קדיש דרבנן | Ḳaddish d’Rabanan (of Our Teachers), a translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig
Contributed on: 07 Aug 2021 by
❧The Ḳaddish d’Rabanan, in Hebrew with English translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
תְּפִלָה לְאִשָׁה לְאָמְרָהּ לִפְנֵי שֶׁמְגַלַּחַת אֶת שַׁעֲרוֹת רֹאשָׁהּ | Prayer for a woman to say before her hair is shorn
Contributed on: 29 Sep 2021 by
❧A supplication of a woman cutting her hair as an act of tsanua, per a contemporary custom in many Ḥaredi communities. . . .
The path of the righteous man | הַדֶרֶךְ שֶׁל הַצָדִיק (Ha-derekh shel ha-tsadiq) — from the film The Bodyguard (1976), adapted by Jules Winnfield in the film Pulp Fiction (1994)
Contributed on: 22 Jan 2011 by
❧Tired of people who can’t tell their ḳiddish (blessings for the Sabbath) from their ḳaddish (prayer for the dead)? Well, it sets Samuel L. Jackson off too! But he found a way of making a bracha (blessing) and mourning the dead at the same time. Now I can’t vouch for the origins of his nusaḥ (custom) but it sounds very effective! Most people haven’t noticed, the only real part from the Bible is that last section, the first part is actually his own spiel: . . .
אל מלא רחמים לזכר הנרצחים | El Malé Raḥamim Prayer for the Victims of Terrorism in the Land of Israel
Contributed on: 14 Oct 2023 by
❧An El Malé Raḥamim prayer for Victims of Terror in Erets Yisrael, with an English translation by Rabbi Hillel Ḥayyim Lavery-Yisraeli from Prayers for Israel, for Protection from Terror Attacks, and In Memory of the Victims (15 October 2023), page 6. . . .
Earth Pledge, by an Unknown Author (ca. 1980)
Contributed on: 22 Apr 2024 by
❧The earliest “Earth Pledge” circulated between Earth Day 1970 and 1983. . . .
Land of Hope and Promise, a prayer for Israel (CCAR 1975)
Contributed on: 22 Apr 2022 by
❧“Land of Hope and Promise” was published in Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayerbook (CCAR 1975), pp. 240-241. In 1984, it was proved as the “Prayer for Israel” in the Prayerbook for Jewish Personnel in the Armed Forces of the United States (Jewish Welfare Board 1984), p. 436. The work appears to have been adapted from a much earlier paraliturgical hashkivenu prayer offered in the Evening Service for the Sabbath from the Union Prayer Book Newly Revised (CCAR 1924) to be said by the Reader between the Shema and the Amidah in a version (№5) of the Friday night service, pp. 68-69. . . .
“Just Walk Beside Me” (לֵךְ פָּשׁוּט לְצִדִּי | امشي بجانبي | נאָר גיין לעבן מיר), lines from an unknown author circulating in 1970; Jewish adaptation with translations in Aramaic, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic
Contributed on: 25 Nov 2023 by
❧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). . . .
תפילת הדרך | The Traveler’s Prayer (with a Supplement for Airplane Travel)
Contributed on: 08 Feb 2016 by
❧A traditional tefilat haderekh supplemented by a 20th century prayer for airplane travel. . . .
A Scholar’s Prayer for Intellectual Honesty, adapted from a prayer quoted by Dr. Leslie Weatherhead (1951)
Contributed on: 23 Nov 2020 by
❧A prayer for intellectual honesty before study. . . .
הַנּוֹתֵן תְּשׁוּעָה | Gebed voor het Koninklijk Huis | Prayer for the Royal Family of Queen Juliana and the city council of Amsterdam (ca. 1950)
Contributed on: 27 Nov 2021 by
❧A prayer for the government for the royal family of the Netherlands and the city council of Amsterdam copied in the late 19th and mid-20th century from earlier sources. . . .
אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים | El Malé Raḥamim for Victims of the Shoah (the Netherlands, ca. late 1940s)
Contributed on: 31 May 2023 by
❧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. . . .
הַנּוֹתֵן תְּשׁוּעָה | A Prayer for the Welfare of the Government of Franklin D. Roosevelt during WWII (from A Naye Shas Tkhine Rav Pninim, ca. 1942)
Contributed on: 07 Nov 2017 by
❧A prayer for the welfare of the government in Yiddish from A Naye Shas Tkhine Rav Pninim (after 1933). . . .
שִׁיר הַגְאוּלָה (החיינו אל) | Shir ha-Ge’ulah (Song of Redemption), by an anonymous author (1940)
Contributed on: 15 Feb 2023 by
❧This is a vocalized transcription and translation of the World War Ⅱ era song, “Shir haGe’ulah (Song of Redemption)” from the source images shared in A Tribute to Rabbi Mordechai Meir Hakohen Bryski v”g Bryski (Rabbi Mordechai A. Katz, 2017), pp. 19-20. The song is also known by its incipit, “Heḥayyeinu El.” . . .
מי שברך לשבויים | Mi sheBerakh for the Captives, after Kristallnacht (Hamburg, November 1938)
Contributed on: 26 Oct 2023 by
❧This is a prayer for captives, written in November 1938 in Hamburg, following Kristallnacht (my translation following the Hebrew). “May each and every one of them return to their family…who are worrying about them.” . . .
Gebet für das Vaterland | A Prayer for the Fatherland (Siddur Sephat Emeth, Rödelheim, 1938)
Contributed on: 04 Aug 2020 by
❧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. . . .
A Prayer for Protection from Oppression and Persecution (CCAR 1924)
Contributed on: 27 Apr 2022 by
❧This is an untitled prayer offered in the Evening Service for the Sabbath from the Union Prayer Book Newly Revised (CCAR 1924), pp. 68-69, as a reading between the Shema and the Amidah. As a prayer for protection it fits as a paraliturgical haskivenu, and in New York City, it makes sense in the context of the terrifying news of mass-murder, rape, and genocide being reported from Ukraine at the time. (Find Nokhem Shtif’s “פּאָגראָמען אין אוקראַיִנע : די צײַט פֿון דער פֿרײַװיליקער אַרמײ (The Pogroms in Ukraine: the Period of the Volunteer Army)” (1923) offered in Yiddish and in English translation at In Geveb.) The Ukrainian context of this prayer is further underscored in that the prayer is not found in the 1918 revised Union Prayer Book, but in the later 1924 edition. It may have been unique to Congregation Emanu-El in New York City, who compiled this version of the Union Prayer Book for radio listeners joining their service. . . .
“Coal Miners’ Prayer” (CCAR 1924)
Contributed on: 27 Sep 2023 by
❧This prayer by an unknown author is first found in Evening Service for the Sabbath from the Union Prayer Book (Newly Revised) (1924), p. 45. (It also appears on the same page of the 1940 edition of the “newly revised” UPB.) The prayer is included as a third variation of a Reform synagogue’s Shabbat evening service, in the Amidah before the silent meditation. Rabbi Michael Satz of Temple B’nai Or (Morristown, New Jersey) affectionately refers to it as the “Coal Miner’s Prayer.” . . .
