Written by future founding father Benjamin Franklin in 1755, “A Parable Against Persecution,” also known as “the 51st Chapter [of Genesis],” is an example of what is often called ‘pseudo-biblicism,’ a trend from the 1740s to the mid-19th century of writing modern events in the already-archaic style of the King James Bible. More strictly, “A Parable Against Persecution” is an example of pseudepigrapha in that it is meant to be read as part of the book of Genesis, telling a story of Abraham facing a non-coreligionist, acting rashly, and learning a lesson about religious tolerance. Already in 1755 we can see Franklin’s radically liberal religious views. . . .

This piyyut, Abunan D’biShmaya (Our Parent in Heaven), the second in a series of Aramaic piyyutim from the seventh day of Pesaḥ, is meant to be recited after the fifth verse of the first aliyah (or second verse of the second aliyah on Shabbat). . . .

‘Ad Ana Bikhya B’Tsiyon, is one of the oldest qinot of the cycle, dating to the period before rhyme schemes were the norm for Hebrew poetry. It describes the heavenly luminaries themselves as sympathizing with and lamenting for Israel. It goes through the entire zodiac, beginning with Ares and ending with Pisces. It is traditional to stand and recite the last few lines aloud before transitioning into the Ḳedusha d’Sidra. . . .

An alphabetic acrostic seliḥah piyyut for Taanit Esther in Hebrew with English translation . . .

There are all sorts of customs associated with weddings in Judaism. But one custom that has been practiced for a long time and deserves a comeback is the additions to the Torah reading for Shabbat Kallah. Shabbat Kallah, the Shabbat in the “Sheva Berakhot” week after the wedding, is in many Sephardic communities preferred over Shabbat Ḥatan, the aufruf Shabbat before the wedding. And in all sorts of communities across the Jewish world, there have been customs for specific readings for Shabbat Kallah, treating it as a Special Sabbath in its own right. Traditionally this special maftir and haftarah would recited by the groom (along with an Aramaic translator interpolating for the maftir). The maftir is from the story of Abraham’s servant tasked with finding a wife for Isaac, and the haftarah is from the book of Isaiah and compares a groom and bride to the relationship between God and Israel. . . .

“Af Oraḥ Mishpatekha” is an ofan, a type of piyyut recited as a part of the Ḳedushah d-Yotzer liturgy as an introduction to Ezekiel 3:12. Specifically, it is an ofan written by the Rokeaḥ, R. El’azar ben R. Yehuda of Worms, for the morning liturgy on Shabbat Ḥazon, the Shabbat before Tishah b’Av. It is here included along with an original translation and with cited verses marked. Also included is a series of images from a 1714 maḥzor printed in Frankfurt au Main that includes the piyyut. To note, the text included above is not exactly the same as that of the 1714 maḥzor, having been edited in accordance with Isaac Meiseles’s 1993 critical edition of the Rokeaḥ’s work. . . .

A Ge’ez translation of the popular Passover seder song, Ḥad Gadya. . . .

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish world, and in many communities it was read in translation. Probably not this one, but who knows? While there’s no known community of Jews who spoke Gothic or any other East Germanic language, there certainly were Jews who came into contact with it, such as the communities of Crimea (where variants of Gothic continued to be spoken until the 18th century). In any case this translation of Ḥad Gadya follows the grammar of Wulfila’s 4th-century Gothic translations. . . .

This pizmon was written by R. Shmuel ben Moshe Ha-Dayan of Aram Ṣoba (ca. 1150-1200) an Aleppine payṭan whose works were almost completely lost before being rediscovered in the Maḥzor Aram Ṣoba. It emphasizes the uneasy juxtaposition of the joy of Simḥat Torah with the tragedy of Moshe’s death. Originally it was probably recited before musaf, but perhaps for those who follow Ashkenazi customs a more appropriate location would be as an introduction to the Yizkor service on Shemini ‘Atseret — which for those who don’t keep second-day yontef is the same day. . . .

The thirtieth chapter of Jeremiah is exceedingly appropriate for Yom ha-Atsma’ut, considering its emphasis on returning from exile and the importance of self-rule. It strikes me as one of the most Zionist (with a capital Z) chapters in the entirety of Neviïm. . . .

When the first day of Ḥanukkah is a Shabbat, the last day of Ḥanukkah is also Shabbat. In most customs this is addressed by using the standard Shabbat Ḥanukkah haftarah from Zechariah on the first day and I Kings 7:40–50 on the last day. But this never sat well with me, since I Kings 7:40–50 (also the haftara for Vayakhel) is a very technical reading, and the last day of Ḥanukkah is more of a culmination. Conveniently, another minor prophet contemporary of Zechariah, Ḥaggai, discusses the reconstruction of the House as a process of national revitalization, *and* claims that the foundation of the temple was rebuilt on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month — i.e. the day before Ḥanukkah! This is historically fascinating since it suggests that Ḥanukkah as a rededication festival might predate the Maccabean Revolt entirely, but more importantly here, it makes it a very appropriate reading for the day before or the first day of Ḥanukkah. This is an alternative haftarah from the book of Ḥaggai , chapter 2 verses 2—23, that could be used as a replacement for the standard haftarah when Shabbat falls on the day before Ḥanukkah or on the first day of Ḥanukkah. When read on the first day of Ḥanukkah, the traditional Ḥanukkah haftarah reading of Zechariah 2:14–4:7 would be postponed to the eighth day in its place. . . .

This is the Kol Nidrei as offered by the Hannover Synagogue on Yom Kippur in 1937 according to the text provided in a poster, “Agende für Kol-nidre und Seelenfeier in der Synaogen-Gemeinde Hannover” (10 September 1937). Thank you to David Selis for providing digital images of the poster. . . .

This piyyut, Amar Oyev (The Enemy Said), the sixth in a series of Aramaic piyyutim from the seventh day of Pesaḥ, is meant to be recited as an introduction to the targum of Exodus 15, verse 9. . . .

The Italian rite, unique among Jewish rites, has preserved up until very recently the custom recorded in the Talmud, Masekhet Tagnanith, for communally declared fast days. In this rite, sometimes referred to as the Twenty-Four Blessings, six more blessings are added to the liturgy — the Zikhronot and Shofrot portions more commonly recited on Rosh haShanah, and four different psalms, all interspaced with a poetic litany on behalf of the ancestors’ merit and shofar blasts. It’s a fascinatng service! . . .

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish world, and in many communities it was read in translation. Probably not this one though, since the earliest evidence of Jews in England dates back to 1070, by which point Middle English was already on its way to development. . . .

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

Jews all over the world announce the new month on the Shabbat before it with a text known as “birkat ha-ḥodesh” or blessing the month. In many rites, such as the Western Sephardic and Moroccan rites, the fast days 17 Tammuz and 10 Tevet are also announced on the Shabbat before them with a text known as “hazkarat tsomot” or announcing fasts. But to my knowledge, only the Italian rite (and possibly the ancient Eretz Yisrael rite from which much of it derives) have a custom of announcing Pesaḥ on the Shabbat before it. This passage, the Announcement of Pesaḥ (Azcaràd Pesah in Italian traditional pronunciation) is recited on the Shabbat before Pesaḥ, commonly known as Shabbat haGadol (Sciabbàd Aggadòl), after the reading from the Torah. Citing the mystical hekhalot literature, it celebrates the sages who established the rules of the calendar. . . .

Many communities have a custom of announcing on the night of 9 Av the years since the destruction of the Temple. The Yemenite rite is unique in that it announces both the years since the destruction of the second, but also the years since the destruction of the first, in this poetic form recited after the conclusion of the evening kinnot. Why? Because the Yemenite community traced its origins back to the destruction of the first temple, claiming not to have returned under Ezra. Here the original Hebrew text is included along with a new translation and a transcription in the Yemenite pronunciation style. . . .

The Apostrophe to Zion is an alphabetical acrostic poem, directed at Zion in the second person. It has been found in multiple locations in Qumran, including the Great Psalms Scroll 11QPsa as well as another fragmentary scroll in 4Q88. It was considered a regular part of their psalmodic canon. . . .

The end of the scroll of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) reconstructed from Cairo Geniza fragments not contained within the Septuagint. . . .

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. . . .

The piyyut read as an introduction to the Decalogue during the Torah reading on Shavuot. . . .

“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 following piyyut seems to have been customarily used in some Babylonian communities as an extensive replacement for the “creator of the vine-fruit” opening of the kiddush. Rav Saadia Gaon forbade it for being an alteration of the talmudic formula, but his successor Rav Hai Gaon permitted it for its cherished status. No communities today have preserved a custom of reciting it, but in 1947 Naphtali Wieder (zçl) published a text he found in the Cairo Geniza, which is replicated and translated below. Daniel Goldschmidt (zçl) suggests that it may be in it of itself a compilation of two different rites. The conjunction point is marked below with a black line. . . .

