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Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty

This is an archive of prayers composed for, or relevant to, demands for social justice, peace, and liberty.

Click here to contribute a prayer you have written, or a transcription and translation of a historical prayer.

Resources filtered by TAG: “American Jewry of the United States” (clear filter)

Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first?

Prayer for Peace, a paraliturgical adaptation of Sim Shalom in the Union Prayer Book, revised edition (CCAR 1918)

This blessing, entitled “Prayer for Peace,” was first published in The Union Prayerbook for Jewish Worship, revised edition, part Ⅰ (CCAR, 1918) on page 110. The blessing is the concluding prayer of the weekday and festival Amidah. Here, in this adapted formulation in English, it is combined with a blessing for “our country” (the United States of America). Rabbi Abraham Cronbach includes the prayer in The Jewish Peace Book for Home and School (1932) under “Section III: Peace Devotions for Jewish Use — Prayers for Peace” on page 100. We are not certain whether Rabbi Cronbach authored this prayer, although it is suggested by its inclusion here.

Categories:

Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty, Weekday Amidah

Tags:

American Jewry of the United States, עמידה amidah, English vernacular prayer, interwar period, Jewish pacifism, paraliturgical sim shalom, שים שלום sim shalom

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Abraham Cronbach and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

A Passover Prayer [for Jews in the United States], by Rabbi Norman Salit (ca. 1920s)

“A Passover Prayer” was written by Rabbi Norman Salit and published in Rabbi Jacob Bosniak’s לקוטי תפלות Liḳutei Tefilot: Pulpit and Public Prayers (1927), pp. 46-47.

Categories:

7th Day of Pesaḥ, Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty

Tags:

20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, Americanism, bigotry, liberty

Contributor(s):

Norman Salit and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

A Sukkot Prayer [for Jews in the United States], by Rabbi Norman Salit (ca. 1920s)

This untitled prayer was written by Rabbi Norman Salit and published in Rabbi Jacob Bosniak’s לקוטי תפלות Liḳutei Tefilot: Pulpit and Public Prayers (1927), pp. 35-36 (in the section titled “Prayers for Succoth”).

Categories:

Sukkot, Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty

Tags:

20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, Americanism, bigotry, liberty

Contributor(s):

Norman Salit and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

[Prayer before] the Chamber of Commerce and Civics [of the Oranges & Maplewood, New Jersey], a Cold War prayer by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (1950)

A prayer for the continuance of “the American way of life” offered during the Cold War (1947-1953) in northern New Jersey.

Categories:

Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, anti-communist, capitalism, Cold War (1947–1953), New Jersey, Post–World War II economic expansion

Contributor(s):

Avraham Samuel Soltes and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

[Prayer for] Little League [Baseball], by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (ca. 1950s)

A prayer for American democracy as enshrined in Little League Baseball.

Categories:

Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, athletics, baseball, English vernacular prayer, little league baseball

Contributor(s):

Avraham Samuel Soltes and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Invocation for the 78th Annual Reading of President George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, by Rabbi Stephen Belsky

This invocation was given at the 78th annual George Washington Letter Reading Event, August 17, 2025 (23 Av, 5785), held by the Touro Synagogue Foundation to celebrate the famous 1790 letter exchange between the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island (represented by warden Moses Seixas) and first president of the United States, George Washington. Washington’s response to Seixas’s letter, in which he quotes some of his most iconic phrasings, is one of the first official statements by the US government on the value of religious freedom. This Letter Reading Event was held in the Old Colony House (where the Jewish community’s letter was probably presented to President Washington), rather than in the Touro Synagogue, due to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York’s barring of the Touro Synagogue Foundation from access to the building.

Categories:

Social Justice, Peace, and Liberty, 🇺🇸 United States of America

Tags:

21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, civic prayers, English vernacular prayer, George Washington, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

Contributor(s):

Stephen Belsky

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"Stop Separating Immigrant Familes Press Conference and Rally Chicago Illinois 6-5-18 1934" (credit: Charles Edward Miller, license: CC BY-SA) -- cropped

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "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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