אֵשֶׁת חַיִל | Eshet Ḥayil (Proverbs 31:10-31), German translation by Franz Rosenzweig (1921)
Contributed on: 06 Aug 2021 by
❧The Masoretic Hebrew text of Proverbs 30:10-31, the alphabetic acrostic “Eshet Ḥayil,” with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם | Shalom Aleikhem, the piyyut for Friday evenings in German translation by Franz Rosenzweig (1921)
Contributed on: 06 Aug 2021 by
❧The popular adjuration of the angels of peace and ministering angels, Shalom Aleikhem, in Hebrew with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
קדיש דרבנן | Das Lernkaddisch, a translation of the Ḳaddish d’Rabanan in German by Franz Rosenzweig (1921)
Contributed on: 04 Aug 2021 by
❧The Ḳaddish d’Rabbanan in Aramaic with its German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
צער בעלי־חיים | Tsaar Baalei Ḥayyim [It is forbidden to cause] suffering to a living creature, a song in Yiddish
Contributed on: 10 Dec 2015 by
❧“Tsaar Balei Ḥayyim” ([It is forbidden to cause] suffering to a living creature), source unknown. Many thanks to Tiferet Zimmern-Kahan for recording the niggun for the song and to Naftali Ejdelman and The Jewish Daily Forward for providing the lyrics. . . .
📖 ברכת המזון (אשכנז) | Der Tischdank, a translation of the Birkat haMazon in German by Franz Rosenzweig (1920)
Contributed on: 05 Aug 2021 by
❧A German translation of the Birkat haMazon prepared by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .
אַ סאָציאַליסטישער הַלֵּל | A Yiddish Socialist adaptation of Hallel (1900/1919)
Contributed on: 30 Mar 2024 by
❧A revolutionary socialist, Yiddish adaptation of Hallel. . . .
Óró sé do bheatha abhaile | הוֹי בָּרוּך הַבָּא הַבַּֽיתָה (Hoy! Barukh ha-Ba ha-Baitah) — adapted by Pádraig Pearse (1916; Hebrew translation by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer)
Contributed on: 16 Sep 2024 by
❧“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. . . .
תְּחִינָה װען עס ברעכט אױס אַ מַגֵפָה | A Tkhine When an Epidemic Breaks Out (1916)
Contributed on: 31 Mar 2020 by
❧A tkhine in the event of an epidemic. . . .
תְּחִנָה קַבָּלַת עוֺל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם | Tkhine [for Women] Receiving the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven (1916)
Contributed on: 22 Jul 2016 by
❧The author of this tkhine intended for women to begin their morning devotional reading of prayers by first accepting patriarchal dominion. Women compensate for their inherent weakness and gain their honor only through the established gender roles assigned to them. The placement of this tkhine at the beginning of the Shas Tkhine Rav Peninim, a popular collection of women’s tkhines published in 1916 (during the ascent of women’s suffrage in the U.S.), suggests that it was written as a prescriptive polemic to influence pious Jewish women to reject advancing feminist ideas. . . .
תפלה בבתי כנסיות דק״ק פירטה שנת תרע״ד | A Prayer for the Synagogues of the Holy Jewish Community of Fürth [Germany, at the onset of war] – 5674 [1914]
Contributed on: 05 Jun 2023 by
❧This prayer appears to have been issued for Jewish soldiers serving in the German army at the start of World War Ⅰ and was recited in the synagogues in Fürth, Germany in 1914. The prayer was printed as a single leaflet by the printer Druck von Lehrberger & Co. in Frankfurt am Main. A leaflet ended up in the Central Chabad Lubavitch Library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY (Card #87119), although no explanation has been offered how a Chasidic group based in Russia came to acquire this work. The original leaflet was digitized and made accessible via the Chabad library website. . . .
דיא װײבּער װאס האבּין אײן שׁװערין מזל צו קינדר זאלין דיא תחנה זאגין | Women who Have Bad Luck with Children Should Recite this Tkhine (1910)
Contributed on: 04 Jul 2016 by
❧“Women who Have Bad Luck with Children Should Recite this Tkhine” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the tkhine published in Rokhl m’vakoh al boneho (Rokhel Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. If you can translate Yiddish, please help to translate it and share your translation with an Open Content license through this project. . . .
תחנה פון אײן שװאנגער אשה זאל ניט מפיל זיין | Tkhine for a Pregnant Woman that She Not Miscarry (1910)
Contributed on: 03 Feb 2020 by
❧A prayer for a pregnant woman that she not suffer a miscarriage. . . .
