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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.
Nina Paley is an American cartoonist, animator and free culture activist.
Rabbi Dr. David Hirsh Panitz (1918-1991), born in Baltimore, Maryland was a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1943 and awarded a doctor of divinity degree in 1974. He served as rabbi at at Temple Adas Israel in Washington, DC and as associate rabbi at B'nai Jeshrun in New York City before serving at Temple Emanuel in Paterson, New Jersey. For 30 years, he served as Jewish chaplain at St. Joseph's Hospital and was a volunteer at Barnert Memorial Hospital in Paterson. Dr. Panitz was a member of the faculties of George Washington University, American University, Howard University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Active in many Jewish organizations, Rabbi Panitz was former co-chairman of the National Rabbinic Cabinet for State of Israel Bonds, a director of the Jewish Concilation Board of America and a member of the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in America and the Synagogue Council of America.
Jonathan Avram Panitz is a Conservative Jewish rabbi, patient chaplain, and retired Commander Chaplain for the U.S. Navy. He received his ordination from Leo Baeck College in 1975 after which he served congregations in Salisbury, Maryland and Fall River, Massachusetts. In 1980, he became a chaplain for the U.S. Navy. From 1995-1998, he served as the Jewish chaplain for the U.S. Naval Academy.
Rabbi Gordon Papert is a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. After receiving his semikhah from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1972, he served the Kings Park Jewish Center (Kings Park, New York). We unfortunately know little more about Rabbi Papert -- if you can add more details to this bio, please contact us.
Rabbi Dr. Daniel P. Parker (1922-2002) was a political science professor and Reform movement rabbi in the United States. He graduated from Emory University in Atlanta after majoring in political science. During World War II he served with the Army in the Philippines. After his discharge, he earned a masters and, in 1951, a doctoral degree in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He began to study privately with a rabbi while also preparing to become a college professor. For over 30 years he taught political science at the Baruch College of the City University of New York until deciding to become a full-time rabbi. He served at Congregation Temple Zion in Northeast Philadelphia and later Huntingdon Valley from 1962 to the 1990s.
József Patai (1882–1953), poet, scholar, and Zionist leader. In his life and work, József Patai is representative of the first generation of Hungarian Zionist intellectuals. He changed his name from Klein to Patai after his birthplace, Gyöngyöspata, a small village in northern Hungary. Patai’s father was a grocer and Talmudic scholar, a follower first of the rebbe of Belz and then of the rebbe of Satmar. It was this world that Patai depicted in his lyrical social study, his most enduring prose work, A középső kapu (1927; new ed., 1998 [published in English as The Middle Gate; 1994]). (from his article by YIVO)
Rabbi Avraham (Albert) "Abba" Pattashnick (7 Sep 1921 - 28 Nov 1998) was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. He served as rabbi of a congregation in DuBois, Pennsylvania, before becoming the executive vice president of the Talmudical Academy of Pikesville, Maryland. We know very little more about Rabbi Pattashnick or his career. If you know more, please contact us to provide additional details.
Eden "Eprhyme" Pearlstein is a Brooklyn-based Hip Hop Artist, Author and All Around Good Guy. Active in both the Jewish and Secular arts/music world, he collaborates closely with creative organizations such as Shemspeed, The Iyyun Center and K Records. He is 1/2 of Darshan- the musical midrash project that combines the soaring Songwriting of Shir Yaakov and Eprhyme's deep and probing raps.
Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Pádraic Pearse; Gaelic/Irish: Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.
Bradford Kinney Peirce (1819-1889) was a Methodist clergyman, born in Royalton, Windsor County, Vermont. He graduated from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1841, and in 1843 entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was editor of the Sunday-School Messenger and Sunday-School Teacher in Boston in 1844-45, and agent of the American Sunday-school union in 1854-56. His efforts in behalf of public charities led to the establishment of the state industrial school for girls in Lancaster, of which he was superintendent and chaplain from 1856 till 1862. He was chaplain of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, New York, from 1863 till 1872, when he returned to Boston to become editor of Zion's Herald, which post he held until his death. In 1868 he received the degree of D. D. from Wesleyan university, of which he was a trustee from 1870 till 1881. He has also been a trustee of the Boston university since 1874, and of Wellesley College since 1876. His works include Temptation (Boston, 1840); The Eminent Dead (1846); Bible Scholar's Manual (New York, 1.847); Notes on the Acts (1848); Bible Questions (3 vols., 1848); Life in the Woods: Adventures of Audubon (1863); a collection of Hymns and Ritual for the House of Refuge (1864); Trials of an Inventor: Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear (1866); Stories from Life which the Chaplain Told (Boston, 1866) and its Sequel (1867); Hymns of the Higher Life (Boston, 1868), A Half-Century with Juvenile Offenders (1869); Chaplain with the Children (1870) ; and The Young Shetlander and his Home (New York, 1870). He prepared, by order of the Massachusetts legislature, a new annotated edition of the proceedings of the State convention of 1788, which ratified the national constitution (Boston, 1856).
