[Children’s] Prayer for Ḥanukkah, by Lilian Helen Montagu (5 December 1942)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Lilian Helen Montagu

Shared on:

26 August 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Ḥanukkah

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., British Jewry, children's prayers, English vernacular prayer, World War Ⅱ, the Holocaust

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Our Father, On this festival, we remember with gratitude the heroes of the past, and we give thanks also for the brave men and women of today. Our Father, do Thou let us also serve Thee according to the measure of our strength.
	We would try to keep pure and holy the faith for which our fathers struggled and suffered, and through which they triumphed. We know that in some lands people are made to suffer terribly, and even little children are not allowed to be happy. Show us how when we are old enough, we may be of some little use in making the world a little more loving and more just. Let us begin at once to prepare by being gentler and kinder to everybody we meet.
	It is sometimes difficult, O Lord, to fight against wrongdoing, to speak the whole truth, to be industrious and earnest in our work, and unselfish and good tempered in our play. Again and again, we try, and again and again we make mistakes. Help us to be faithful, loving and forgiving, and to do what is right even when the right path seems for the moment difficult and uncomfortable.
	Give us courage, O Lord, to bear sickness, sorrow and pain whenever they may come to us, courage to try faithfully and hopefully to seek peace and joy for those who are unhappy, to remember Thee at all times, and to call upon Thy name.
	Amen.

This “Prayer for Chanukah” (5 December 1942) by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), p. 352-353.

Source(s)

Lily Montagu, sermons, addresses, letters, and prayers – Religious Leader – p. 352

Lily Montagu, sermons, addresses, letters, and prayers – Religious Leader – p. 353

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“[Children’s] Prayer for Ḥanukkah, by Lilian Helen Montagu (5 December 1942)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft 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.)

Lilian Helen Montagu

The Hon. Lilian Helen "Lily" Montagu, CBE (22 December 1873 – 22 January 1963) was the first woman to play a major role in Progressive Judaism. Until the age of 15, she was educated at Doreck College, and privately educated thereafter. In 1893 she founded with Emily Marion Harris the West Central Jewish Girls Club (which subsequently merged into the Jewish Girls' Brigade). She was active in social improvement, particularly in respect to unemployment, sweat shops and bad housing. In 1901 and 1902, Montagu laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Jewish Religious Union in London. In February 1902 she arranged the first meeting of the Jewish Religious Union for the Advancement of Liberal Judaism at her sister Henrietta Franklin's house. The Union set up the first synagogue in Liberal Judaism in the UK and helped found the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Montagu was a founding member with her sister of the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage. She sat on the executive committee and led the meetings in prayer. Following the retirement of Leo Baeck, Montagu served for a brief stint (1955–1959) in her 80s as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, before handing the reins over to Solomon Freehof.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=46388

Associated Image:

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in category lists and in shared links on social media.)

This post, editable: XML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Lilian Helen Montagu.
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=46388>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Note: The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

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