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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.
Hayyim Obadyah is retired from a career in nonprofit management (specializing in emergency planning, especially coordination of social services after major disaster) and now spends considerable time as a student of Masoretic Studies, as well as developing liturgy.
Dr. Peter W. Ochs (born 1950) is the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has served since 1997. He is an influential thinker whose interests include Jewish philosophy and theology, modern and postmodern philosophical theology, pragmatism, and semiotics. Ochs coined the term "scriptural reasoning" and is the co-founder (with Anglican theologian David F. Ford) of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, which promotes interfaith dialog among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through scriptural study groups. He is also a co-founder of the Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith study and dialog among members of the Abrahamic religions.
Joesph ben Solomon of Carcassonne was a French liturgical poet of the eleventh century. He wrote a Ḥanukkah yotser beginning "Odeka ki anafta," which is mentioned by Rashi in his commentary on Ezekiel 21:18. Joseph took the material for this yotser from various haggadot, working it over in a payyeṭanic style. It is composed of verses of three lines each, arranged in alphabetical order.
Glikl bat Yehudah Leib of Hameln (Yiddish: גליקל בת ר' יהודה לייב האַמיל; also spelled Glückel or Glüeckel of Hamelin; c. 1646 – September 19, 1724) was a German Jewish businesswoman and diarist. Written in her native tongue of Western (Old) Yiddish over the course of thirty years, her memoirs were originally intended to be an ethical will for her children and future descendants. Glikl's diaries are the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs written by a woman. Her memoirs provide an intimate portrait of German-Jewish life between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and have become an important source for historians, philologists, sociologists, literary critics, and linguists.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (Hebrew: שניאור זלמן מליאדי) (September 4, 1745 – December 15, 1812 O.S. / 18 Elul 5505 - 24 Tevet 5573), was the founder and first Rebbe of the Ḥassidic movement known as ḤaBaD, then based in Liadi, within Imperial Russia. He was the author of many works, and is best known for Shulḥan Arukh HaRav, the Tanya, and his Siddur Torah Or.
Rabbi Meir bar Yitzchak (Nehorai) of Orléans (d. ca. 1095) was a ḥazzan and payyetan in Worms, Germany,
The Office of the Chief Rabbi is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and is the senior rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations. The present incumbent is Ephraim Mirvis who leads the Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR).
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The office was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights.
Daniel Olson is a doctoral candidate in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU, studying disability and inclusion in Jewish education.
Herbert Alan Opalek (1944-2011) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and for much of his life, identified himself as an orthodox rabbi. He received his semikhah around the year 1962. In the early 1970s, he appears to have been a fellow at Dropsie College Philadelphia, studying Christian-Jewish relations in Antiquity. In 1978, Rep. Leo Zeferetti (D-NY) introduced him before the US House of Representatives as a colleague and "executive vice president for Yeshivos Zichron Pinchos for boys and Kesser Malka for girls" in Brooklyn. In 1986, the Washington (DC) Board of Rabbis issued a formal letter about his involvement in a scam. In 1987, he was reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to have been swindling people for apartment rent and event tickets. Around the year 2000, a story is told of his conversion to Christianity, after which he was ordained as a Christian (Baptist) pastor and served as a consultant to Messianic Jewish-Christians. His obituary notes that he was active in the Evangelical Covenant Church of America, and that he was the CEO of Merced County (California) Rescue Mission, the president of the Pacific District of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, and the board president of Rescue Israel Ministries. The obituary also claims that he was the recipient of multiple doctoral degrees (possibly from his time at Dropsie College) and that he served as a consultant to the U.S. House of Representative's Select Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse. In the year following his death, two prayerbooks, both for Messianic Jewish-Christians, were published in his name: Sabbath Delights: A Messianic Shabbat Siddur and Celebrating Yeshua in the Fall Holidays: Messianic Festivals Siddur. (If you can contribute any more details to this short bio, please contact us.)
Jehiel Orenstein (1935 – 2013) was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1961 and received the Lawrence Prager award for outstanding scholarship in medieval Hebrew literature. The Seminary awarded Rabbi Orenstein a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1987. After 3-1/2 decades at Beth El’s pulpit, in 2005 Jehiel Orenstein became Rabbi Emeritus of Beth El. Rabbi Orenstein o-founded the annual South Orange Interfaith Holocaust Remembrance, and serving as president of the Maplewood-South Orange Clergy Association and chaplain of the New Jersey State Police. He was also president of the Rabbinical Assembly of New Jersey.
Aylam Orian is an American actor, who plays the role of Dr. Wilhelm Brücke, the high-ranking Nazi officer, occultist and series main antagonist, in the MGM limited web series Stargate Origins (2018). As a vegan and supporter of animal rights, Orian founded the National Animal Rights Day in Israel and wrote the Declaration of Animal Rights.
Rabbi Samantha Kahn received a BA, cum laude, from the University of Florida, majoring in Political Science and Religion. She earned her Rabbinic Ordination and master's degree in Hebrew Letters and Jewish non-profit management from Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. At the University of Miami's Hillel, she developed programs for Jewish students to engage with Israel. Her background includes student rabbi at Temple Shalom, Yakima, WA, intern at Ronald Regan Medical Center, Los Angeles, and Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills, and Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Emanu El, Houston, TX. With her warm and vibrant manner, she brings a love of all things Jewish to Temple Sinai. Rabbi Kahn and her husband, Matt, have two children, Roey and Stella Mae.
Sarah Osborne is the founder (in 2021) of the organization, A Mitzvah to Eat.
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