אל מלא רחמים לזכר הנרצחים | El Malé Raḥamim Prayer for the Victims of Terrorism in the Land of Israel
Contributed by: R' Hillel Ḥayyim Lavery-Yisraëli, Unknown
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 by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The earliest “Earth Pledge” circulated between Earth Day 1970 and 1983. . . .
Land of Hope and Promise, a prayer for Israel (CCAR 1975)
Contributed by: Unknown, Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR], Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
“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 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). . . .
תפילת הדרך | The Traveler’s Prayer (with a Supplement for Airplane Travel)
Contributed by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
A traditional tefilat haderekh supplemented by a 20th century prayer for airplane travel. . . .
סדר הגדה של פסח עברי-כּורדי | Seder Haggadah shel Pesaḥ (Ivri-Kurdi), a Passover seder haggadah for Kurdish Jews in Hebrew and Aramaic (1959)
Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (digital imaging and document preparation), Unknown (translation), Unknown
A Passover Seder Haggadah in Hebrew and Aramaic (or Kurdish, as stated on the title page) published in Israel for the wave of Kurdish-Jewish immigrants from Iraq and other eastern countries. . . .
A Scholar’s Prayer for Intellectual Honesty, adapted from a prayer quoted by Dr. Leslie Weatherhead (1951)
Contributed by: Leslie Weatherhead, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (translation)
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 by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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 by: Unknown (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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 by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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, ca. 1940)
Contributed by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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.” . . .
הַנּוֹתֵן תְּשׁוּעָה | Oração Pelos Governantes, translated by Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (1939)
Contributed by: Artur Carlos de Barros Basto, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is the Hanoten Teshua formula of the Prayer for the Wellbeing of the Government as translated by Artur Carlos de Barros Basto in Portuguese on page 34 of his Shabbat morning prayer-pamphlet Oração Matinal de Shabbath (1939). I have set Barros Basto’s Portuguese translation side-by-side with the Hebrew text of Hanoten Teshua (the variation of the prayer corresponding to Barros Basto’s translation). . . .
מי שברך לשבויים | Mi sheBerakh for the Captives, after Kristallnacht (Hamburg, November 1938)
Contributed by: Elie Kaunfer, Unknown
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 by: Unknown, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
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 by: Unknown, Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR], Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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 by: Unknown, Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR], Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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.” . . .
א תְּחִנָה פאר א שׂטיףּ מוטער | A Tkhine for a Stepmother (from Shas Tkhine Ḥadashah, 1922)
Contributed by: Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
This is a faithful transcription of the א תְּחִנָה פאר א שטיף מוטער (“A Tkhine for a Stepmother”) which first appeared in ש״ס תחנה חדשה (Shas Tkhine Ḥadasha), a collection of tkhines published by Ben-Zion Alfes in Vilna, 1922. . . .
אֵשֶׁת חַיִל | Eshet Ḥayil (Proverbs 31:10-31), German translation by Franz Rosenzweig (1921)
Contributed by: Franz Rosenzweig (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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 by: Franz Rosenzweig (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
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 by: Franz Rosenzweig (translation), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
The Ḳaddish d’Rabbanan in Aramaic with its German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .