Resources using Hebrew (Ktav Ashuri) script← Back to Languages & Scripts Index A prayer book ( maḥzor ) for the Jewish penitential holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, translated and arranged by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser (1907-1984). . . . A trans-denominational prayer book compiled for the use of United States personnel in the Armed Services. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah (“Sephardic-Ḥasidic”). . . . Ben Zion Bokser’s popular mid-20th century modern prayerbook for Conservative American Jewry. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for Yom Kippur (“Sephardic-Ḥasidic”) from the mid- 20th century. . . . The prayer for peace and prayer for the government of the Choral Synagogue in Moscow in 1956. . . . This manual has been devised for the express purpose of giving the Rabbi, or anyone officiating at a Jewish ceremonial or ritual, a concise and practical aid that will facilitate the task of officiating , and will obviate the necessity of resorting to the voluminous literature pertaining thereto. . . . The mi sheberakh for the IDF composed by Rabbi Shlomo Goren in the context of the Suez Crisis and Israel-Egypt conflict of 1956. . . . This “Prayer for the Success of the Four-Power Conference at Geneva, Switzerland (18 July 1955)” was composed in 1955 by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (of the United Hebrew Congregations of the UK and the Commonwealth) for the success of a meeting of the “Big Four” (President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France), ostensibly to promote international trade, but hopefully as well, to reduce international tensions and make some progress towards ending the Cold War. . . . The popular Israeli song from the 1950s. . . . Prayer of Thanksgiving on the Occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to Be Recited on Sabbath 22nd May 1954 / 19th Iyyar 5714 after the Prayer of the Queen and the Royal Family (London: 1954, Office of the Chief Rabbi) . . . This translation of Rabbi Yehuda Lev Ashlag’s Supplicatory blessings for the Amida was originally published by Adam Zagoria-Moffet at his website. Rav Ashlag’s blessings were transcribed and published from an undated manuscript transcribed by Ohr HaSulam: Mercaz Moreshet Bal HaSulam, here. . . . A Friday and pilgrimage festival night siddur, translated with a unique transliteration schema devised by Rabbi Max D. (Meir David) Klein of Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia, 1954. . . . A bentsher containing the musical notes to a popular tune for the birkat hamazon. . . . The service in 1953 by the S&P Synagogue (Bevis Marks, London) in celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth. . . . A haggadah for the Passover Seder by Paltiel Birnbaum for the Hebrew Publishing Company. . . . This is the prayer offered at the “Memorial Service on Friday, 15th February, 1952 (Eve of Sabbath, 19th Shebat, 5712) at the New West End Synagogue (London, W. 2) for His Late Majesty King George (VI)” as given by the Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth (officiated by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld and Rabbi Dr. A. Altmann, M.A. [Joint Deputies for the Chief Rabbi], the Rev. Ephraim Levine, M.A., the Rev. R.H. Levy, M.A.). Many thanks to Jeffrey Maynard for providing the page images of the service containing this prayer at his blog, Jewish Miscellanies. . . . This untitled prayer written by Isaac Bashevis Singer on the back of a receipt (dated 1 March 1952) was discovered by David Stromberg in 2014 in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, and published online by Tablet (1, 2) with permission of the Susan Schulman Literary Agency. . . . A bilingual Yiddish-English anthology of teḥinot containing 21 prayers compiled and translated by Rabbi Solomon Rubinstein soon after . . . A seder seliḥot (a penitential prayer service) for the first day of seliḥot, in the week prior to Rosh ha-Shanah, as prepared and translated by Philip Paltiel Birnbaum and published by Hebrew Publishing Co., in 1952. . . . In our continuing effort to expose the foundations of Open Source Judaism in Jewish source texts, we have made a transcription of Rabbi Ally Ehrman’s shiur (lesson) explaining Rabbi Yitsḥoq Hutner’s ראש השנה מאמר ב “Rosh Hashana Ma’amar 2” (circa 1950s) published in Paḥad Yitsḥoq, (a compendium of Rabbi Hutner’s teachings from the 1950s until his death in 1983). The ma’amar is an explication of the verse in Proverbs and familiar to anyone that sings Eyshet Ḥayil before the Sabbath evening meal, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and a loving-kind Torah is on her tongue,” (Proverbs 31:26). The ma’amar weaves ideas by the Maharal from Gevurot Hashem (6:4) commenting on the gemarah in Talmud Bavli Sukkah 49b that the meaning of Torat Ḥesed (loving-kind torah) is a torah learned with the intention of being retransmitted. Via the MaHaRaL, Rabbi Hutner teaches that this effort in giving is an act of loving-kindness whereby a new work is made freely and shared completely without any diminution of the source, the giver, or the recipient. . . . סידור שלם לכל תפלות השבת Volledige Sidoer vir die Sabbat (1952) was prepared by Rabbi Dr. Moses Romm (1897-1976) and presents the first ever translation of Jewish liturgy into Afrikaans (as far as we know). . . . A prayer offered for parents praying for the safety and welfare of their adult children entering the armed forces. . . . A prayer for intellectual honesty before study. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English prayerbook for Shabbat, Festivals, and Weekdays, prepared in 1951 by Rabbi Max D. Klein for his congregation Adath Jeshurun, a Conservative synagogue in Philadelphia. . . . The first nusaḥ ha-ARI z”l (“Sefardic-Ḥassidic”) prayerbook with a relatively complete English translation, published in 1951 by the Hebrew Publishing Company. