“Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” (originally “Columbia, the Land of the Brave”) was an American patriotic song popular in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Adapted by Thomas A’Becket, Sr. around 1843 from the British patriotic song “Britannia, the Pride of the Ocean”, Columbia was long used as an unofficial national anthem of the United States, in competition with other songs. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Flag Day (June 14), 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, anti-fascist, Patriotic hymns, זמירות zemirot

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Gershon Rosenzweig (translation) and Thomas A'Becket, Sr.

Opening prayer for the Ceremonies at the Site of the Statue of Religious Liberty by the Independent Order of B’nai Brith, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (5 July 1875)

This was the opening prayer offered by Rabbi Sabato Morais at the “Ceremonies at the Site of the Statue of Religious Liberty by the Independent Order of B’nai Berith” for the Celebration of the Ninety-Ninth Anniversary of American Independence in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, July 5th, 1875 and published in a booklet containing the same. The site of the ceremonies was “the Walnut Street Railway, near the Centennial grounds.” The statue, “Religious Liberty,” was commissioned by B’nai B’rith and dedicated “to the people of the United States” as an expression of support for the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. It was created by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a B’nai B’rith member and the first American Jewish sculptor to gain international prominence. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, dedications and consecrations, English vernacular prayer, liberty, statues of liberty, United States centennial

Contributor(s):

Sabato Morais and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

The New Collosus (דער נײער קאָלאסוס) — a paean to the Shekhinah/”Mother of Exiles” by Emma Lazarus (1883)

This is the sonnet, “The New Collosus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus set side-by-side with its Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman. Lazarus famously penned her sonnet in response to the waves of Russian-Jewish refugees seeking refuge in the Unites States of America as a result of murderous Russian pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Her identification and revisioning of the Statue of Liberty as the Mother of Exiles points to the familiar Jewish identification of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence, in its feminine aspect) with the light of the Jewish people in their Diaspora. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Mother's Day (2nd Sunday of May), 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th), 🇺🇸 Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November)

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., shekhina, statues of liberty, welcome the stranger

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Rachel Kirsch Holtman (translation) and Emma Lazarus

America the Beautiful (אַמעריקע די פּרעכטיקע) — a patriotic hymn by Katharine Lee Bates (1895)

“America the Beautiful,” the patriotic hymn (1911 version) by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) in its Yiddish translation by Berl Lapin (1889-1952). . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, doikayt, hereness, Patriotic hymns, United States, Yiddish songs, Yiddish translation, זמירות zemirot

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Berl Lapin (translation) and Katharine Lee Bates

מײן אַמעריקא (אונזער נײע הימנע) | My America (Our New Hymn) by Morris Rosenfeld (1917)

“My America (Our New Hymn)” was written by Morris Rosenfeld and published by the Jewish Morning Journal sometime mid-April 1917. On April 2nd, the United States had entered the World War against Germany and its allies. In the xenophobic atmosphere of the United States during World War Ⅰ, Representative Isaac Siegel (1880-1947), R-NY, offered the hymn as evidence of the patriotism of America’s “foreign-born” Jewish immigrants. The poem in its English translation was added to the Congressional Record on 18 April 1917 in an extension of remarks. Xenophobia in the United States though did not ebb. Nearly a year later, on April 4, 1918, a German immigrant, Robert Prager, was lynched in Collinsville, Illinois. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th), 🇺🇸 Veterans Day (11 November), 🇺🇸 Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November)

Tags:

20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, Patriotic hymns, Prayers as poems, rhyming translation, United States home front during World War Ⅰ, World War Ⅰ, Yiddish translation, Yiddish vernacular prayer

Contributor(s):

Morris Rosenfeld and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=2796

Associated Image:

a still frame (01:02:54) of the everyday evening Fourth of July Parade and Picnic in Topeka Downunder from the film adaptation of Harlan Ellison's post-apocalyptic tale: A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

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