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. . . .

When the spring (Aviv) season arrives, a blessing is traditionally said when one is in view of at least two flowering fruit trees. In the northern hemisphere, it can be said anytime through the end of the month of Nissan (though it can still be said in Iyar). For those who live in the southern hemisphere, the blessing can be said during the month of Tishrei. . . .

A prayer for a beloved animal first compiled in English by Aharon N. Varady for Nethaniel Puzael, his family’s cat, in 1994. . . .

A declaration in 1993 by Rabbi Arthur Waskow in response to the impending danger of global warming and other ecotastrophes brought about by the callous harm of human industry and land use decisions. Translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. . . .

Variations of the original three lines culminating with “…walk beside me…” first appear in high school yearbooks beginning in 1970. The earliest recorded mention we could find was in The Northern Light, the 1970 yearbook of North Attleboro High School, Massachusetts. In the Jewish world of the early to mid-1970s, a young Moshe Tanenbaum began transmitting the lines at Jewish summer camps. In 1979, as Uncle Moishy, Tanenbaum published a recording of the song under the title “v’Ohavta” (track A4 on The Adventures of Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men, volume 2). . . .

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. . . .

Did you know that the great songwriter and activist Woody Guthrie wrote Ḥanukkah music? It’s true. Though Guthrie himself was not Jewish, Marjorie Greenblatt, his second wife and their children were, and he would write Ḥanukkah songs for the kids in his neighborhood in the 1940s. Two of these songs were recorded by Moses Asch, head of Folkways Records, in 1949 — a kid’s song called “Hanuka Dance,” and a twenty-verse ballad retelling the story of Ḥanukkah called “The Many and the Few.” Below is an original Hebrew translation of “The Many and the Few,” preserving the meter of the original. With a simple melody and a lot of historical research, it could certainly be sung at a Ḥanukkah event. . . .

A megillah attesting to the terrible events of World War II from the vantage of North African Jewry in Casablanca. . . .

Originally written by Aaron Zeitlin for the Yiddish play “Esterke” in 1940, ‘Dona Dona’ is a popular song the world over, having been adapted to many languages — often not preserving the original, deeply Jewish context. The gist of the original lyrics, which never state their metaphor outright, is: a calf is bound to a wagon being dragged to the slaughterhouse. It looks up and sees a swallow flying around. The farmer shouts at it, saying “it’s your own fault for being a calf and not a bird!” The implication being: the people telling the Jews it’s our own fault we’re persecuted are the ones driving the wagon. Gentiles will murder Jews, the song implies to us, and then say Jews are to blame because of how murderable our Jewish face is, so maybe we should get a less murderable and more goyish face. But the whole time they’re the one with the knife. Here included is the original Yiddish text (in the Ukrainish theatre dialect), as well as new translations into Ladino and Aramaic. . . .

This prayer for the country is found in the Siddur Sephat Emeth, which was published by the venerable Rödelheim publishing house in Frankfurt in 1938. This was probably the last siddur ever published in pre-Holocaust Germany. This prayer is full of pathos and yearning, and in a time of rising government-sponsored antisemitism worldwide it’s worth keeping in mind. . . .

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. . . .

“Óró sé do bheatha abhaile” is one of the most popular Irish rebel songs. Adapted from a folk song (with possible 18th century Jacobite origins), the most popular modern version, written by the poet and republical activist Pádraig Pearse and sung by the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising, is full of messianic and biblical imagery that makes it ripe for adaptation into a Hebrew piyyut. Presented here is “Hoy! Barukh Ha-Ba Ha-Bayta,” a Hebrew adaptation singable to the original melody. . . .

The project page for the transcription and translation of the Seder al-Tawḥid for Rosh Ḥodesh Nissan. . . .

This “Shir Mizmor l’Purim” by Rabbi Sabato Morais (we think) was first published in The Jewish Exponent on 15 March 1889. It was preserved by Rabbi Sabato Morais in his ledger, an archive of newsclippings recording material he contributed to the press, among other announcements. . . .

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdusha, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədusha. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is a replacement for the Ḥatsi Ḳaddish before Barkhu that used to be found in many traditional Ashkenazi siddurim. . . .

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdusha, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədusha. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is a replacement for the Barkhu of Shaḥarit that used to be found in many traditional Ashkenazi siddurim. . . .

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdusha, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədusha. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is a replacement for the Qedushah of Shaḥarit that used to be found in many traditional Ashkenazi siddurim. . . .

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdusha, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədusha. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is a replacement for the Qadish Shalem of Shaḥarit that used to be found in many traditional Ashkenazi siddurim. . . .

In Jewish liturgy, some passages are dəvarim she-bi-qdusha, passages that require public communal prayer. Most famous among these are the Qaddish, Barkhu, and Qədusha. But people are not always able to pray in a community! In liturgical history both ancient and modern many different tashlumim (replacements) for these texts when praying individually have been suggested. The following is a replacement for the Ḥatsi Qaddish of Minḥah that used to be found in many traditional Ashkenazi siddurim. . . .