshe Shalom (New Rochelle, New York). From there, he went on to serve the Brothers of Israel synagogue in Mount Vernon, New York. He was among the first US rabbis to visit the Soviet Union in 1957, and was the guest of the chief rabbi of Moscow, Rabbi Judah Levin. (In turn, Rabbi Levin was the guest at Rabbi Freilich’s synagogue, the only visit in Westchester during his brief stay in America.) In July 1967, following the Six-Day War, Rabbi Freilich made a second visit to the Soviet Union, where he was detained for three days in Kyev by the Soviet authorities before being released.
Rabbi Jacob Freund (1827-1877) taught religion at the Jewish community’s religious school in Breslau. In addition to songs, Freund wrote numerous poems and was a member of the Breslau Association of Poets (Verein Breslauer Dichter-schule). Despite his humble economic status, Freund was a prominent member of Breslau’s Jewish community, well known as a prolific writer of religious literature, including a reform-oriented prayer book for girls and women, which saw many editions. Occasionally, Jacob Freund even mixed his artistic and religious talents, as in his farce Hawaii oder die Redlining ohne Wirth: Fosse mit Gesang in fiinf Akten. (Marline Otte)
Samuel Freund (born 24 September 1868 in Gleiwitz; died 28 June 1939 in Hannover) was the senior rabbi of Hannover and the Landrabbiner for the German state of Lower Saxony.
Dr. Harry Friedenwald (1864-1950), ophthalmologist and medical historian, from a line of Jewish doctors, is the author of the tome, The Jews and Medicine (1944).
Rabbi Ronne Friedman (born October 6, 1947) is a native of Washington, D.C. Rabbi Friedman served as the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Boston (1999-2016) and has served North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Illinois and Temple Beth Zion of Buffalo, NY. He graduated with a B.A. with distinction in English Literature from Lafayette College in 1969, and received his Masters of Arts in Hebrew Literature from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from which he was ordained in 1975. He was awarded a Doctorate (honoris causa) from the same institution in 2000. Rabbi Friedman currently serves on the Joint Placement Commission of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which he chaired for 15 years and as a member of the Reform Pension Board. He also served as a member of the Board of the CCAR for 18 years and chaired the Joint Rabbinic Placement Commission of the Reform Movement (URJ, CCAR and HUC-JIR) for 15 years and served for many years as a member of the UAHC’s (now URJ) Commission of Synagogue Affiliation. His service on national and regional boards has included the National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly the National Conference of Christians and Jews), the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee (N.E. Region), the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and Meretz. He has also taught as Adjunct Clinical Faculty for the HUC-JIR. For the past fifteen years, he has been the host of a monthly television show, Jewish Perspective, which airs on Boston’s WHDH (Boston’s NBC affiliate). Rabbi Friedman has been actively engaged in the work of Jewish Education, the pursuit of Social Justice, the resettlement of Southeast Asian and Soviet Jewish immigrants, efforts to establish Equal Marriage in Massachusetts and to ensure the full inclusion of GLBTQ Jews and their families in the larger Jewish and secular community and the establishment of Interfaith Dialogue. His interest in the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory has led him to create workshops and programs using the MBTI as a tool for teambuilding.
Sara Friedman is a literary and academic translator of English and Hebrew. Her translation of Glikl: Memoirs 1691 – 1719, annotated and with an introduction by Chava Turniansky, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2019. Friedman holds a PhD in Translation Studies from Tel Aviv University and has taught translation and translation theory at Bar Ilan University.
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman is the Associate Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Brookline, Massachusetts. She feels blessed to serve this vibrant community through building personal relationships, teaching Torah, innovating new engagement initiatives, working for justice, and leading prayer.
Rabbi Shoshana is a leader in the interfaith climate justice movement in New England. She and her husband Yotam Schachter co-wrote The Tide Is Rising, an anthem for the climate movement that has been sung in congregations, climate rallies, and gatherings in the US, Brazil, Denmark, and France.In other pursuits, she has released an album of original music called Guesthouse, clowned for hospitalized children, tended a community garden, and written poetry. Her publications include pieces in the Huffington Post and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and she has written an interpretive translation of the weekday prayer service called Siddur V'lo Nevosh: Jewish Prayer as Shame Resilience Practice.Rabbi Shoshana was ordained at Hebrew College Rabbinical School, and is a graduate of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, JOIN For Justice, and Oberlin College of Arts & Sciences where she was also a Henry David Thoreau Scholar. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and lives in Jamaica Plain with Yotam and their dog Lulu. For sermons, publications, music, and activism visit www.rabbishoshana.com.