תחנה פאר אײן אִשָׁה װאָס דארף האָבּין אײַן קינד | Tkhine for a Woman who is about to Have a Child (1910)
Contributed on: 03 Feb 2020 by
❧A prayer for a pregnant woman whose childbirth is immanent. . . .
א תחנה פאר א אשה מעוברת אז זיא גײט צו קינד | Tkhine for a Pregnant Woman when She is about to Give Birth (1910)
Contributed on: 03 Feb 2020 by
❧A prayer for a pregnant woman approaching her childbirth. . . .
תחנה פאר אמוטער װאס פירט אקינד אין חדר | Tkhine for a Mother Leading their Child to Religious School (1910)
Contributed on: 06 Jul 2016 by
❧“Tkine for a Mother Who Leads Her Child to Kheyder” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the tkhine published in Rokhl m’vakoh al boneho (Raḥel Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. Please offer a translation of this tkhine in the comments. . . .
א תחנה פאר א מוטער װאס פירט איהר קינד דעם ערשׁטען מאל אין חדר | Tkhine for a Mother Who Leads their Child for the First Time to Religious School (1910)
Contributed on: 06 Jul 2016 by
❧“Tkine for a Mother Who Leads Her Child to Kheyder” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the tkhine published in Rokhl m’vakoh al boneho (Raḥel Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. Please offer a translation of this tkhine in the comments. . . .
תחנה אײדער אפרויא גײט אין טבילת מצוה | Tkhine for when a Woman Goes to Immerse in the Mikve (1910)
Contributed on: 05 Jul 2016 by
❧“Tkhine for when a Woman Goes to Immerse in the Mikve” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the tkhine published in Rokhl m’vakoh al boneho (Raḥel Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. If you can translate Yiddish, please help to translate it and share your translation with an Open Content license through this project. . . .
📖 רָחֵל מְבַכָּה עַל־בָּנֶיהָ | Rokhl M’vako al Boneho: A Nayye Shas Tekhine :: Raḥel Weeps for Her Children: A New Collection of Teḥinot (Vilna 1910)
Contributed on: 26 Oct 2018 by
❧A compilation of Jewish women’s prayers in Yiddish published in Vilna in 1910, with prayers attributed to Rokhl Esther bat Aviḥayil, a Jewish woman living in Jerusalem. . . .
א תחנה פאר א כלה קודם החופה | A Tkhine for a Bride [to say] before the Khupe [wedding canopy ceremony]
Contributed on: 04 Jul 2016 by
❧“A Tkhine for a Kaleh before the Khupe” by an unknown author is a faithful transcription of the version published in Rokhl m’vakoh al boneho (Rokhel Weeps for her Children), Vilna, 1910. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. . . .
בִּרְכַּת נְטִילַת יָדָֽיִם | Blessing on preparing one’s hands for wakefulness and other holy activities (translation by Aharon Varady)
Contributed on: 01 Dec 2024 by
❧The blessing upon preparing one’s hands for attaining a state of ritual purity before a sacred activity. . . .
תהלים ב׳ בלשון ײִדיש | Psalms 2 in Yiddish (translated by Yehoyesh Shloyme Blumgarten ca. 1920s)
Contributed on: 13 Jul 2017 by
❧This is a faithful transcription by the Yehoyesh Project of the Yiddish translation of Psalms 2 made by Yehoyesh Shloyme (Yehoash Solomon) Blumgarten (1870-1927) published in Torah, Neviʼim, u-Khetuvim vol. 2 (New York: Yehoʼash Farlag Gezelshaft, 1941). The complete transcription of Torah, Neviʼim, u-Khetuvim by the Yehoyesh Project in copy/pasteable and searchable plaintext may be found here. . . .
תהלים קכ״ו | Psalms 126 (Shir haMaalot), a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig (1921)
Contributed on: 12 Aug 2021 by
❧Psalms 126 in Masoretic Hebrew, with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .