This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the twelfth month of the second session of the 81st US House of Representatives, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 96 part 12 (6 December 1950), p. 16206.

A prayer for the United Nations offered by John Golden, New York City Chairman of United Nations Day on the fifth anniversary of the United Nations, 24 October 1950.

In a poignant reflection on human limitation and the role of religion, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) consoled two rabbis each grieving the painful loss of their children. The first letter dated 12 February 1950, drafted in German before its translation into English, was written for Rabbi Robert S. Marcus after the death of the rabbi’s eleven-year-old son, Jay, from polio in September 1949. The second letter, dated 4 March 1950, was written for Rabbi Norman Salit after the death of Salit’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Miriam. Einstein’s letter to Rabbi Salit borrowed from and expanded upon the composition of his letter to Rabbi Marcus. In a few short lines, the letter expresses Einstein’s opinion on the prison-like delusion of consciousness — and the work of “true” religion to escape this prison through the intentional expansion of compassion beyond one’s self.

A prayer for the continuance of “the American way of life” offered during the Cold War (1947-1953) in northern New Jersey.

Source (Hebrew) Contribute a translation בִּרְעָדָה וְיִרְאָה בָאנוּ לְפָנֶיךָ כִּי מִי לֹא יִירָא מֵאֵימָת דִּינֶךָ, בְּגִילָה וְצָהֲלָה נַעֲמוֹד לִפְנֵי כִסֵא מִשְׁפָּטֶךָ, כִּי אַתָּה חַנוּן וְרַחוּם לְכָל דּוֹרְשֶיךָ, טוֹב וְסַלָּח וְרַב חֶסֶד לְכָל קוֹרְאֶיךָ. נַקֵּנוּ יי מִטֻּמְאַת מַחְשְׁבוֹתֵינוּ. טַהֲרֵנוּ וְכַפֵּר פְּשָׁעֵינוּ וְעַווֹנֵינוּ, לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא לָנוּ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבֵּנוּ, וְלֹא נָשׁוּב עוֹד לְכִסְלָה בְרוֹעַ […]

“Dedication of Medical Research Clinic” was first published in Rabbi Avraham Soltes’ collection of prayers, תפלה Invocation: Sheaf of Prayers (Bloch 1959).

The poem, “Psalm of Gratitude” by the Jewish poet and educator, Ben Aronin.

This prayer, initially delivered by Rabbi Joseph Baron as an invocation at the opening of the 12th U.A.W.-C.I.O. Labor Convention in Milwaukee, July 1949, was included in the anthology, The Prayer Book of the Armed Forces (ed. Daniel A. Poling, 1951), pp. 81-82. The prayer was selected for the anthology by Walter P. Reuther (1907-1970), a Lutheran, a leader of organized labor, and a civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history.

This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the fifth month of the second session of the 80th US Senate, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 94 part 5 (19 May 1948), pp. 6051-6052.

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 28 April 1948.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English with its translations in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino.

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 prayer for United Nations Day, the anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.

This “Closing Prayer” for New Year’s Day was adapted by Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn from a prayer first published by unnamed “Members of the Faculty” of the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School (The Colgate-Rochester Divinity School Bulletin, “Prayers for the New Year,” vol. 19 no. 2 (1947), pp. 65-71). Kaplan & Kohn’s adapted prayer essentially contains excerpts from the prayer of the Faculty (excluding any with explicit Christian content). The adapted prayer was published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 25-26. –Aharon Varady

This prayer by Rabbi Dudley Weinberg, National Chaplain of AMVETS after World War II, was included in the anthology, The Prayer Book of the Armed Forces (ed. Daniel A. Poling, 1951), pp. 79-80. The prayer was chosen for publication by the then National Commander of AMVETS, Harold Russell.

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 April 1946.

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.

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 6 June 1945.

A chaplain’s eulogy over the fallen soldiers of Iwo Jima (also known under the title, “The Highest and Purest Democracy”)