This prayer by Rabbi Arnold Kiss for when one is confronted by grave difficulties, “Bajban,” was first published in his anthology of prayers for Jewish women, Mirjam (1897) on p.285-286

This prayer for the well-being of children by Rabbi Arnold Kiss, “Gyermekek üdvéért” (Magyar, 1897) and “Gebet für das Heil des Kindes” (German, 1907), was first published in his anthology of prayers for Jewish women, Mirjam on p.291-293 of the original Magyar edition and p. 546-549 of the subsequent German edition. I’ve set separate English translations side-by-side with the Magyar and German in order to highlight the subtle differences between the two. As I am not a native speaker of German or Magyar, please correct and improve upon my effort. –Aharon Varady

This prayer by Rabbi Arnold Kiss for the well-being of a husband by their wife, “A nő imája férjéért,” was first published in his anthology of prayers for Jewish women, Mirjam (1897) on p.246-248. It doesn’t appear to me to have been translated in the subsequent German edition (1907). I’ve set my English translation side-by-side with the Magyar. –Aharon Varady

This prayer by Rabbi Arnold Kiss for the well-being of a husband by their wife, “A nő imája férjéért,” was first published in his anthology of prayers for Jewish women, Mirjam (1897) on p.246-248. It doesn’t appear to me to have been translated in the subsequent German edition (1907). I’ve set my English translation side-by-side with the Magyar. –Aharon Varady

This prayer by Rabbi Arnold Kiss for the kingdom of Hungary in a time of national crisis, “Országos bánat, közös baj idején,” was first published in his anthology of prayers for Jewish women, Mirjam (1897) on p.289-291.

“Morning Song [splendor of the morning sunlight]” is a hymn by Felix Adler, published in The Sabbath School Hymnal, a collection of songs, services and responses for Jewish Sabbath schools, and homes (4th rev. ed., 1897), hymn no. 23.

The first edition of the Union Hymnal by the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

On 13 May 18967, Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurkar offered this prayer in Hebrew with translations in Marathi and English, on behalf of the congregation of the Gates of Prayer Synagogue (Bombay/Mumbai), for the 100th anniversary of the synagogue’s founding in 1796.

A collection of prayers in Magyar for Jewish women composed by the rabbi of Veszprém, later, the chief rabbi of Buda.

On 20 June 1897, Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurkar offered this civic prayer in Hebrew with translations in Marathi and English, on behalf of the congregation of the Gates of Prayer Synagogue (Bombay/Mumbai), for the 50th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria over the British Empire.

A desperate plea offered during the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1896.

This tkhine offers a formula for providing relief to a very ill person, and as such, should only be used as a supplement to recommendations provided by an expert physician or nurse. The source of the tkhine is Tkhine of a Highly Respected Woman, Budapest, 1896; and transcribed from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992.

The invocation offered at the opening of the Republican National Convention in St. Louis in 1896.

This is the opening prayer to the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 3-4, reprinted with different page numbers in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission.

This is the Ḳiddush the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 4-5. The prayer does not appear in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission.

Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover, first published in 1896, was the novel seder liturgy of Rabbi Dr. J. Leonard Levy (1865-1917). It went through six editions during his lifetime, with a seventh posthumous reprint of the sixth edition published in 1922. There were major revisions to the second edition, and more minor adjustments subsequently. Here are the first three editions and the seventh edition, all courtesy of Dr. Ruth Langer.

This is a concluding prayer in the Hallel service at the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 32-34. The prayer does not appear in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission.

This is the closing prayer by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896), reprinted in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission.

This is Rabbi Emil Hirsch’s 1896 translation and adaption of Rabbi David Einhorn’s original German volumes of עלת תמיד Olath Tamid. (This edition followed after the first English translation that was published in 1872.) Besides his adapted translation, Hirsch also introduced a number of other changes which he summarized in his preface.

“Friday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 15-16.

“Thursday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 14-15.

“Wednesday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 13-14.

“Monday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 10-11.

“Tuesday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 12-13.

“Sunday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 10-11.

“Meditation on the Sabbath” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 18-19.

“Sabbath Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 19-20.

“A Prayer for the Sabbath Eve” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), page 17.

“Night Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 9-10.

“Morning Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 7-8.