Shraga Friedman (February 25, 1924 – July 12, 1970) was an actor, writer, translator, and director for the stage, screen and radio.
Shelley Frier List is a communications professional in the Baltimore area.
Seth H. Frisch, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is rabbi of the New Shul of America, Rydal, Pennsylvania, and formerly, senior rabbi of the Historic Congregation Kesher Israel in Philadelphia. A Conservative Rabbi, Rabbi Frisch was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York City in 1986. He served as a legislative assistant to the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Rabbi Frisch founded the Lerhaus Institute of Jewish Studies in Abington, Pennsylvania. The Lerhaus Institute quickly became known for its high level of Biblical and Narrative studies and was modeled on the Lehrhaus institute created by Franz Rosenzweig in Germany during the 1920s and then later expanded upon by Martin Buber in the 1930s. The founding of Lehrhaus (note difference in spelling) came at a time of increasing antisemitism which would eventually culminate in anti-Jewish legislation aimed at isolating the Jewish community from the overall German population.
David ben Saul Frischmann (also Frishman and Frischman, Hebrew: דָּוִד בֵּן שָׁאוּל פְרִישְׁמַן, 31 December 1859 – 4 August 1922) was a Hebrew and Yiddish modernist writer, poet, and translator. He edited several important Hebrew periodicals, and wrote fiction, poetry, essays, feuilletons, literary criticisms, and translations.
Rebbetsin Hadassah Froman, is a founder of the organization, Roots, and is a pioneer Jewish-Muslim peace activist who lives in the settlement of Tekoa. She was born and raised in Kibbutz Lavi in the Galil. She served in the army and went on to study education at Hebrew University. Hadassah has worked as a schoolteacher and adult educator. She now focuses much of her teaching on the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). Hadassah is the wife of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman and joined him in forging connections with Palestinian leaders for over thirty years until his death in 2010. She carries on his legacy through her commitment to peace efforts, spreading his poetry and teachings to young people in schools and in the army. She believes firmly in the importance of forging relationships with the Other: "To merit living in this country we must chose life and see the spark of God in everyone. We must remove the barriers between us and create a bridge, because anything is possible but it depends on us."
Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl is the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Senior Rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation, the largest synagogue community in Canada. The focus of his rabbinate has been a commitment to family education, life-long learning and care for the housebound, hospitalized and homeless. Rav Baruch initiated the development of a "synaplex" of innovative ritual and educational opportunities to encourage more participation in synagogue life. Beyond the synagogue, Rav Baruch is the past president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis (2012 to 2015) and vice-chair of the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus. As president, he helped to organize the 2011 Path of Abraham mission to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims to the Holy Land to explore the challenges of three religions, two nations and one land. He was featured in the documentaries “The Secret of San Nicandro” for CBC and “Amazing Communities” for Israel television. Rav Baruch offered a prayer to open a session of the United States Senate. Rav Baruch serves on the Board of UJA Federation of Toronto and is a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of Jewish Federations of North America. He is a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, has served on its international Executive Committee, chaired its international convention and is a past president of two of its regions. In 2016, his service to the community was recognized by UJA Federation with the Gordy Wolfe Award for Jewish Communal Professional Leadership. Rav Baruch was awarded a Coolidge Fellowship to pursue research in an inter-faith community at the Episcopal Divinity School at Harvard University, received a doctorate in Jewish Philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is a Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem. Rabbi Frydman-Kohl is the author of scholarly articles in the area of Jewish philosophy and mysticism.
Dr. Ester R. Fuchs is Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Fuchs studied at Queens College, CUNY, Brown University, and the University of Chicago. She wrote Mayors and Money: Fiscal Policy in New York and Chicago, and describes herself as a "Pragmatic Utopian." Fuchs served as Special Advisor to the Mayor for Governance and Strategic Planning under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, Fuchs served as Chair of the New York City Charter Revision Commission. She currently serves as Director of WhosOnTheBallot.org an online platform working to increase voter participation and education in New York City elections. In 2014, she was the recipient of the NASPAA Public Service Matters Spotlight Award, and in 2017, she was awarded the Bella Abzug Leadership Award.
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