Yitsḥok Leybush Peretz (יצחק־לייבוש פרץ) (May 18, 1852 – 3 April 1915), or I. L. Peretz, was a Yiddish language author and playwright from Poland. Peretz rejected cultural universalism, seeing the world as composed of different nations, each with its own character. Liptzin comments that "Every people is seen by him as a chosen people..."; he saw his role as a Jewish writer to express "Jewish ideals...grounded in Jewish tradition and Jewish history." Unlike many other Maskilim, he greatly respected the Hasidic Jews for their mode of being in the world; at the same time, he understood that there was a need to make allowances for human frailty. His short stories such as "If Not Higher", "The Treasure", and "Beside the Dying" emphasize the importance of sincere piety rather than empty religiosity. (via his article in wikipedia
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman serves New Light Congregation, Pittsburgh.
Jakob Josef Petuchowski (1925, Berlin – 1991, Cincinnati) was an American research professor of Jewish Theology and Liturgy and professor of Judeo-Christian Studies at the Jewish Institute of Religion at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. Petuchowski was brought up as an Orthodox Jew in Berlin and left Germany in May 1939 for Scotland on the Kindertransport. His father, Samuel Meir Sigmund Petuchowski, died in 1928 and his mother was murdered in the Holocaust. Aged just 16, and having had only a year's instruction in English before leaving Berlin, he became a rabbinical student at the Glasgow Rabbinical College. While studying for a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Psychology, which he received from the University of London in 1947, he continued Jewish studies privately, receiving tuition from Rabbis Leo Baeck and Arthur Löwenstamm among others. In 1948 he became a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. He received a master's degree in 1952 and a PhD in 1956. He served as part-time rabbi in Welch, West Virginia between 1949 and 1955 and was full-time rabbi in Washington, Pennsylvania from 1955 to 1956. He returned to teach at Hebrew Union College in 1956. During the academic year 1963-64 he was rabbi and founding director of Judaic Studies at the college's newly established branch in Jerusalem. His works include Ever Since Sinai (1961), Prayerbook Reform in Europe (1968), Understanding Jewish Prayer (1972), Theology and Poetry (1978), Es lehrten unsere Meister (1979) and When Jews and Christians Meet (1986).
David Philipson (August 9, 1862 – June 29, 1949) was an American Reform rabbi, orator, and author. The son of German-Jewish immigrants, he was a member of the first graduating class of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. As an adult, he was one of the leaders of American Reform Judaism and a philanthropic leader in his adopted hometown of Cincinnati. As rabbi at the largest Reform congregation in the center of Reform Jewish life, Philipson had tremendous influence both within Cincinnati and in the whole country. He was very active in the Central Conference of American Rabbis and United American Hebrew Council throughout his life. He co-wrote the Union Prayer Book, the central prayer book for Reform Judaism, and presided over the first few of its re-publishings. He was a member of the translation committee for the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 Bible translation into English. In the early 20th Century, Philipson was most famous for his anti-Zionist beliefs. Believing that "...no man can be a member of two Nationalities", Philipson used his power to counter what he saw as the exclusionary and zealous acts of Zionists. He used HUC's journal of Reform Judaism, The American Israelite, to further his view that Judaism was a religion exclusively, and thus stateless. Shortly after the First Zionist Congress in Basel, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations held its first convention. With Philipson at their head, they issued a statement in 1897 stating that "America is our Zion." (via his article in Wikipedia)
Erin Piateski is a patent examiner who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree from MIT, both in mechanical engineering. Piateski learned Esperanto in 1995 and when she is not working on Esperanto projects, her hobbies include reading science fiction, listening to radio dramas, and international cooking.
Rabbi Ely Emanuel Pilchik (1913-2003) was an American Jewish Reform rabbi, Born in Baranowiz, Poland, he emigrated in 1920 to the United States. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1935, he was ordained by HUC in 1939 and soon joined the faculty of the University of Maryland while serving as assistant rabbi at Har Sinai Temple in Baltimore until 1942. World War II interrupted his appointment as rabbi for Temple Israel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he became a rabbi chaplain for the US Navy. After the war, he became rabbi of temple B'nai Jeshurun on Newark, New Jersey until 1981. Through the 1950s, he served on the Essex County Synagogue Council and the NJ Board of Rabbis, the Association of Reform Rabbis of New York, the executive board of CCAR, and as president of the Jewish Book Council of America. He served on the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR, and from 1977-1979, as president of CCAR. A scholar, he authored a number of books including Hillel (1951), Maimonides' Creed (1952), and Duties of the Heart (1953).
