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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.
Rabbi Shimshon Nadel serves as Rabbi of Kehilat Zichron Yosef, Rosh Kollel of the Sinai Kollel and Hovevei Zion’s Kollel Boker, in Jerusalem. He lectures at the OU Center. His articles on Jewish Law & History have appeared in Tehumin, Hakirah, The Journal of Halacha & Contemporary Society, Segula, Kol ha-Torah, Kolmus, Makor Rishon, the Jerusalem Post, and the Jewish Press. He is also the author of “Medina & Halacha – Exploring the Jewish State through the lens of Jewish Law,” a popular weekly column looking at contemporary issues in Israel. On Israeli radio, he is a regular guest on Kol Yisrael and KAN. Before moving to Israel in 2009, Rabbi Nadel served as a rabbi in Nebraska and Connecticut. He studied at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary under his rebbe and mentor, HaRav Moshe Dovid Tendler.
Yosef (Giuseppe) Naḥmuli (also, Nachmuli, Nakamuli; 1821-1886) was a journalist, educator, and lawyer. A leading figure of the Sepharadi community of Corfu, Greece, he was a member of the committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. He published several books for teaching languages (Greek, Italian and French) to young Sephardim and in 1861 founded the bilingual newspaper, Israelite Chronica / Cronaca Israelite in Greek and Italian, which was published until 1863.
Yisrael ben Mosheh Najara (Hebrew: ישראל בן משה נאג'ארה; Arabic: إسرائيل بن موسى النجارة, Isra'il bin Musa al-Najara; c. 1555, Safed, Ottoman Empire – c. 1625, Gaza, Ottoman Empire) was a prolific Jewish liturgical poet, preacher, Biblical commentator, kabbalist, and rabbi of Gaza.
Rabbi Mara Nathan of Temple Beth–El, San Antonio, Texas, is the first woman to serve as senior rabbi of a major congregation in the State of Texas (having served since July 2014). Rabbi Nathan was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2000. She was a recipient of the Steinhardt Fellowship; a scholarship awarded to rabbinical students to further informal education with teens and college age students, and received academic awards for Hebrew, History and Talmudic studies. She received a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in history as well as certificates in Jewish studies and women's studies from Northwestern University in 1993. As a high school student, she studied flute at the Juilliard Conservatory Pre-college Program. Her extensive musical training and experience enables her to incorporate her voice, flute and guitar into her service leading and other programs. Prior to Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Nathan served as the Associate Rabbi and Director of Congregational Learning at Larchmont Temple in Larchmont, NY, where she worked in various capacities from 1994-2014. During her almost twenty years of service at Larchmont Temple, she played an instrumental role in all aspects of congregational life including spiritual worship, ritual, and lifelong learning. Rabbi Nathan has served on the board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and is a member of the Women’s Rabbinic Network. She is also a past president of the Westchester Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Nathan has served on the faculty of URJ’s Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, Texas and Eisner Camp in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Rabbi Moses Nathan Nathan (1807-1883) was one of the earliest teachers at the Jews' Free School, which was then situated in Ebenezer Square, Petticoat Lane. When only sixteen years of age, and whilst still engaged as junior master at the Free School, he was appointed Baal Ḳoreh at the Denmark Court Synagogue (a/k/a the Western Synagogue). After occupying these posts for some years, he removed to Liverpool, where he established a school. He subsequently received the appointment of Secretary to the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation, and occasionally delivered religious lectures in the English language in the synagogue. Under the guidance of the Abraham Abrahams, he introduced sermons in the vernacular some time before such sermons became the custom in London. In the year 1834 he received the appointment of Minister of the German Congregation at Kingston. Jamaica, where he did excellent service in arousing a new feeling of attachment to Judaism in improving the mode of worship, and in raising the Jews considerably the esteem of their Christian fellow-islanders. At a later period he removed to St. Thomas, and there likewise performed useful services as the minister of the congregation (Spanish and Portuguese) in that island. On his retirement from that post, he spent some years in New Orleans, where he became the intimate friend of the Jewish philanthropist, the late Judah Touro, who made his numerous bequests to Jewish institutions through Mr. Nathan's counsel. He returned to England in 1868, and before determining to which synagogue he should attach himself, he visited every synagogue in the metropolis. He at length fixed on the West London Synagogue for British Jews, where he was a constant attendant. He took an active and earnest part in the founding of the Anglo-Jewish Association; and for several years acted as Honorary Secretary of the Educational Committee of that Society. It was only on the failure of his health that he discontinued his exertions on behalf of the Association. He was also a member of the Roumanian Committee and of the Committee of the Society of Hebrew Literature.