This piyyut of unknown authorship is certainly ancient, showing the lack of a rhyme scheme characteristic of the REALLY old piyyutim (see also Aleinu or El Adon). It is still found in some Ashkenazi and Teman maḥzorim, with many different mostly minor variants (which have been combined together somewhat eclectically into one text here). It is presented here along with an English translation attempting to preserve the Hebrew acrostic. Originally it was recited before the Ashrei leading into musaf, but perhaps for those who follow Ashkenazi customs a more appropriate location would be as an introduction to the Yizkor service on Shmini ‘Atzeret — which for those who don’t keep second-day yontef is the same day. It could also be adapted as part of the liturgy for the seventh of Adar, although the final verse (the old Western rite berakha for finishing a full Torah cycle) would have to be elided. . . .

Rav Saadia Gaon lists three additions to the Seder Pesaḥ which he considers not necessary, but acceptable. This is the third, a poetic insert of the blessing of redemption known as Ata Ga’alta. In the form of an alphabetical acrostic, this poem is still recited in many eastern communities including the Babylonians, Persians, and Yemenites, and was a feature of the the old Kaifeng rite. Here it is recorded and translated into English according to the nusaḥ of Saadia Gaon, with notes in several locations for additional phrases used in some customs. . . .

An alphabetic acrostic seliḥah piyyut for Taanit Esther in Hebrew with English translation . . .

This Aramaic poem, written in the early Byzantine era by an unknown author, can be found in its entirety within the Targum Sheni for Esther 7:9. It features an argument between an assortment of trees over which one is required to bear the great dishonor of having to be the one to hold Haman. It’s also chock-full of anti-Christian polemic and references to Toledot Yeshu. . . .

A prayer for those martyred in the First Crusade and Rhineland Massacres, and by extension, all subsequent pogroms up until and including the Holocaust. . . .

“Avnei Y’qar” is a succint piyyut for Ḥanukkah, traditionally attributed to R. Abraham ibn Ezra, and particularly beloved by the Yemenites. Interestingly, it doesn’t mention the miracle of the oil whatsoever, focusing on the degradation of the land under Greek occupation as well as the Hasmonean victory itself. Included is a poetic acrostic translation into English. . . .

Adir Hu, a classic Pesaḥ song if ever there was one, is a part of Seder tables all over the planet. Its alphabetical list of God’s attributes, combined with its repeated pleas for a return to Jerusalem, make it a classic, to the point where the traditional German farewell greeting for Passover was not “chag sameach” or “gut yontef” but “bau gut” – build well. This interpretation, while not a direct translation by any means, has the same rhythmic pattern and alphabetical structure, giving a sense of the greatness of God. . . .

An original Ladino adaptation of the song “Oy Khanike” (derived from the Yiddish poem of the same name by Mordkhe Rivesman) also known in English as “Oh Chanukah” or in Hebrew as “Y’mei ha-Ḥanukka.” I’m aware that the custom of spinning tops was not originally a Sefaradi one. So sue me, I was looking for something to rhyme with “libertaḏ.” I’ve included the Rashi script, the Aki Yerushalaim orthography, and (as an added bonus) the Cyrillic transcription used by the Jews of the Balkans. . . .

In North Africa, a unique custom developed of reciting a Mi Khamokha v-Ein Kamokha piyyut, inspired by the famed Shabbat Zakhor work of Yehuda haLevi, on the Shabbat before a local Purim (a celebration of community’s deliverance from destruction). This piyyut, written by R. Avraham ben Rafael Khalfon, was recited on the Shabbat before 29 Tevet in the community of Tripoli, to celebrate the victory of the Karamanlid dynasty over the despotic usurper Ali Burghul (after events transpiring from 1793-1804). . . .

The works of the great paytan Yannai were, with the exception of a small handful of poems, almost completely lost until their rediscovery in the Cairo Geniza. This poem, an acrostic comparison of the days of Moses and Jeremiah, was written by Yannai to serve as part of the Musaf Ḳedushah on the first Shabbat after 17 Tammuz, on which the opening section of Jeremiah is recited. It bears structural and linguistic similarities to the later famous ḳinah Esh Tuqad. In its liturgical context, it was intended to introduce the final few verses of the Ḳedushah . Nowadays the custom of poetic inserts into the ḳedushah is nearly extinct, but the poem stands as a moving and powerful work nonetheless. . . .

