Contributed by: Jacob Chatinover (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A prayer in the event of excessive raining causing economic hardship, from Mantua in 1729. . . .
Contributed by: Chava Turniansky (transcription), Sara Friedman (translation), Glikl bat Yehudah Leib, Unknown
This qinah, a variation of Maaseh Metz, was written by an unknown author and copied by Glikl into her memoirs. The text appearing here was made from that transcribed and published in Chava Turniansky’s critical edition, Glikl: Memoirs (1691-1719) (Shazar 2006), pp. 596-597, and Sara Friedman’s English translation of that edition, edited by Turniansky (Brandeis University Press 2019), pp. 306-307. . . .
Contributed by: Binyamin Benisch ben Yehudah Loeb ha-Kohen, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Anonymous (translation)
A prayer for protection and blessing offered in the name of of Rebbi Yishmael from the Sefer Shem Tov Qatan. . . .
Contributed by: Hermann Gollancz, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a version of the Invocation of Baraqon, a spell found in the Key of Solomon (Clavicula Solomonis) and its Hebrew translations (Mafteaḥ Shlomo). This particular variation is as found on the folios 70a-70b of a manuscript republished as ספר מפתח שלמה Sepher Maphteaḥ Shelomo (Book of the Key of Solomon): An exact facsimile of an original book of magic in Hebrew (1914) with a partial transcription translated into English by Rabbi Sir Hermann Gollancz. Claudia Rohrbacher-Stricker writes that Gollancz had located the manuscript in the collection of his father, Samuel H. Gollancz. The manuscript itself dated from around 1700 in Amsterdam, in a Sefardic script. Gershom Scholem was able to prove the Arabic origin of the Baraqon operation in “Some Sources of Jewish-Arabic Demonology,” Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 16 (1965), p. 6. . . .
Contributed by: Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Unknown, Mordecai Astruc
The Seder ha-Tamid, a Provençal (Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin) siddur published in Avignon in 1766, has liturgical additions for an amazing five different local festivals — one for Avignon, and two each for Carpentras and Cavaillon. Here’s a series of piyyutim for the ninth of Nisan in Carpentras. On 9 Nisan 5442 (17 April 1682), the gentile murderer of a Jew from Carpentras was drowned according to law. A mob began to form to attack the Jews for deigning to not be murdered. The rector of the comtat, Michele Antonio Vibò, decided to send guards to protect the Jews from the mob. This decision was celebrated by the Jews with multiple piyyuṭim and a full recitation of Hallel. Uniquely for the minor Purims analyzed in the Seder ha-Tamid so far, we know the author of one of these piyyutim, a sage and payṭan by the name of R. Mordecai Astruc! . . .
Contributed by: Jacob Chatinover (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a 17th century prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor found in Ms. 110 (Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic). . . .
Contributed by: Unknown, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
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. . . .
Contributed by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A prayer for a pregnant woman anticipating childbirth, from an unidentified volume of the Seder Tkhines (circa 1640-1720). . . .
Contributed by: Unknown, Morris M. Faierstein (translation), Yaaqov ben Yitsḥaq Ashkenazi
This is Dr. Morris Faierstein’s transcription and translation of one of the earliest teḥinot from the earliest surviving edition of the Tsenah u-Re’enah (Basel/Hanau 1622) as found in his article “The Earliest Published Yiddish Tehinnot (1590–1609)” in Hebrew Union College Annual, 2020, Vol. 91 (2020). The transcription of the Yiddish sourcetext is found on page 206 and the English translation is found on page 187. The translation is shared under the libre Open Access license (Creative Commons Attribution) provided for the critical translation of the text in Ze’enah U-Re’enah: A Critical Translation into English (Volume 96 in the series Studia Judaica, ed. Morris M. Faierstein; De Gruyter 2017). . . .
Contributed by: Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Unknown
A series of ten short couplets describing the ten plagues afflicting the Egyptians in Egypt, written in Judeo-Italian and first published in the famous 1609 Venice Haggadah of Isaac Gershon. The Italian used in the Venice Haggadah lacks a lot of the most divergent aspects of the Judeo-Italian languages, sticking to a more mainline Tuscan grammatical norm, but there are enough obsolete, poetic, or dialectal forms that several footnotes have been included to explain them. Also included is an original English-language rhyming translation! . . .
Contributed by: Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Unknown
A series of fourteen short couplets describing the fourteen traditional stages of the Haggadah, written in Judeo-Italian and first published in the famous 1609 Venice Haggadah of Isaac Gershon. The Italian used in the Venice Haggadah lacks a lot of the most divergent aspects of the Judeo-Italian languages, sticking to a more mainline Tuscan grammatical norm, but there are enough obsolete, poetic, or dialectal forms that several footnotes have been included to explain them. Also included is an original English-language rhyming translation! . . .
Contributed by: Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (translation), Elisabeth Hollender (translation), Unknown
A piyyut in Judeo-Greek for introducing the Decalogue. . . .
Contributed by: Menasseh ben Israel (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The text of Hanoten Teshua in its English translation as presented by Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell in 1655. We have reconstructed the corresponding Hebrew from the S&P nusaḥ of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. . . .
Contributed by: Johann Stephan Rittangel (Latin translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
The alphabetic acrostic piyyut, Adir Hu, in its Latin translation by Johann Stephan Rittangel as found in his translation of the Pesaḥ seder haggadah, Liber Rituum Paschalium (1644). . . .
Contributed by: Rabbi Jacob Jehudah Leão (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
Autor ninguno se halla, que declare el tiempo en que David compuso este Psalmo; ni la causa de haverlo introduzido por primero: mas amiver, es, que conociendo David que la razon de haver Dios rebotado de su gracia a Saul, y haverlo elegido ael en su lugar, havia sido por transgredir su mandado en la guerra de Ha-malek, por las persuasiones, y confejos de los inicos de su pueblo; como el mismo confessó al Propheta Semuel: por esso, quiso David dar’principio àfu Libro, con un loor que sirviesse de dotrina, y de advertimiento dela felicidad que alcançan los fieles siervos de Dios, que andan con toda integridad en fus carreras de virtud, y las adversdades, y castigo que estáparalos infieles, y los inicos aparejado, por los justos juyzios de Dios, del modo que sucedió a Saul, que fue desposseido de su Reyno, el, y sus hijos, y todos sus defendientes parasiempre, por los consejos de que el, se dexó persuadir, donde Dios le declaró su castigo. . . .
Contributed by: Rabbi Jacob Jehudah Leão (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
Este Psalmo, es el segundo en numero, por haverlo David en el principio de su Reyno, quando por oir las naciones circunvezinas, que lo havian ungido por Rey sobre Israël, vinieron todos juntos al desafio contra el, en compañia de los Philisteos sus capitales enemigos, y por esso comiença el Psalmo: Paraque se juntan las gentesy, etc. De suerte que assi como el Psalmo precedente, fue el primero por la donacion del Reyno, que Dios le hizo, assi este segundo fue adjunto a el, por la possession del Reyno que entonces tomava, suyetando con la divina assistencia las naciones, pues le embiava de los Cielos, su favor por medio de los Angeles sus ministros, como consta de Semuel Segundo, 5:24. . . .