Unknown • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

Resources filtered by TAG: “Italian Jewry” (clear filter)

Sorted Chronologically (new to old). Sort oldest first?

🆕 Judeo-Italian couplets for each course of the Passover Seder (Venice, 1609)

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! . . .

תפילה לשלום באירופה | Prayer for Peace in Europe during the Italian War of Independence (ca. 19th c.)

Contributed by Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (translation) | ❧

This is a transcription, vocalization, and translation of a manuscript of a prayer for peace in Europe held in the collection of the Columbia University Library. The prayer is undated but the language of the prayer and the use of Italian indicate to me that this was a prayer made by an Italian Jewish community during either the first Italian War of Independence 1848-9, or one of the two succeeding wars in 1860 and 1870. . . .

תְּפִלַּת מַשְׁבִּית מִלְחָמוֹת וְהַדֶּבֶר מִן הַבְּהֵמוֹת | Prayer for the cessation of war and pestilence afflicting domesticated animals (ca. 1800)

Contributed by Unknown | Aharon N. Varady (transcription) | ❧

This is a prayer for the welfare of domesticated animals (behemot), specifically cattle. “Tefilat mashbit milḥamot v’ha-dever min ha-behemot” (HUC MS 465) was composed by an unknown author, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century, and possibly in a Jewish community in Italy. The text contains the following clues: 1) a prayer for a local Duke (instead of the Emperor Napoleon), 2) mention of warfare, and 3) mention of some variety of epizootic contagious disease among cattle. Rinderpest, known since ancient times, is the most likely candidate for the latter, especially in Italy in the 18th century (where it was first described by early veterinary science) but it was also in Europe following the defeat of Napoleon. While typhus and hoof-and-mouth disease are also possible, Dr. Susan Einbinder, who brought our attention to this prayer via a lecture on epidemic prayers for the HUC Klau Library, notes that the biblical reference to the “bellowing of the cattle” evokes the actual tortuous lived experience of the afflicted animals, and the suffering of their human minders, helpless to relieve them. The tragedy of rinderpest only ended in the 20th century after a concerted multi-national effort to eradicate the disease — one of the earliest modern multinational initiatives to improve the world. (A related disease, Ovine Rinderpest, first described in the 20th century, has not yet been eradicated and affects goats and sheep as well as cattle.) . . .

תפלה לרבוי גשמים | Prayer in the event of excessive rain (Mantua, Italy 1729)

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. . . .

תפלה לכל תענית צבור ועל כל צרה (שלא תבא על הציבור!) | Amidah for Any Communal Fast and On Account of Troubles (Nusaḥ Italki)

Contributed by Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧

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! . . .

הכרזת פסח לפי נוסח איטלייני | the Announcement of Pesaḥ on Shabbat haGadol according to the Italian rite

Contributed by Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧

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. . . .

אֵין כֵּאלֹהֵֽינוּ | Non È Come lo Ded Nostro (נוֹן אֵי קוֹמְי לוֹדֵּיד נוֹשְׁטְרוֹ) — a Renaissance Judeo-Italian translation of Ein Keloheinu (1483)

Contributed by Unknown | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | ❧

The text of the piyyut Ein Keloheinu from a 1483 Judeo-Italian translation of the siddur (British Library Or. 2443), along with a transcription into Italian script, a normative Italian modernization, and the Hebrew and English. . . .

Pocket Reddit Facebook Bluesky Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email