🡄 (Previous category) :: 📁 Slavery & Captivity

📁 War :: (Next Category) 🡆

Terror

This is an archive of prayers composed in response to or in anxious anticipation of an attack intended to invoke communal terror and distress.

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

Resources filtered by TAG: “קינות Ḳinōt” (clear filter)

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

Prayer After the Bombing in Boston, by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat (2013)

I wrote this a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing. It arose out of a meditation service which I led at my synagogue. The doors to our sanctuary were open, so we had the sounds of the nearby wetland in our ears, and I invited the meditators to join me in cultivating compassion and sending it toward Boston. The line “My heart is in the east and I am in the west” is adapted from the medieval Spanish poet Judah haLevi. . . .

Categories: Terror

Tags: 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Boston, elegy, English vernacular prayer, Massachusetts, Prayers as poems, קינות Ḳinōt, United States

Contributor(s): Rachel Barenblat

אֵלֶּה אֶזְכְּרָה, נוּסַח פִּיטְסְבּוּרְג | Eileh Ezkarah for Pittsburgh, by Rabbi Jonathan Perlman with Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum & Rabbi Martin Cohen (2019)

A ḳinah for the martyrs of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Boston in 2018. . . .

Categories: Hateful Intolerance, Prejudice, and Bigotry, Mass Shootings & Gun Violence, Terror

Tags: 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., martyrdom, mass murder inside a synagogue, Prayers after acts of terrible violence, קינות Ḳinōt

Contributor(s): Jonathan Perlman, Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and Martin Samuel Cohen

דָּם זְכַרְיָה מְבַכֶּה | The blood of Zekhariah cries out, a qinah by Aryeh Baruch

As I was in NYC, I first heard the news of the pogrom with which Hamas opened the war between Hallel and the Torah reading on Shemini Atseret. The beginnings of what is now the final stanza of this… I am unsure whether to refer to it as a qinah or a piyut first stirred in my soul during Tefillat Geshem, and the refrain of that stanza during Hakafot that evening. Prayer and song, no matter how joyous, has taken on a somber, cutting, desperate edge for me in this new world where the safety I had once taken for granted was revealed to be an illusion, which is reflected in taking from the phrases taken from the liturgy of the Yomim Nora’im. . . .

Categories: Terror, War

Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Hebrew translation, קינות Ḳinōt

Contributor(s): Aryeh Baruch

קינה על מאורעות חרבות ברזל | Qinah al Me’or’ot Ḥarvot Barzel, by Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon (World Mizrachi Movement)

This qinah for the horrors of October 7th was written by Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon, president of World Mizrachi and first published to their website for the Nine Days (Rosh Ḥodesh Av to Tishah b’Av). . . .

Categories: Pogroms & Genocide, Terror

Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., קינות Ḳinōt, religious Zionist prayers

Contributor(s): Yosef Zvi Rimon

אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָּדָד | Eikhah Yashvah Badad (O How She Sat Alone), a qinah by Nurit Hirschfeld-Skupinsky

The author of this qinah is a survivor of the slaughter in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The qinah was first published in an article by Tamar Biala appearing in The Times of Israel, “O how she sat alone: New laments for a beloved land” on 4 August 2024, appended with the note: “These Lamentations will appear in Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash Vol. 2.” . . .

Categories: Tishah b'Av, Pogroms & Genocide, Slavery & Captivity, Terror

Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Prayers after acts of terrible violence, קינות Ḳinōt

Contributor(s): Yehudah Mirsky (translation) and Nurit Hirschfeld-Skupinsky

קִינָה לְאֶרֶץ אֲהוּבָה | Qinah l’Erets Ahuvah (Lamentation for a Beloved Land), by Liora Eilon

The author of this qinah is a survivor of the slaughter in Kibbutz Kfar Azza. The qinah was first published in an article by Tamar Biala appearing in The Times of Israel, “O how she sat alone: New laments for a beloved land” on 4 August 2024, appended with the note: “These Lamentations will appear in Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash Vol. 2.” . . .

Categories: Tishah b'Av, Pogroms & Genocide, Slavery & Captivity, Terror

Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Prayers after acts of terrible violence, קינות Ḳinōt

Contributor(s): Yehudah Mirsky (translation) and Liora Eilon

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=777

Associated Image:

"Paris rally in support of the victims of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, 11 January 2015." A sign in the background saying "Jews, Muslims, atheists, Christians united... Everyone united for liberty/freedom" (credit: sébastien amiet;l, license: CC BY)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute any information in the description of this archive page to the Open Siddur Project (<https://opensiddur.org>).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed this page and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this archive: <https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=777>.
Indicate that the original page was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this page in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the CC BY-SA license.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed on this page and in these shared works represents the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

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

Pocket Reddit Facebook Bluesky Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email