
Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.
Filter resources by Category
Rosh Ḥodesh Adar (אַדָר) Alef & Bet | Addenda | Additional Fast Days | Additional Morning Prayers | Additional Preparatory Prayers | After the Aliyot | Minḥah | Aleinu | Weekday Amidah | Aqédat Yitsḥaq | 🌐 Armistice Day (November 11th) | Art & Craft | Arvit l'Shabbat | Asarah b'Tevet Readings | 🇦🇹 Austria | Rosh Ḥodesh Av (אָב) | Morning Baqashot | Barekh | Barkhu | Barukh she’Amar | Barukh Hashem l’Olam | Bedtime Shema | Before the Aliyot | Berakhot she'Asani | Berakhot sheNatani | Birkat Ahavah | Birkat Ahavah for Ma'ariv/Arvit | Birkat Ga'al Yisrael for Shaḥarit | Blessings After Eating | Birkhot haTorah | Birkonim (בענטשערס Bentshers) | Tehilim Book 5 (Psalms 107–150) | Tehilim Book 4 (Psalms 90–106) | Tehilim Book 1 (Psalms 1–41) | Tehilim Book 2 (Psalms 42–72) | Brit Milah & Simḥat Bat | 🇺🇸 National Brotherhood Week | Slavery & Captivity | Child care | Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession | Congregation & Community | Contemplation | Counting Days | Davvening | Divrei Hayamim (Chronicles 1 & 2) | Dreaming | Drought & Wildfire | the Dry Season (Spring & Summer) | Dying | Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System | 🌐 Earth Day (22 April) | Elohai Neshamah | Rosh Ḥodesh Elul (אֶלוּל) | Epidemics & Pandemics | Erev Shabbat | Esther | Maariv Aravim | Extracanonical Megillot | Preparing one's face | Rosh haShanah la-Behemah | Rosh haShanah la-Melakhim | 🇫🇷 France | Friday | Birkat Ga'al Yisrael for Ma'ariv/Arvit | Pogroms & Genocide | 🇩🇪 Germany | Government & Country | Ḥag haBanot (Eid el Benat) Readings | Hallel for Festivals & Rosh Ḥodesh | Hallel | Preparing one's hands | Ḥanukkah | Ḥanukkah Readings | Hashkivenu | Hekhalot Writings | 🌐 Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th) | Homes & Community Centers | Hoshana Rabba | 🇭🇺 Hungary | Immersion (Purification) | Imminent Communal Danger & Distress | Incantations, Adjurations, & Amulets | Incense and other Offerings | 🌐 International Women's Day (March 8th) | 🌐 International Workers' Day (May 1st) | 🇮🇪 Ireland | 🇮🇹 Italy | Rosh Ḥodesh Iyyar (אִיָּר) | Ḳaddish | Kaparōt | Ḳiddush Levanah | Rosh Ḥodesh Kislev (כִּסְלֵו) | Kristallnacht (9-10 November, 16 Marḥeshvan) | 🇺🇸 Labor Day (1st Monday of September) | Learning, Study, and School | Magid | Mah anu | Man-made Disasters | Rosh Ḥodesh Marḥeshvan (מַרְחֶשְׁוָן) | 🇮🇱 Medinat Yisra'el (the State of Israel) | Meteorological and Astronomical Observations | Midrash Aggadah | Midrash Halakhah | Military Personnel & Veterans | Mishlei (Proverbs) | 🇺🇸 Mother's Day (2nd Sunday of May) | Motsei Shabbat | Mourning | Mussar (Ethical Teachings) | 🇳🇱 the Netherlands | Nirtsah | Rosh Ḥodesh Nisan (נִיסָן) | Nittel Nacht Readings | Parashat b'Shalaḥ | Parashat Yitro | Pesaḥ | Haggadot for the Seder Leil Pesaḥ | Personal & Paraliturgical collections of prayers | Pesaḥ Readings | Pesaḥ Yamei Ḥag | Phonaesthetics | 🇵🇹 Portugal | Conception, Pregnancy, and Childbirth | Psalm of the Day | Psuqei d'Zimrah/Zemirot l'Shabbat ul'Yom Tov | Purim | Purim Readings | Purim Sheni Readings | Ḳabbalat Shabbat | Ḳadesh | Qedushah | Qorbanot | 🇺🇸 Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust | Repenting, Resetting, and Reconciliation | Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit) | Rosh haShanah la-Behemah Readings | Rosh haShanah Readings | Rosh Ḥodesh | Rosh Ḥodesh Readings | 🇷🇺 Russia | Saturday | Second Temple Period | Seder al-Tawḥid | Seder intro | Sefer Yetsirah | Sefirat ha-Omer | Sefirat haOmer Readings | Se'udah haShlishit | Se'udat Leil Shabbat | Se'udat Yom Shabbat | Shabbat | Shabbat haGadol | Shabbat Məvorkhim | Minḥah l'Shabbat | Musaf l'Shabbat | Shabbat Readings | Shaḥarit l'Shabbat ul'Yom Tov | Shabbat Siddurim | Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty | Shavuot | Shavuot Readings | Shemini Atseret (and Simḥat Torah) | Rosh Ḥodesh Shəvat (שְׁבָט) | Shir haShirim (the Song of Songs, Canticles) | Shirat ha-Yam | Shiv'ah Asar b'Tamuz | Shiv'ah b'Adar | Shiv'ah b'Adar Readings | Sigd Festival | Rosh Ḥodesh Sivan (סִיוָן) | Dangerous Storms & Floods | Torah Study | Sukkot | Ta'anit Esther | 🤦︎ Taḥanun (Nefilat Apayim) | Taking a life | Rosh Ḥodesh Tammuz (תַּמּוּז) | Terror | Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet (טֵבֵת) | Theurgy | Tiqqunei Zohar | Tishah b'Av | Rosh Ḥodesh Tishrei (תִּשְׁרֵי) | Travel | Tu biShvat Readings | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 🇺🇸 United States of America | Vayivarekh David | War | Engagements & Weddings | Wednesday | Well-being, health, and caregiving | the Wet Season (Fall & Winter) | Labor, Fulfillment, and Parnasah | Yaḥats | Yehi Kh’vod | Yishtabaḥ Shimkha | 🇮🇱 Yom ha-Ém (30 Shəvat) | 🇮🇱 Yom haShoah (27 Nisan) | 🇮🇱 Yom haZikaron | Yom Kippur | Yom Meturgeman | Yom Niqanor Readings | Yotser Or | 7th Day of Pesaḥ | Khaf Sivan | Yom haQeshet (Day of the Rainbow, 27 Iyyar) | Psalms 146 | Psalms 147 | Psalms 148 | Psalms 149 | Psalms 150
