This is a Hebrew adaptation of the poems traditionally recited by the Beta Israel community for the festival of Sigd, altered and adapted to fit the traditional qedushta form of poetic Amidah additions. The texts of the first few prayers were rewritten substantially and combined with relevant verses so as to fit in the strict form of the magen, mehaye, meshalesh, and El Na. After this, the qiqlar is slightly edited to fit a couplet rhyme scheme, while the silluq (the freest of the genres of qedusha piyyut) is almost entirely preserved — the only change being several verses whose placement is postponed so as to better lead into the qedusha as a silluq should. Regarding translations, the silluq largely uses my original translation with slight alterations (replacing the clunky use of ‘God’ as a pronoun with a gender-neutral THEIR, translating the Agaw passages into Latin rather than English to preserve general comprehensibility while clarifying that this is a different language), while the rest of the poems are different enough for their translation to largely be from scratch. These would be recited with the Ark open for all the piyyutim, as one would on the Yamim Noraim, ideally using melodies from the Sigd liturgy. . . .

Supplemental prayers for the Birkat Hamazon on Tu b’Av. . . .

Supplemental prayers for the Birkat Hamazon on Tisha b’Av, Tu b’Av, and Shabbat Naḥamu. . . .

Exalted are you Lincoln. Who is like you! You were highly respected among Kings and Princes. All that you accomplished you did with a humble spirit. You are singular and cannot be compared to anyone else. Who among the great are like Lincoln? Who can be praised like you? . . .

This is the Aqdamut for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .

This is the Hosha’not for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .

This is the Ne’ilah for Purim (a parody of the last two paragraphs of the Ne’ilah confession) by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Aramaic into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .

This is the Haqafot for Purim by Avraham Menaḥem Mendel Mohr from his Kol Bo l’Purim (1855) transcribed and translated from Hebrew into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .

A piyyut of the 18th century by R. David Ḥassin, one of the greatest composers of Morocco. In this piyyut, dedicated to the city of Tiberias and recounting its praises, we tour Tiberias and the graves of the tannaim and amoraim there, and come to the place of Maimonides’ burial according to tradition. From the dead, the composer moves on to tell the prose of the living – R. Ḥayyim Abulˁafia, who renewed Jewish settlement in Tiberias to where he had moved with his students in the year 5500 [1740], doing much to revitalize the Jewish settlement and build the city, for which R. David Ḥassin praises and blesses him at the conclusion of the poem. This poem was very beloved and merited widespread circulation, and is found in poetry books of many different Mizraḥi communities. This poem has also merited a number of imitations and adaptations, testifying to its great popularity. The most well-known imitation is a poem by the Israeli diaspora-emissary R. Eliyahu Ḥazzan, who arrived at Morocco, came across this song, and composed an imitation, also called “As Every Day I Hope” — except R. Eliyahu Ḥazzan’s song is dedicated to Jerusalem and tours around it. . . .

One of the most prominent martyrs in the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649 was the kabbalist and sage Yəḥiel Mikhel ben Eliezer ha-Kohen, known to posterity as the Martyr of Nemiryv. This unique poetic El Malei Raḥamim was said in his honor, and communities that fast on 20 Sivan still recite it to this day. . . .

This is a variation of Mipi El in Hebrew with a Judeo-Arabic translation found in the Seder al-Tawḥid for Rosh Ḥodesh Nissan, compiled by Mosheh Asher ibn Shmuel in 1887 in Alexandria. . . .

This seliḥah, “Moshel ba-Elyonim Atah Yadata,” was written by Rabbi Mosheh ben Yeshayah Menaḥem Bachrach during an epidemic. It is included in the Seliḥot of Posen, Krakow, Prague, Worms, and Alsace. The text here was transcribed from the Siddur Kol Bo, vol. 3 (1923), p. 33. . . .

This is a Mi Khamokha piyyut by Yisrael Najara for Shabbat Ḥanukkah retelling Megilat Antiokhos in a lengthy fourfold acrostic with each stanza ending in בוֹ. . . .

Ana is a poem for the first commandment, that discusses all that God did for the ancestors. . . .

“Ar’a Raqda,” a piyyut read directly before the Ten Commandments in the Targum, uses wedding imagery and language from the Shir haShirim to paint Sinai as a ḥuppah. . . .

The text of the popular piyyut “Adir Bimlukhah” (a/k/a “Ki lo na’eh”) in Hebrew, with a Latin translation. . . .

This seliḥah poem, written by R. Joseph of Chartres, commemorates the martyrdom of approximately 150 Jews in Clifford’s Tower, York, England, in the year 1190. A summary of the events of 1190, sometimes referred to as “the English Masada,” can be found here. Like many medieval Jewish poems about massacres, Elohim B’alunu carefully treads the line between assuming guilt and declaring innocence. This poem, interestingly enough, directly calls out the person seen by R. Joseph of Chartres as ultimately responsible — the crusader King Richard Ⅰ. Beloved in Christian memory, this radical zealot of a king has a much darker, more horrific reputation among Jewish and Muslim groups. . . .

This meorah, by R. Avraham bar Shmuel of Speyer (the elder brother of R. Yehuda heḤasid and a great scholar in his own right) is recited on Shabbat Naso. This is usually after Shavuot, but sometimes (in 2025, for instance) it is before. This meorah is a poetic interpretation of the Priestly Blessing, and a plea for vengeance against the antisemitic nations. As a meorah, it is recited prior to the final line of the guf and the ḥatima of the Yotser Or blessing. . . .

Some Jewish communities, especially those in the region of the Four Lands, have a custom of fasting on the 20th of Sivan. This day has a full seliḥot service, commemorating a series of horrors that occurred on that day, most prominently the Chmielnicki (Khmielnetsky) massacres of 1648-49. But this poem was written for another horrific occurrence on 20 Sivan, the blood libel of Blois in 1171. This was the first time the accusation of ritual murder was ever made against the Jews of France, but it wasn’t the last. This seliḥah poem, written by Hillel ben Jacob of Bonn, starts with the dramatic accusation that God has abandoned the people Israel, continuing by listing those who died in myriad horrid ways, and ending with several citations from the apocalyptic final chapter of the book of Joel. . . .

The haftarah for the second day of Shavuot, Ḥabakkuk 2:20-3:19, interspersed with a cantillated text of the Targum Yonatan ben Uzziel. Since Targum Yonatan is a bit more drash-heavy than Targum Onkelos, it is translated separately as well. The haftarah reading includes the piyyut Yetsiv Pitgam, with an acrostic rhyming translation of the poem, with the second-to-last verse restored to its rightful place, as well as a concluding paragraph for the meturgeman to recite, as found in the Maḥzor Vitry. . . .