This Western Yiddish alphabetical adaptation of Adir Hu is first found in the 1769 Selig Haggadah, under the name of “Baugesang” (meaning Building Song). It grew to be a beloved part of the Western Ashkenazi rite, to the point where the traditional German Jewish greeting after the Seder was “Bau gut,” or “build well!” . . .

The story of Bel and the Dragon according to the text of Theodotion, translated into biblical Hebrew. . . .

A reverse alphabetic acrostic seliḥah piyyut for Taanit Esther in Hebrew with English translation . . .

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

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

This is a reconstruction of a liturgy for a Birkat haMazon for Ḥanukkah witnessed in multiple Cairo Geniza manuscripts, including Cambridge, CUL: T-S H4.13; T-S H6.37; T-S 8H10.14; T-S NS 328.56; T-S NS 328.61; T-S AS 101.293; New York, JTS: ENA 2885.7; Oxford: MS heb. e.71/27 – MS heb. e.71/32; St. Peterburg: Yevr. III B 135. . . .

This is a reconstruction of a liturgy for a Birkat haMazon for Purim witnessed in the Cairo Geniza fragment T-S H6.37 (page 1, recto and verso)‬. . . .

A Birkat haMazon for Shavuot presenting an alphabetic acrostic from a manuscript preserved in the Cairo Geniza. . . .

A poetic Birkat haMazon text for the breakfast after Yom Kippur found in British Library MS Or. 9772 D. All the opening words of the alphabetical acrostic are from Psalms 111. . . .

The third reading for the Sigd festival, Blessings and Curses on the Mountains (Deuteronomy 27). . . .

A Ladino translation of Brikh Shmei d’Marei Alma. . . .

Daniel’s battle with the Dragon, one of the apocryphal Additions to Daniel, is affixed to the end of the book in the Septuagint. The editor has here included a new vocalized and cantillated edition of the Aramaic text preserved in the 12th century Divrei Yeraḥmiel (Oxford Bodleian Heb d.11 transcribed by Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster). The language of this passage is an odd synthesis of Targumic, pseudo-Biblical Aramaic, and even some Syriac forms, so the editor’s vocalization is aiming for a happy medium of all the possibilities. (In several locations Divrei Yeraḥmiel uses incorrect Hebrew-specific forms, probably due to scribal error. These are here marked as a qere-ketiv split.) . . .

An original Hebrew translation of the blues-rock portion of the Agnus Dei movement from Leonard Bernstein’s MASS (note: always spelled with ALL CAPS), where the crowd of disaffected and disillusioned young parishioners interrupts the offertory to demand peace now, and hold God to account for not giving it to us. It’s unsurprising that for a composer as proudly and openly Jewish as Bernstein that even his setting of the Tridentine Mass has major “shaking your fist at God” energy. Not gonna lie, I was listening to this on a plane out of Jerusalem as the war was starting, and I started to tear up. I immediately started writing this translation and finished it up in the process of about an hour while stuck somewhere a few thousand feet above Greenland. It’s amazing and moving and tragic and enraging and a little full of itself in exactly the right way to hit me in the heart. . . .

The mantra-like piyyut “Ēin k-Ēlohēinu,” a praise of God’s attributes and uniqueness featuring incremental repetition, is found in siddurim as far back as the siddur of Rav Amram, and may date back to the Hekhalot literature. Many versions of it have been compiled in different languages, most famously Flory Jagoda (zç”l)’s Judezmo variant “Non como muestro Dyo.” Here the editor has compiled traditional Yiddish and Ladino translations, as well as developed new Aramaic and Arabic translations for this piyyut. The post-piyyut verses used in both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic rites have been included. . . .

Ḥad Gadya has a place in Seder tables throughout the Jewish world, and in many communities it was read in translation. Probably not this one though, since there is very little evidence of any Jews having lived in the Nordic countries before the Spanish expulsion, long after the end of the Old Norse era. . . .

In Yemenite Jewish children’s schools, this prayer of unknown authorship is said before the lesson in unison. The teacher conducts and the children sing together to a melody. The prayer is printed in tajjim (Yemenite trilingual Pentateuch codices) before the book of Leviticus, traditionally the starting point for a child’s education. The first twenty-two lines of the prayer are an alphabetical acrostic wherein each line spells out the entire letter in which it starts. For instance, the first line spells out Alef, Lamed, and Pe, which spells out the full name of the letter Alef. This is followed by three Biblical verses all starting with the word “Good,” a brief poem in Hebrew, and a concluding passage largely in Judeo-Arabic. Here the editor has included the original text, along with a non-gendered English translation and a transcription of the Judeo-Arabic text into Arabic script. . . .