Filter resources by Tag
Filter resources by Collaborator Name
Filter resources by Language
Agaw (Qimant) | Akkadian | Arabic | Arabic (Judeo-Arabic) | Arabic (Judeo-Iraqi) | Arabic (Judeo-Moroccan) | Arabic (Judeo-Tunisian) | Arabic (Judeo-Yemeni) | Aramaic, Jewish Western | Aramaic, Lishan Didan (Persian Azerbaijani Jewish Neo-Aramaic) | Aramaic, Lishana Deni (Zakho Jewish Neo-Aramaic) | Aramaic, Lishana Noshan (Hulaulá (Sanandaj) Jewish Neo-Aramaic) | Berber (Judeo-Berber) | Bukharic | Chinese | Crimean (Krymchak. Judeo-Crimean Tatar) | Egyptian (Ancient) | English | English, Old (ca. 450-1100 CE) | Esperanto | Flemish | French | Gaelic, Irish | Georgian | German | Gothic | Greek (Ancient, to 1453 CE) | Greek (Modern, from 1453 CE) | Guaraní | Gəez | Hebrew | Italian | Italian (Judeo-Italian) | Latin | Luganda | Marathi | Naʼvi | Norse, Old (to 1500 CE) | Polish | Portuguese | Portuguese (Papiamento) | Provençal (Judeo-Provençal) | Quenya | Sabaean | Spanish | Spanish, Ladino (Haketia) | Spanish, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) | Ugaritic | Valyrian | Yevanic | Yiddish
Filter resources by Date Range
Contributed by Shmueli Gonzales (transcription) | Aharon N. Varady (translation) | Unknown | ❧
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: . . .
Contributed by Moshe Tanenbaum | Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Aharon N. Varady (translation) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
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). . . .
Contributed by Pádraig Pearse | Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
“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. . . .
Contributed by Christopher S. Morrissey (translation) | Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
An original Hebrew translation of the popular medieval commercium song and graduation anthem “De Brevitate Vitæ,” more commonly known as “Gaudeamus Igitur.” First attested in 1287, this Latin poem is irrevocably associated with college life for academics all over the world. It has been translated into many languages, and this Hebrew edition can be added to the list. . . .
Contributed by Tsvi Hirsch Filipowski (translation) | Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | ❧
The Megillat Antiochus was composed in Palestinian Aramaic sometime between the 2nd and 5th century CE, likely in the 2nd Century when the memory of the Bar Kochba revolt still simmered.. The scroll appears in a number of variations. The Aramaic text below follows the critical edition prepared by Menaḥem Tzvi Kaddari, and preserves his verse numbering. The English translation by Rabbi Joseph Adler (1936) follows the Hebrew translation in the middle column, the source of which is a medieval manuscript reprinted by Tzvi Filipowsky in 1851. Adler and Kaddari’s verse ordering loosely follows one another indicating variations in manuscripts. Where Aramaic is missing from Kaddari’s text, the Aramaic version from Adler’s work is included in parentheses. Adler also included a Yiddish translation which we hope will be fully transcribed (along with vocalized Hebrew text, a Hungarian translation, and perhaps even a Marathi translation from South India) for Ḥanukkah 5775 , G!d willing. . . .
Contributed by Tsvi Hirsch Filipowski (translation) | Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
Perhaps Megillat Antiokhus could be read a la Esther on Purim (the holiday with the most similarities), going to Eicha trope in the upsetting parts. A few notes: on the final mention of Bagris the Wicked I included a karnei-farah in the manner of the karnei-farah in Esther. I also included a merkha kefulah in the concluding section, which (according to David Weisberg’s “The Rare Accents of the Twenty-Eight Books”) represents aggadic midrash material. It also serves as a connection to the Chanukah haftarah, which is famously the only one that has a merkha kefulah. –Isaac Mayer . . .
Contributed by Jacques Faïtlovitch (translation) | Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
The text of the Betä ʾƎsəraʾel legend of the death of Moses, translated to Hebrew by Jacques Faïtlovitch, and vocalized, cantillated, and translated into English by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. . . .
Contributed by Moses Gaster | Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧
The story of Toviah (Tobit) in Hebrew translation, in an abridged version arranged for public reading on the second day of Shavuot. . . .