This undated 18th century prayer (before 1756) by an unknown author for “the opening of [a] lodge, etc., and used by Jewish Freemasons” was published in “Old Forms of Lodge Prayers,” The Hebrew Leader (31 December 1889), p. 4. (The Hebrew Leader regularly included news of interest to Jewish member of masonic fraternities.) The provenance of the prayer is offered in the lede: “Appended to a copy of the Constitutions of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of F. and A. Masons, published in 1801, by Bro. D. Longworth, at the Shakespeare Gallery, New York City (kindly loaned to us by R.W. Henry C. Banks), we find a number of forms which at the present day appear unique. These forms are spoken of as having been in use for a long period during the last century; and from them we extract two or three Prayers, one or the other of which it was customary to repeat, according to the religious faith of the members of the lodge’ which had assembled. We give them for the benefit of our readers.” The source for the prayer in its re-printed form is a 1756 work, Ahiman Rezon: or, a help to a brother; shewing the excellency of secrecy, … Together with Solomon’s temple an oratorio, as it was performed for the benefit of free-masons by Laurence Dermott (1756).

A plaudit of gratitude in Latin and Hebrew for Pope Benedict XIV’s interventions after the River Tiber overflowed its banks and flooded the Jewish Ghetto in Rome.

The text of Ma’aseh Yehudit, the story of Judith, as found in Sefer Ḥemdat Yamim, a mystical compilation of customs and tiqqunim first published in İzmir in around 1731. (This text is also found as “Maaseh Yehudit, Version 2” in Judah David Eisenstein’s monumental Otzar Midrashim compilation.) Sefer Ḥemdat Yamim is a unique work, likely compiled by a Sabbatean but largely based on earlier pre-Sabbatean mystical sources, and because of this any specific text in it is quite difficult to date. This specific version of the story of Judith shows substantial influence from the Septuagintal text not found in earlier Jewish variants, giving a likely terminus post quem of several generations after the Inquisition when Spanish benei anusim brought their knowledge of the Vulgate’s apocrypha with them to Judaism. Even so, it is very clearly a fundamentally Jewish work. It is appropriate to recite on Yom haBanot (1 Tevet) or any time throughout Ḥanukkah, perhaps with Esther cantillation.

An announcement of ḥerem stam (a general threat of excommunication) on the occurrence of stolen or waylaid goods, found in this form in a 1730 Seder Hazkarot Neshamot copied by Shabetai Sheftel ben Zalman Auerbach (HUC Ms. 453, 21r). If a community member was stolen from, they could go to the sexton (shammash), who would declare the theft and proclaim a general threat of excommunication on all who knew anything about the occurrence and failed to speak on the matter.

A Mi Sheberakh for the ill, from a 1730 Seder Hazkarot Neshamot copied by Shabetai Sheftel ben Zalman Auerbach (HUC Ms. 453, 23v). Uniquely among Mi Sheberakh texts, instead of just listing ancestors, it specifies examples of divine healing from the Bible and the Gemara.

A schedule for the reading of psalms for special Shabbatot and holidays, according to HUC Ms. 453, fol. 15r, a Seder Hazkarot Neshamot copied by Shabetai Sheftel ben Zalman Auerbach from 1730.

A prayer in the event of excessive raining causing economic hardship, from Mantua in 1729.

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.

A prayer for protection and blessing offered in the name of of Rebbi Yishmael from the Sefer Shem Tov Qatan.

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.

A schedule for hafṯaroṯ for the weekly portions and festivals, as well as psalms for the weekly portions, according to a Damascus Karaite siddur from approximately 1700. According to the work of Jacob Mann’s The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue (1940), the Ḳaraite hafṭaroṯ schedule was probably adapted from the practice of the Byzantine Romaniotes, whose practice was in many ways much closer to the one attested here than to rabbinic norms practiced today. Both ultimately derive from the old Western Rite hafṭaroṯ, albeit adapted to the annual cycle originating from the east.

A pizmon for Shabbat Zakhor and Purim, found in many Livorno siddurim (seen as the standard form for most Sephardic communities) as far back as the 18th century and possibly earlier. It is signed with the name Avraham, as well as the names Moshe and Aharon, but the author is otherwise unknown. Seder Mishmeret haKodesh (1847) inserts it as an introduction to the Mi Khamokha piyyut of Yehuda haLevi, recited on Shabbat Zakhor. The bouncy, joyous tune used for this piyyut, of Italian origin, is also used for Purim songs in multiple languages, such as Fate Onore al Bel Purim, Con Gran Placer Señores, and Haman Mamzer el Malo.

A paraliturgical birkat hamazon in Ladino.

In Yemenite practice, directly after the four questions are recited the youngest literate person at the table reads a brief Judeo-Arabic passage, here transcribed per the Yemenite transliteration system (wherein gimel dagesh = j and qof = g) and translated into Arabic and Hebrew. Instructional notes say this passage is “for the benefit of women and toddlers,” the two main classes of people who would have not had access to Hebrew education at the time.

This is a transcription of the Megillat Aqdamut (also known by other names) in its first printing in Yiddish, in Fürth 1694. The transcription is based on an earlier transcription of the Fürth 1694 printing published by Isaac Rivkind in “די היסטאָרישע אַלעגאָריע פון ר׳ מאיר שַ״ץ” (“The Historical Allegory of Rabbi Meir, shatz [Shaliaḥ Tsibur]”) the first chapter in Filologishe shriftn vol. 3 (1929), pp. 1-42. (The transcription of the Aqdamut appears on pages/numbered columns 12-33.) The legendary retelling serves as a frame tale for the recitation of the Aramaqic targumic piyyut, Aqdamut Milin, by Rabbi Meir ben Yitsḥaq Nehorai of Orléans (d. ca. 1095).

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!

This is a 17th century prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor found in Ms. 110 (Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic).

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.

A prayer for a pregnant woman anticipating childbirth, from an unidentified volume of the Seder Tkhines (circa 1640-1720).

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 texts for the twenty-fifth of Iyar in Cavaillon, commemorating the abatement of a deadly plague on 25 Iyyar 5391 (27 May 1631), including an Al haNisim of uncertain origin and a series of Biblical readings. Uniquely among the local festivals in this siddur, 25 Iyyar calls for a Torah reading not of the Song of the Sea, but the plague against Israel in Numbers 17.