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Ashkenaz). . . . A prayer for the government for the royal family of the Netherlands and the city council of Amsterdam copied in the late 19th and mid-20th century from earlier sources. . . . Did you know that the great songwriter and activist Woody Guthrie wrote Ḥanukkah music? It’s true. Though Guthrie himself was not Jewish, Marjorie Greenblatt, his second wife and their children were, and he would write Ḥanukkah songs for the kids in his neighborhood in the 1940s. Two of these songs were recorded by Moses Asch, head of Folkways Records, in 1949 — a kid’s song called “Hanuka Dance,” and a twenty-verse ballad retelling the story of Ḥanukkah called “The Many and the Few.” Below is an original Hebrew translation of “The Many and the Few,” preserving the meter of the original. With a simple melody and a lot of historical research, it could certainly be sung at a Ḥanukkah event. . . . The first edition of the Daily Prayerbook, Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem, compiled and translated by Paltiel Birnbaum (Hebrew Publishing Co. 1949). . . . Paltiel (Philip) Birnbaum’s translation of The Song of Songs (Shir haShirim) in Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem (The [Complete] Daily Prayer Book), Hebrew Publishing Company, 1949. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-Italian prayerbook compiled by the chief Rabbi of Rome according to the Nusaḥ Italḳi. . . . Jews have read sacred texts to commemorate miracles of redemption for a long time. Purim has Megilat Esther. Many communities read Megilat Antiochus or Megilat Yehudit for Ḥanukkah. But to many modern Jews, the most miraculous redemption in recent history was the founding of the state of Israel, as we commemorate on Yom ha-Atsma’ut. Like Purim, the story of the founding of Israel was entirely secular on a surface level, with no big showy miracles like a sea splitting or a mountain aflame. Like Ḥanukkah, a Jewish state in the Land of Israel won its independence against mighty forces allied in opposition. But we don’t have a megillah to read for Yom ha-Atsma’ut. Or do we? Just as Megillat Esther is said to be a letter written by Mordekhai to raise awareness of the events of Shushan, so too does the Israeli Scroll of Independence, Megilat ha-Atsma’ut, raise awareness of the events of the founding of the State of Israel. In this vein, I decided to create a cantillation system for Megilat ha-Atsma’ut. Ta’amei miqra were chosen attempting to follow Masoretic grammatical rules – since modern Hebrew has a different grammatical structure, the form is somewhat loose. Because of the thematic similarities to Purim, I chose Esther cantillation for the majority of the text. Just as some tragic lines in Esther are read in Eikhah cantillation, some lines regarding the Shoah or bearing grim portents for the wars to follow are to be sung in Eikhah cantillation. And the final phrases of chapters II and III are to be sung in the melody for the end of a book of the Ḥumash, or the Song of the Sea melody. They can be done in a call-and-response form, with the community reading and the reader repeating. . . . The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English with its translations in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino. . . . In September 1948, while editing Rabbi Yitshak haLevi Hertzog’s new Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel, S.Y. Agnon (1888-1970) drafted this adaptation. . . . The Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel was composed by Rabbi Yitsḥak haLevi Hertzog, edited by S.Y. Agnon, and first published in the newspaper Ha-Tsofeh on 20 September 1948. . . . A paraliturgical adaptation of the prayer/curse, “Shfokh Ḥamatekha,” this prayer, likely written during, or just after the Holocaust, recognizes those nations and righteous gentiles who fought and risked their lives to aid and rescue European Jewry. . . . A bilingual Hebrew-English maḥzor for the festivals of Pesaḥ, Shavuot, and Sukkot (with Shmini Atseret and Simḥat Torah) in the Sepharadic tradition compiled by David de Sola Pool in 1947. . . . The Rabbinical Assembly of America’s popular mid-20th century modern prayerbook for Conservative American Jewry based upon the work of Rabbi Morris Silverman. . . . This is an undated El Malé Raḥamim prayer for the victims of the Shoah translated into Dutch for a Yom Kippur ne’ilah service, likely sometime soon after the Holocaust had ended. To this I have added an English translation for those not fluent in Dutch or Hebrew. We are grateful to Shufra Judaica (Ellie Fisher and David Selis) for sharing a digital copy of this prayer. . . . “Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 433-4 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . The Preamble (followed by the first article of the first chapter) of the Charter of the United Nations from 1945 translated into Hebrew by the State of Israel in 1949. . . . “God the Life of Nature” by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan was first published in his Sabbath Prayer Book (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1945), p. 382-391, where it appears side-by-side with its translation into Hebrew by Abraham Regelson. . . . “Where We Can Find God,” a prayer-poem inspired by passages appearing in David Frishman’s Hebrew translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. . . . A service and prayer for Memorial Day in the United States, containing a variation of El Malé Raḥamim, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. . . . “That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 435-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . . “Salvation through Labor,” adapted by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan from the writings of Aaron David Gordon, can be found on p. 548-551 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). The translation was attributed in the Sabbath Prayer Book to its editors (Mordecai Kaplan & Eugene Kohn, assisted by Ira Eisenstein and Milton Steinberg). . . . A prayer-poem by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan based on the writings of Rabbi Leo Baeck, as published in the Sabbath Prayer Book (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1945), p.426-7. . . . “Prayer in behalf of one celebrating a birthday,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 494-497 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945) . . . |