Stephen H. Pinsky, born in New York City, was ordained a “Rabbi in Israel” in 1971 by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by his alma-mater in 1996. Rabbi Pinsky began his rabbinic career as the Assistant and then the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, New York. Five years later, he was named Rabbi of Temple Sinai of Bergen County located in Tenafly, New Jersey. In July 1981, Rabbi Pinsky was invited to become the Associate Rabbi of Temple Israel. He was elected Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel in 1986 and remained in that position until 1991 when he was named Regional Director of the Midwest Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations – now known as the Union for Reform Judaism. During his tenure in Minneapolis, Rabbi Pinsky was part of a national movement dedicated to moving Reform worship toward a more traditional style including a wider use of Hebrew in the liturgy, a greater emphasis on ritual as well as an increase in the depth and breadth of Jewish education for young people and adults. In the larger Minnesota community, Rabbi Pinsky was appointed to a committee by the late Governor Rudy Perpich whose purpose was to establish an institution which would serve the humanitarian needs of its citizens. Along with the Presidents of the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic, the Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Law School and other state notables, Rabbi Pinsky helped establish the Center for the Victims of Torture which he later served as Co-Chair of its Board. One of his most significant accomplishments was helping to develop the Interfaith Circles program which was created to foster Christian Jewish dialogue which is still in use nationwide. While serving as the UAHC Regional Director in St. Louis, Rabbi Pinsky continued his work in community outreach by serving as Vice-President of the St. Louis Chapter of the American Jewish Congress, Secretary of the St. Louis Rabbinic Association and President of the Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis, the largest interfaith organization in Missouri. He also served on the Boards of the St. Louis Jewish Federation and its Jewish Community Relations Council. In July of 1996, Rabbi Stephen H. Pinsky became the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Torah in Wellington, Florida – a Reform congregation serving the western communities of Palm Beach County.
Rabbi Leib Pinter (1944-) was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1971, he founded a small school, the B'nai Torah Institute. In 1972, President Gerald Ford spoke at an annual dinner in support of the school. With the receipt of public funds, the school expanded quickly, and so too, increased scrutiny, beginning with taking public funds for distributing rotten kosher school lunches. On 15 February 1975, he offered the prayer of the guest chaplain before the US House of Representatives. It wasn't five days before the New York Times reported that he and his institute were under three separate federal investigations. By mid-1978 the Institute was defunct and Rabbi Pinter's career was in shambles after pleading guilty to a charge of bribing Representative Daniel J. Flood, himself under investigation at the time by a organized-crime task force of the Justice Department and other agencies. Early in the 2000s, Pinter helped lead an effort into censoring the work of Rabbi Natan Slifkin. In 2008, he was indicted for Wire Fraud Conspiracy after misappropriating refinanced mortgage loans as an executive of Olympia Mortgage Corp. He is the author of Don't Give Up (2004).
Isaac Pinto (1720–1791) was an American Jew in Colonial America who, near the end of his life, served the nascent government of the United States. Pinto prepared the first Jewish prayer-book published in America, which was also the first English translation of the Siddur (1766). A member of Congregation Shearith Israel, he served as one of the first official translators hired by the United States government in 1781 under authorization of the Continental Congress working in the Department of Foreign Affairs, the predecessor to the modern Department of State.
Wolf Gunther Plaut (1 November 1912 – 8 February 2012), born in Münster, Germany, was an American Reform rabbi and scholar based in Canada. Rabbi Plaut served Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto until 1978. His popular Torah commentary is widely established in the Reform movement.
Isaak Pleßner (1800-1830) was a teacher at the Königliche Wilhelms-Schule in Breslau, Prussia.
Salomon Plessner (שלמה בן ליב פלסנר; 1797– 1883) was a German Jewish translator and maggid.
Albert Plotkin (1920 – 2010), born in South Bend, Indiana, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States, serving Temple Beth Israel (Phoenix, Arizona). He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1942 and, in 1948, was ordained at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. After pulpits in Spokane and Seattle, Washington, in 1955 he came to Temple Beth Israel in Phoenix, the first permanent Jewish congregation there since the early 1900s. He championed civil rights, supported the arts, and played a key role in establishing the Jewish Studies Program at Arizona State University (and taught there). For 25 years he volunteered as a chaplain at Phoenix Veterans Hospital. In 1972, the National Conference of Christians and Jews honored him with the National Award for Brotherhood. Following his retirement in 1992, Rabbi Plotkin pursued a professional singing career with the Arizona Opera.
