Rabbi Abraham Soltes’s “[Prayer] in Spring” is an undated prayer published in his collection of prayers, תפלה Invocation: A Sheaf Of Prayers (Bloch 1959). The earliest prayer in that collection dates to 1950 and we are confident this prayer can be dated between 1949 and 1954.

I have tagged this prayer as problematic, as it leaves ambiguous the subject and object of prejudice and bigotry (“those whose goodness is buried beneath mountains of suspicion, covered by waves of bitterness”). Which “fellowmen” is Soltes referring to when he posits that they have an “ever-present ore of goodness..jewels of lovingkindness…hidden deep in [their] hearts”? I have a sense that Soltes is cryptically referring to the civil rights conflict, but his vagueness makes it difficult to identify his fellowmen as civil rights activists, white racists, or both. Is Soltes sympathizing with fellow whites whose lovingkindness is hidden deep in their hearts, or is he referring to the anger of blacks struggling under American racism? Perhaps Soltes intended his prayer to remain ambiguous for his audience of suburban Jews, a generation of American Jewry enjoying new-found acceptance into white America. Given these ambiguities and Soltes position in New Jersey, it seems likely to me that this prayer was composed as a reflection of the Trenton Six case. (From wikipedia:)

The Trenton Six is the group name for six African-American defendants tried for murder of an elderly white shopkeeper in January 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey. The six young men were convicted in August 1948 by an all-white jury of the murder and sentenced to death.

Their case was taken up as a major civil rights case, because of injustices after their arrests and questions about the trial. The Civil Rights Congress and the NAACP had legal teams that represented three men each in appeals to the State Supreme Court. It found fault with the court’s instruction to the jury, and remanded the case to a lower court for retrial, which took place in 1951. That resulted in a mistrial, requiring a third trial. Four of the defendants were acquitted. Ralph Cooper pleaded guilty, implicating the other five in the crime. Collis English was convicted of murder, but the jury recommended mercy – life in prison rather than execution.

The civil rights groups appealed again to the State Supreme Court, which found fault with the court, and remanded the case to the lower court for retrial of the two defendants who were sentenced to life. One was convicted in 1952 and the other pleaded guilty; both were sentenced to life. Collis English died in late December that year in prison. Ralph Cooper was paroled in 1954 and disappeared from the records.

Source(s)

“[Prayer] in Spring, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

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.)

Avraham Samuel Soltes

Rabbi Avraham Soltes (1917-1983) was a Reform Jewish rabbi, the Jewish chaplain at the United States Military Academy in West Point, an author and a leading figure in Jewish cultural affairs. He was born in New York City. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1937 and received a master's degree from Columbia University in 1938. After being ordained in 1942 by the Jewish Institute of Religion (now HUC-JIR), he served as chaplain at Cornell and McGill Universities and then was assistant rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan from 1946 to 1949. He subsequently served as rabbi at Temple Sharey Tefilo in East Orange and Temple Emanuel in Great Neck. He began his service at West Point as a voluntary chaplain in 1963 and was made a permanent member of the staff in 1981. His interests also took him into commerce, and from 1969 to 1974, he was vice president for community affairs of the Glen Alden Corporation, which in 1972 was merged into the Rapid America Corporation. From 1974 to 1977, he was assistant to the president of Tel Aviv University. He was credited with a key role in the establishment of the New York medical division at the university. In 1981, Rabbi Soltes received the Jabotinsky Award from Prime Minister Menachim Begin for his service to Israel. From 1977 until his death Rabbi Soltes had been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chavairuth of Bergen County, in Tenafly, N.J. He participated in many cultural and educational activities that interpreted Jewish art, music and literature. He was chairman of the National Jewish Music Council from 1963 to 1969 and a member of the board of the National Jewish Book Council from 1967 to 1972. Rabbi Soltes, a commentator on Jewish music for American listeners, was the host of a radio program, ''The Music of Israel,'' on WQXR from 1974-1983. Among his writings were Palestine in Poetry and Song of the Jewish Diaspora (Master's thesis HUC-JIR 1942) and Off The Willows: The Rebirth of Modern Jewish Music (1970).

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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

Works of related interest:

 

[Prayer for] Little League [Baseball], by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)

[Prayer for] Rebirth, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)

[Prayer] in Illness, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)

[Prayer for the] Dedication of a Medical Research Clinic, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)

[Prayer for] Brotherhood Week, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (1951)

Prayer for American Enterprise [at the opening of a Kresge’s department store], by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (1956)

[Prayer before] the Chamber of Commerce and Civics [of the Oranges & Maplewood, New Jersey], a Cold War prayer by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (1950)

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