A Prayer at the Installation of Congregation Officers for the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center, by Rabbi Jacob Bosniak (ca. 1924)

Contributor(s): Jacob Bosniak and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Shared on: 8 April 2023 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Tags: 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., community organizing, Conservative Jewry

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Heavenly Father! We have assembled here to install our newly elected and re-elected officers, to begin another year of work in Thy vineyard. Grant them health of mind and body.
	Heavy is our burden, and great our responsibilities. We are going through a period of growth, a period of transition, adjustment and organization. We implore Thy guidance and protection. Give us wisdom and understanding, so that we may know how to wisely solve our problems.
	Grant us a spirit of Shalom, of peace and harmony. May all discussions at our meetings be tempered by the consciousness that we are all working for Thy cause and not for personal honor and glory.
	Bless our officers and all members of our Congregation with life, health and happiness. Strengthen the hands of our leaders, to carry on the work so gloriously undertaken.
	May we all live to celebrate the dedication of our New Sanctuary. Amen.

“Installation of Congregation Officers” was written by Rabbi Jacob Bosniak sometime before 1924 when the congregation celebrated the breaking of ground in the construction of the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center. The prayer was first published in Rabbi Bosniak’s לקוטי תפלות Liḳutei Tefilot: Pulpit and Public Prayers (1927), pp. 115-116.

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“A Prayer at the Installation of Congregation Officers for the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center, by Rabbi Jacob Bosniak (ca. 1924)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Jacob Bosniak

Yitsḥaḳ Yaakov (Jacob) Bosniak (also Bosnyak, 1887–1963) was an American Conservative rabbi. Bosniak was born in Russia, immigrated to the U.S. in 1903, and completed his rabbinical studies at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshivah, an Orthodox seminary, in 1907. In 1917, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he earned a Doctor of Hebrew Letters in 1933. In 1921, after having served Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas, Texas, he became rabbi of the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center in Brooklyn, n.y., a congregation he was to serve for 28 years. He was president of the Brooklyn Board of Rabbis (1938–40), chairman of the *Rabbinical Assembly's Rabbinic Ethics Committee (1945–48) and a judge (dayyan) and member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Conciliation Board of America. Believing in the need for a uniform prayer book (siddur) with modern English translations, Bosniak published several prayer books that gained wide acceptance in Conservative synagogues. He edited Prayers of Israel (1925, 1937), Likutei Tefilot: Public and Pulpit Prayers (1927) and Anthology of Prayer (1958), prayer books that included English translations of Sabbath and Holiday prayers, English hymns, responsive readings, and instructions related to worship in English. In 1944, he published Interpreting Jewish Life: The Sermons and Addresses of Jacob Bosniak. Upon his retirement in 1949, Bosniak was elected rabbi emeritus and devoted his time to Jewish scholarship, publishing a critical edition of The Commentary of David Kimhi on the Fifth Book of Psalms (1954).

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

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East Midwood Jewish Center building (credit: David Shankbone, license: CC BY-SA)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

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