“Naḥamu (Comfort Ye!),” by J.C.L., published in 1842, appears as Hymn 2 in Hymns Written for the Service of the Hebrew Congregation Beth Elohim, South Carolina (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1842), p. 7.

A prayer for a childless woman seeking to conception.

A tkhine (supplication) for a mother to say before her daughter’s wedding, transcribed and translated from the Siddur Qorban Minḥah (1897).

A tkhine (supplication) for a bride to say before their wedding, transcribed and translated from the Siddur Qorban Minḥah (1897).

A prayer for those traveling over water on a sea or ocean voyage.

“Erhöre, Herr, mein Wort” is a hymn selected by Rabbi Gotthold Salomon, Immanuel Wohlwill, and Maimon Fraenkel for inclusion in the Hamburg Temple Hymnal (1833), hymn №300, pp. 367-368. The first three stanzas were translated by Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim and published as “Erhebung zu Gott! (Trust in God)” in his Hymns, for Divine Service in the Temple Emanu-El (1871) as hymn №2, pp. 4-5.

“God Save the King” was originally written by an unknown author and circulated in three stanzas during the reign of Britain’s King George Ⅱ, circa 1745. This Hebrew translation, “El Shemor haMelekh,” as translated by Hyman Hurwitz with an added fourth stanza, was first published in his The Etymology and Syntax of the Hebrew Language (1831), pp. 276-279, during the reign of King William Ⅳ (1765-1837).

“Arise, my soul! with rapture rise!” is the incipit to Hymn №2 in Barnett A. Elzas’s The Sabbath Service and Miscellaneous Prayers (1916), an edited republication of “The Sabbath service and miscellaneous prayers, adopted by the Reformed society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825.” The hymn appears on pages 55-56 without any additional attribution.

“A Prayer for Pentecost” by the Reformed Society of Israelites is found in The Sabbath service and miscellaneous prayers, adopted by the Reformed Society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825 (1830), as reprinted by Barnett A. Elzas in The Sabbath Service and Miscellaneous Prayers (1916), pp. 51-52.

“Father, whate’er of earthly bliss” is the incipit to Hymn №6 in Barnett A. Elzas’s The Sabbath Service and Miscellaneous Prayers (1916), an edited reprinting of The Sabbath service and miscellaneous prayers, adopted by the Reformed Society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825 (1830).

A prayer composed for honoring Napoleon Ⅰ by the emancipated Jews of France.

The Birkat Habayit is perhaps the most popular blessing in the Jewish world, appearing as a hanging amulet inside the entrance of many houses of Jews of all streams. I have added niqud to the blessing and I am very grateful to Gabriel Wasserman for his corrections to my vocalization.

The “Tkhine of the Gate of Tears” by an unknown author presented here derives from the Vilna, 1848 edition. I have transcribed it without any changes from The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992. shgiyot mi yavin, ministarot nakeni. If you can scan an image of the page from the edition this was copied from, please share it with us.

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.)

Master of all realms! You hear from all worlds. You look with love and grace upon all of your creations for whose sake you created Your world. Seize and fulfill the pure request from Your servant who comes before You after a full week, having shown her heart is full and her mood somber. The beloved Shabbes koidesh is already going away, and with our Shabbes, our rest has also disappeared. A new week comes up to meet us, against us, Master of the universe. We are people who know, just like You know, the heavy and difficult life of Your people Yisruel: their bitter mood, how difficulty and bitterly each Jew acquires his meager piece of bread through worry and heartache, the fear and hardship with which each Jew scrapes together his seemingly hopeless living.

The teḥinah for the blessing of the new moon is said each Shabbat Mevorkhim, addition to the specific teḥinah for that month. The prayer is recited when the Aron HaKodesh is opened, signifying the opening of the Heavenly gates of mercy (an especially propitious time to pray for health, livelihood, and all good).

Bénissons is the French version of the well-known Bendigamos, a prayer and melody of the Spanish & Portuguese Jewish communities, most probably originating in Bordeaux, France.

Kabbalistic kavvanot and blessing formulations for the eight nights of Ḥanukkah.

This is an expanded posthumous adaptation of the Yiddish translation of “Teḥinah Imahot” originally written by Leah Horowitz and published in the late 18th century. This variation is found in The Merit of Our Mothers בזכות אמהות A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, compiled and translated by Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992), pp. 84-88. The concluding prayer is longer in this variation than in the earliest published version.

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. I’m working on transcribing all of these, but to start, here’s an Al haNissim for the twenty-eighth of Shvat in Avignon. Written in rhymed prose, this text tells the story of a gentile who fell headfirst down a deep well near the synagogue, but successfully managed to flip himself over and wedged his feet in the walls. Even more miraculously, afterwards he declared that it was his own fault he fell in the pit! The Jews of the Comtat, an area under direct papal control at the time, were well aware of the tenuousness of their position, and were the man a talebearer then they could have faced a pogrom or exile.