Josh Polak is the proprietor of Guitars of Pikesville; a small family operated shop in Pikesville, Maryland. He has been teaching guitar in the Pikesville area for many years while performing with his daughter Esther whose whistle playing can be heard on the Guitars of Pikesville's Youtube channel.
Rabbi Israel Poleyeff (1928-), born in Brooklyn, New York, is an Orthodox rabbi, chaplain, and educator in the United States. He graduated Yeshivah University in 1949 and received semikhah there in 1951. From 1954-1956, he served at Fort Pickett, Virginia as a rabbi Chaplain in the US Army. Afterward, he served at pulpits in Pennsylvania (Congregation Tifereth Israel, New Castle) and New Jersey (Congregation Agudath Achim, Freehold) until in 1967 he became rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Achim in Brooklyn. While there he was also a teacher at the Hebrew Academy of Five Towns, Cedarhurst, New York until 1999. He served on the Rabbinical Board of Flatbush (president 1979-1981, 1991-2001).
Louis Polisson is a musician, poet, and rabbi, ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2018, where he also earned an MA in Jewish Thought focusing on Kabbalah and Ḥasidut. He currently serves as the Associate Rabbi and Music Director at Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck, New Jersey. He previously served for five years as the solo clergy of Congregation Or Atid in Wayland, Massachusetts. Louis and his wife Gabriella Feingold released an album of original Jewish and nature-based spiritual folk music in November 2018 - listen here.
Rabbi Alex Pollack (1923-1991), born in New York, was an educator and rabbi. He attended the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary and during the 1950s, was principal of Hebrew schools in Syracuse, New York and Paterson, New Jersey. He received his ordination from the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in the early 1960s and served congregations in Stratford, Connecticut, Congregation Emanu-El (in Philadelphia, now Melrose B'nai Israel - Emanu-El), Temple Beth Israel (in Lansdale, Pennsylvania), and, in 1981, Adas Israel Congregation (Washington, DC). In Pennsylvania, he served on the Senatorial Scholarship Committee of Montgomery County, and as chaplain for Congregation Bet Knesset Shel Kalut at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford. (Thank you to Louis Kessler for contributing to this bio. If you have additional details or a photo of Rabbi Pollack you would like to share, please contact us.)
Amatsyah Porat (Hebrew: אמציה פורת) (1932-2023) was an Israeli editor and translator, an adjunct full professor at Bar-Ilan University, and recipient of the Eliezer Ben-Yehuda Prime Minister's Prize for the Hebrew Language for the year 1971.
Rabbi Israel Porath (1886–1974), born in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine, was an Orthodox rabbi and community leader in Ottoman Palestine and the United States. In Erets Yisrael, he studied at the Eẓ Ḥayyim Yeshivah, at Yeshivat Ohel Moshe, and after 1904, under the guideance of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Quq (Kook) in Jaffa. Rabbi Kook said of him that from all of his students he received the most pleasure from Rabbi Porath and Rabbi Jacob Ḥarlap. He received his semikhah from Rabbi Kook as well as from Rabbi Chaim Berlin and Rabbi Jacob David Willowsky (the Slutzker Rav). In 1906 he founded a spiritual center for young Torah scholars called Beit Va'ad le-Ḥakhamim and served as the principal and director of Doresh Ẓiyyon, a school system for Sephardi students. In 1911, he was selected as the Ashkenazi candidate for the position of Chief Rabbi. At the behest of the leadership of the yishuv he was encouraged to learn foreign languages and was sent to Constantinople to secure draft deferments for yeshivah students from the Turkish army. During World War I he was responsible for emergency welfare, food, and clothing in Jerusalem, in conjunction with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He participated in founding many new neighborhoods on the western side of Jerusalem, including Bayit ve-Gan. He left Mandate Palestine in 1922, first for Liverpool, England and then for the United States, to head an office for the Eẓ Ḥayyim Yeshivah, where he was joined by his family (in September 1923). He served as a rabbi at Congregation B'nai Israel in Plainfield, New Jersey, and in 1925 moved to Cleveland to become the rabbi of Congregation Oheb Zedek, where he served for 14 years. He then moved to Congregation Neve Zedek, and in 1945 went to New York to head the Rabbi Israel Salanter Yeshivah. He returned to Cleveland within the year where he was rabbi at the Cleveland Heights Jewish Center. In addition to his serving as one of the founders and chairman of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of Cleveland (Merkaz Harabanim) he was active in the general Jewish community, including the Board of the Jewish Welfare Federation, the Board of Jewish Education, and B'nai B'rith. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland. He was an ardent Zionist and a member of the Mizrachi (Religious Zionists of America); he was honored by numerous Zionist organizations for his work on behalf of the State of Israel, including Bar-Ilan University and the Jewish National Fund. He served as the dean of the Cleveland rabbinate for more than 50 years. He wrote numerous scholarly articles on rabbinic literature. His major contribution was the Mavo ha-Talmud (seven volumes). A street is named for him in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood (Reḥov Harav Yisrael Porath). (Much of this bio is based on this article by Rabbi Porath's grandson, Rabbi Jonathan Porath.)