Founded in 1893, the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action. Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
The National Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) was formed on April 9, 1917, three days after the United States declared war on Germany, in order to support Jewish soldiers in the U.S. military during World War I The impetus for creating the organization stemmed from Secretary of War, Newton Baker and Secretary of Navy, Josephus Daniels. The organization was also charged with recruiting and training rabbis for military service, as well as providing support materials to these newly commissioned chaplains. The JWB also maintained oversight of Jewish chapel facilities at military installations. In 1921, several organizations merged with the JWB to become a national association of Jewish community centers around the country in order to integrate social activities, education, and active recreation. These merged organizations included the YWHA, YMHA, and the National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Association. In 1941, in a response to a mandate from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, six private organizations - the YMCA, YWCA, the National Jewish Welfare Board, the Traveler's Aid Association and the Salvation Army were challenged to handle the on-leave morale and recreational needs for members of the Armed Forces. The six organizations pooled their resources and the United Service Organizations, which quickly became known as the USO, was incorporated in New York on February 4, 1941. The organization is now the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, part of JCC of North America. The Council sends prayer books, religious artifacts and supplies for Jewish holidays, including Passover Seder kits, Ḥanukkah candles, four species for Tabernacles, and more.
Rabbi Dr. Gil Nativ is the Rabbi of Kehilat Hakerem - the Masorti Community in Karmiel Rabbi Nativ is a third generation Israeli. He fought as a paratrooper in the Six Day War.
Amitai Ne'eman (1926-2005) was an accordionist, composer and songwriter. He was a producer for Kol Yisrael, the state radio network of Israel.
Daniel Nebenzahl is a Co-Founder and CTO at Scribe Security – End to End Software Supply Chain Security. Daniel’s background includes development of cybersecurity solutions, performing and leading cybersecurity research teams.
Yoseph Needelman-Ruiz a.k.a. Yoseph Leib Ibn Mardachya is the author of "Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs" (Autonomedia press, 2012) an epic devotional study of Cannabis and other ethneogens in Judaism and its heresies throughout history, into super-modernity, in the hopes of passing on a useful counsel with regards to their use beyond "do" or "don't." He is currently working on a book about Pop Cartoon Kabbalah, and alternates between leading services and sermons in Williamsburg Brooklyn at Cong. Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom, and living in Israel's Elah Valley.
Rabbi David A. Nelson, originally from Bridgeport, Connecticut, is a Conservative movement rabbi and chaplain in the United States active in Michigan. A graduate of Brandeis University, he was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1967. He served two years in a pulpit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and three years as an assistant rabbi at Chizuk Amuno in Baltimore before ariving in Detroit in 1972. For over three decades, Rabbi Nelson served as rabbi for Congregation Beth Shalom (Oak Park, Michigan).
During this time he served as President of the Conservative Rabbis of Metropolitan Detroit, President of Michigan Branch of Rabbis, President of the Michigan Region of the Rabbinical Assembly, and Chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Member Committee. He directed the Michigan region’s United Synagogue of America and was an active member of the Detroit Round Table of the National Conference of Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Rabbi David W. Nelson has taught in a wide range of venues, and, following the 2005 publication of his Judaism, Physics and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World, has focused increasingly on issues of science and religion. BA from Wesleyan University, Master' Degree and Rabbinic Ordination from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, PhD from New York University. His rabbinic experience has included five years in a small congregation, fifteen years at CLAL, a think-tank and center for leadership education, five years in a community center, and three years as the primary writer and teacher for the Reform Movement's Israel organization.