For aspiring ba’al qoreh (readers) of Megillat Esther studying its various styles of cantillation (Hebrew, ta’amei hamiqra or in Yiddish, טראָפּ trōp), a fair number of recordings are popping up online, but only one so far is being shared with a free/libre, copyleft license thanks to Gabriel Seed, lead developer of zemirotdatabase.org. The audio file is free to redistribute and remix under the CC BY-SA license. We’re honored to share Gabriel’s recording of a zarqa table for Megillat Esther read in the Nusaḥ Ashkenaz style.

“Prayer of Thanksgiving” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 6-7. This prayer reads to me as possibly intended to be used as a prayer of transition, before the tradition of the bat mitsvah was universally adopted, at a time when a young woman might be old enough to begin contemplating their future, their marriage prospects, and their general “usefulness” — especially in regards to their future work — the overarching theme of this collection of prayers. This affirmation in particular stands out to me as radically important for Lilian Montagu and other young suffragettes to express in 1895: “Lord, whether in the future I marry or whether I remain single, I shall be able to lead a useful, happy life” and “Lord, I thank Thee for my womanhood!”

“On Becoming Engaged” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 30-31.

“Meditation on Work” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 5-6.

“Prayer when in Trouble” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 28-29.

“Prayer for a Dear Relation or Friend Who is Ill” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 26-27.

“Prayer for a Dear Relation or Friend Who is Ill” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 26-27.

“On Recovering from Sickness” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), page 26.

“In Sickness” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), page 25.

“A Prayer for Girls entering Domestic Service” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), page 24.

“On Ending Apprenticeship and Beginning Paid Work” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 22-23.

On Tisha be’Av, Jewish communities all over the world add a paragraph called Tefilat Naḥem (the prayer of comfort) to the standard daily Amidah (either for the afternoon service or for all services) praying for a return to Jerusalem. The traditional text discusses Jerusalem being defiled, in the hands of the idol worshipers, putting our people to the sword. But post-1967, Jerusalem has been under Israeli control, and this text has, to many people, felt no longer appropriate in the face of a Jerusalem being rebuilt. Many have written their own versions of a new Tefilat Naḥem for a Jerusalem under Israeli control, but I have felt dissatisfied with a lot of these. Some treat Jerusalem as already fully redeemed, which any glance at the news tells you isn’t the case. Others treat the major step in redeeming Jerusalem as building the Temple, but this seems to me to be only one eschatological part of a larger hope for Jerusalem. Jews have often considered the peace of Jerusalem to be a microcosm of the peace of all the earth. Thus for the Shabbat and Yom Tov Hashkivenu we pray for God to “spread the shelter of peace over us, all Israel, and Jerusalem.” The name Jerusalem, ירושלים, has been analyzed as “they will see peace” יראו שלום, since the peace of Jerusalem means all will see peace. But it’s clear that the peace of Jerusalem is not final or eternal, and it remains a city on the edge of a knife. So my version of Tefilat Naḥem prays not for a return, nor for a Temple, but for the peace of Jerusalem. It can be used at the same time as the standard Tefilat Naḥem (as an extension of the Birkat Yerushalayim in the Shmoneh Esreh for Tisha b’Av) or on its own. Thus I used four asterisks (a tetrapuncta) instead of God’s name, for those who would prefer to avoid a b’rakhah levatalah. Those who would prefer to use this blessing in the Amidah itself could replace the tetrapuncta with the name itself.

“Birthday Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 29-30.

“On Leaving School and Beginning Apprenticeship” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 21-22.

“Prayer for those who are unavoidably prevented from keeping the Sabbath” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 20-21.

“[Prayer] for the Persecuted” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 31-32.

“America the Beautiful,” the patriotic hymn (1911 version) by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) in its Yiddish translation by Berl Lapin (1889-1952).

A prayer for the government composed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis and included in their Union Prayer Book.

Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895) is a collection of prayers in vernacular English by Lilian Helen Montagu (1873-1963). The prayerbook was dedicated to the members of the West Central Girls’ Club, founded in 1893 by Lilian and co-led by her and her sister Marian Montagu.

The first edition of the Union Prayer Book (part one), the official prayerbook of the Reform Movement in the United States of America until its revision.