Rabbi Tzvi Porath (1916-2007) was a Conservative Rabbi in the United States. After receiving smikhah, he serves as U.S. Army chaplain during World War II, and then went on to lead two Conservative shuls in suburban Washington. In 1952, he began serving Ohr Kodesh congregation in Chevy Chase. In 1984, he began serving Congregation Adat Reyim in Springfield, Virginia.
Eugène Edine Pottier (4 October 1816 – 6 November 1887) was a French revolutionary, socialist, poet, freemason and transport worker. Pottier was elected a member of the Paris municipal council - the Paris Commune, in March 1871. Following the Commune's defeat, in June 1871 he wrote the poem L'Internationale, which became the International Workingmen's Association anthem during its last years (1871–1876), and has been used by most socialist and left-wing political internationals since. Music was later written for the song by Pierre De Geyter. Encyclopedia of Mass Persuasion deems the anthem "one of the best-known propaganda songs since La Marseillaise". After writing the poem, Pottier went into exile but later returned to France, dying penniless.
Marcia Prager is a rabbi, artist, liturgist and therapist, living and working in the West Mt. Airy community of Philadelphia. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia where she received Rabbinic ordination and a Master of Hebrew Letters degree in 1989, and a D.Min honoris causa in 2014. In 1990, she also received the personal smicha (rabbinic ordination) of her mentor and teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l, with whom she continued to work closely for over twenty years. In 2010, Rabbi Marcia was selected by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the Top Fifty Female Rabbis.
David Prato (1882–1951) was an Italian rabbi and Jewish leader in the early days of the State of Israel. Born in Leghorn, Prato was chief cantor in Florence, rabbi of Alexandria (Egypt) from 1927 to 1936, and chief rabbi of Rome from 1936 to 1938. Conditions became impossible for him when the Fascist regime began its antisemitic policy, and Prato moved to Erets Yisrael. He resumed his post in Rome in 1945. Prato played a prominent part in the administration of the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod in Italy. In 1929 he founded in Alexandria the French-Hebrew review L'Illustration Juive, which was followed by Cahiers Juifs in 1933. He published a prayerbook, Tefilah l'David (1949) and two collections of sermons, Cinque anni di Rabbinato (1933), and Dal pergamo della Comunità di Roma (1950), covering his activities in Rome.
Abraham Prince (ca. 1810s-?), originally from the Netherlands, was a Boston optician and community leader. In the 1830s, he emigrated to the United States via England. In the 1840s, he was among the first seven trustees of Boston's charter synagogue Ohabei Shalom, and in 1845, served on the three-person founding committee that authored its constitution and by-laws. In 1854, he joined with his colleagues in founding the Hebrew Mutual Relief Society and serving as trustee. After a schism between German and Polish Jews in 1854, he became president of the more traditional (and Polish) Warren Street synagogue from 1856-1857. With the tailor, Henry S. Spier, he formed an ad hoc committee representing the Warren Street and Pleasant Street congregations, which in 1858 commended the British government for granting Jews full emancipation. In 1863, he served as president of Ohabei Shalom and gave an address recounting the 25 year history of the community.
Joachim Prinz (May 10, 1902 – September 30, 1988) was a German-American rabbi who was an outspoken activist against Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and later became a leader in the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s. As a young rabbi in Berlin, he urged Jews in Germany to leave the country amidst the rise of the Nazi Party. The Nazi government expelled Prinz in 1937, and he settled in the United States. In his adopted country, he continued his advocacy for European Jews as a leader in the World Zionist Organization. He saw common cause between the fight against Nazism with the drive for civil rights in America and was one of the founding chairmen of the 1963 March on Washington. During the program, Prinz spoke immediately before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream speech".
Sephardic Pizmonim Project is devoted to the preservation and dissemination of all Sephardic Middle Eastern pizmonim (songs), cantorial and liturgical traditions.
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