Harry Nelson (1908-1964), born in Berwick, Pennsylvania, was a Conservative movement rabbi. Ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he served as rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Bridgeport, Connecticut from 1934 till his death. He was also the secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly.
NeoHasid.org, founded October 2005, was first created by Rabbi David Seidenberg to help folks integrate ḥasidic song, learning, and nusaḥ into their davenning and communities and to explore embodied Torah. It evolved to focus on eco-Torah and to share liturgy that honors our relationship with the Earth and/or expresses gender parity.
Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David is the Director of Shmaya: A Ritual and Educational Mikveh, and the founding director of Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage. She has also written Chanah’s Voice: A Rabbi Wrestles with Gender, Commandment, and the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing, and Brightening (2013, Ben Yehudah Press). In 2006, Rabi Ner-David was was given semicha by Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Strikovsky of Tel-Aviv. In 2000 she wrote a book documenting her journey and aspirations as a female rabbi entitled, Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination. She lives on Kibbutz Ḥannaton in northern Israel with her husband and seven children.
Abraham Neuda (1812, Loštice – 22 February 1854, Loštice) was an Austrian rabbi. He was the son of Rabbi Aaron Neuda of Loštice, and the nephew of Rabbi Jacob Neuda of Lobnig (Lomnice), Moravia. In 1830 he entered the Talmudic school at Mikulov, at whose head was Landesrabbiner Nehemiah Trebitsch. While he was at Mikulov his father died (1834), and the community of Loštice elected Abraham as his successor. Abraham Neuda wrote the following works: Eine Auswahl Gottesdienstlicher Vorträge, Gehalten in der Synagoge zu Loschitz (Vienna, 1845); Die Nächstenliebe im Lichte der Gotteslehre, sermon preached on the first day of Passover, 1847 (ib. 1847); Namen der Talmudisten (in "Orient, Lit." 1845, Nos. 9 et seq.). He left in manuscript: Die Namen der Farben in Bibel und Talmud; Versuch einer Psychologie nach Anschauung des Talmuds; and Eine Gesch. der Juden in Mähren, extracts from which appeared in Neuzeit (Vienna, 1867). He was married to Fanny Schmiedl who recorded several of his prayers in her collection of teḥinot, Stunden der Andacht, published in 1855, and dedicated to his memory.
Rabbi Isaac Neuman (1923-2014), born in Poland, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. A survivor of the Holocaust, he emigrated to the US on 11 April 1950 and studied at Hebrew Union College and the University of Cincinnati, completing his rabbinical degree in 1958. He went on to serve in Panama and throughout South American Jewish communities. worked for social justice reforms, Rabbi Neuman was part of the 1965 civil rights march with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Alabama. In 1974, he came to Sinai Temple (Urbana-Champaign, Illinois). In 2000, he published The Narrow Bridge: Beyond the Holocaust, a memoir of his experiences before and during the Holocaust.
Rabbi Lior Nevo serves as a chaplain at Hebrew SeniorLife, in the Greater Boston Area. She grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, and has a bachelor’s degree in Bible and Jewish Thought from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She got her master’s degree in Pluralistic Jewish Education in a joint program of Hebrew University and Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. In 2015 Lior was ordained as a rabbi at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem.
Ruth Nevo (1924- in Johannesburg, S.A.) Israeli professor of humanities, has been a member of the Israel Academy since 1985.
Louis Israel Newman (December 20, 1893 – March 9, 1972), was an American Reform rabbi, and author. While working in New York City, Newman later became a member of the Zionist Revisionist movement. He worked as a rabbi in San Francisco, Berkeley, New York City, and Waltham, Massachusetts.
Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (b. 1963) is a German Byzantine scholar. Niehoff received his doctorate in 1994 with the dissertation Koine und Diglossie and was then (until 2000) research assistant to the linguist and Romance scholar Wolfgang Raible at the University of Freiburg. He completed his habilitation in 1998 at the Free University of Berlin for Byzantine and Modern Greek philology. In 2004 he was Associate Professor in the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University in Budapest. In 2007 he accepted a professorship for Byzantine Studies at the Free University of Berlin (as the successor to Diether Roderich Reinsch).
Isaac Nieto (1702–1774) (יצחק ניטו) was Ḥakham of the Portuguese congregation Sha'are Hashamayim, Bevis Marks, London, and the son of David Nieto. In 1749 Nieto became Gibraltar's first Rabbi when he travelled to Gibraltar from London and established the Shaar Hashamayim congregation. His prayer-book in two volumes: Orden de las Oraciones de Ros Ashanah y Kipur (London, 1740) and Orden de las Oraciones Cotidianas, Ros Hodes Hanuca y Purim (London 1771) was the basis of all subsequent translations (e.g., those of Isaac Pinto and of Aaron and David de Sola).
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), known professionally as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter.
Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner serves Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation. She was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. After earning a BA and an MA from the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, she moved to New Orleans in 2008. There, she served as an Avodah fellow at Resurrection After Exoneration, an organization founded by death-row exoneree John Thompson (z”l) to help other wrongfully convicted men following their release from prison. While pursuing ordination at Philadelphia’s Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rabbi Ora interned in every area of rabbinic work, including congregations, campuses, adult and youth education, community organizing, and chaplaincy. Rabbi Ora was ordained by RRC in June 2016, and spent the following year working as an oncology chaplain at New Orleans’ East Jefferson General Hospital. Rabbi Ora began her tenure at Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation on September 1, 2017.
Dr. Tzvi Novick is the Abrams Jewish Thought and Culture Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He has an M.A. from Yeshiva University and a Ph.D. from Yale. His research focuses on law and ethics in rabbinic Judaism. He has also written on topics in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism, and on Jewish liturgical poetry (piyyut) from late antiquity.
Nurit Novis-Deutsch is a senior lecturer at the department of Learning, Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Haifa. She is a psychologist of religion, values, morality and identity, and her research focuses on interactions between the personal and cultural domains. Her methods combine qualitative, quantitative and theoretical scholarship. Some of her topics of research and publication include the development of both/and reasoning and its relation to religiosity, domain-related pluralistic thinking, ultra-Orthodox Jews in higher education, contemporary religious subjectivities of young adults globally (the YARG project), God concepts among children and adults, Holocaust memory and education in relation to national social role heritage, and more.
Avi Novis-Deutsch is Dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary. Ordained as a Masorti rabbi by the SRS in 2003, Rabbi Novis-Deutsch also has an MA in Jewish Studies from JTS. He served for nine years as a pulpit rabbi at two Masorti congregations in Israel, most recently, at Haminyan Hamishpachti Masorti Kfar Veradim. Rabbi Novis-Deutsch also worked for two years as a Jewish educator in Berkeley and in the Bay Area, California.
Shlomit Nulman is a special education teacher in Israel. She loves teaching Tanakh to her students and bring the sources to modern life and help bring out enjoyment of these texts, regardless of religion and beliefs. As an educator, she helps to mediate texts and ideas with her students and in general to help all people who want to learn.
David Nunes Carvalho (1784-1860), born and educated in London, England, was a merchant, author, and ḥazzan for the Reformed Society of Israelites in Charleston, South Carolina, the first Reform congregation in the United States. He helped to compile the first Reform prayerbook in English, the fourth oldest Reform prayerbook in the world.
Rabbi Jacob Nunes-Vais (Hebrew: יעקב נוניס ואיס) (1782-1812) was the principal of an Italian Hebrew school school in Livorno. We know very little else besides him, save that he died very young. If you know more, please contact us.
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