This is a kavvanah (intention) for anyone in a desperate circumstance of needing to eat or drink for their mortal health, to do so with the full confidence that they are fulfilling a mitsvah required for them in the Torah, to preserve their life. The kavvanah was related by Rav Yitschok Zilberstein in his Toras haYoledes (1983), chapter 52, section 10, p. 357 (pp. 331-332 in the bilingual edition 1989), “הועתק ממחזור עתיק” (as “copied from an old maḥzor”). Unfortunately, we can’t provide a more direct reference to this maḥzor. If you know, please leave a comment or contact us. . . .

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. . . .

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). . . .

A traditional tefilat haderekh supplemented by a 20th century prayer for airplane travel. . . .

A prayer for intellectual honesty before study. . . .

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. . . .

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. . . .

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.” . . .

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). . . .

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.” . . .

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. . . .

The Masoretic Hebrew text of Proverbs 30:10-31, the alphabetic acrostic “Eshet Ḥayil,” with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

The Ḳaddish d’Rabbanan in Aramaic with its German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

The popular adjuration of the angels of peace and ministering angels, Shalom Aleikhem, in Hebrew with a German translation by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

A German translation of the Birkat haMazon prepared by Franz Rosenzweig. . . .

“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. . . .

This prayer appears to have been issued for Jewish soldiers serving in the German army at the start of World War Ⅰ and was recited in the synagogues in Fürth, Germany in 1914. The prayer was printed as a single leaflet by the printer Druck von Lehrberger & Co. in Frankfurt am Main. A leaflet ended up in the Central Chabad Lubavitch Library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY (Card #87119), although no explanation has been offered how a Chasidic group based in Russia came to acquire this work. The original leaflet was digitized and made accessible via the Chabad library website. . . .

This prayer for the well-being of the Kaiser (Emperor) Nikolai II and his family appears in the siddur Shir Ushvaḥah (1889) . . .

“God Save the Queen” is an adaptation of “God Save the King,” a work by an unknown author, first circulated in three stanzas during the reign of Britain’s King George Ⅱ, circa 1745. This Hebrew translation was published in a pamphlet circulated by New Road (Whitechapel) Synagogue in 1892 “on the 73rd Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Victoria,” an event attended by then chief rabbi of the British Empire, Rabbi Dr. Hermann Adler​. . . .

A prayer for the French Emperor, Napoleon III, a year before he was captured by the Prussians in the doomed Franco-Prussian War of 1870, including the formula of the prayer, haNoten Teshuah, as adapted for Napoleon III. . . .