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This is an archive of prayers composed for mourning. Some are for personal or private use. Others are for public, communal, and ceremonial functions. Some follow the formula of a Mourner’s Ḳaddish (Qaddish Yatom), others that of El Malé Raḥamim, and still others are adaptations or free-form with or without Hebrew, reflecting upon grief and interconnection and composed in a vernacular tongue.

Click here to contribute your own prayers of mourning.


Looking for something else?

For prayers composed for Tishah b’Av, visit here.


תוספת לסליחות לזיכרון המוסרים נפשם בחרבות ברזל | Supplement to the Seliḥot following “Aseh l’Maan Shemekha” in remembrance of the fallen in the Ḥarvot Barzel War, by Dr. Yael Levine

תפילת אל מלא רחמים לנרצחי התקפות החמאס והנופלים בקרבות | El Malé Raḥamim prayer for the victims of the HAMA”S attacks and those fallen in battle afterward (IDF 2024)

קִינָת בְּאֵרִי | Qinat Be’eri (a Lamentation for Be’eri), by Yagel Haroush

An Infinity of Amens, by Rabbi Hanna Yerushalmi (15 October 2023)

אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים לְנִשְׁמוֹת תּוֹשָׁבֵי מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל מֶהַיִשּׁוּבֵי עוֹטֵף עַזָּה | El Malé Raḥamim for the residents of the State of Israel from the communities on the Gaza Border, by Cantor Amnon Seelig

אל מלא רחמים לזכר הנרצחים | El Malé Raḥamim Prayer for the Victims of Terrorism in the Land of Israel

אֵל מָלֵא לְאַסְטְרוֹנָאוּטִים וְגָּשׁוֹשִׁיתוֹת | El Malé for Astronauts and Probes, by Aryeh Baruch

Things That Are Not To Be, a prayer-poem in the event of a pregnancy loss by Rabbi Hanna Yerushalmi (LGPC)

לזכרם של ההרוגים במלחמה באדמות אוקראינה | Молитва в пам’ять про загиблих у війні на землях України | Yizkor for those killed in the war in Ukraine, by Miriam Klimova (2022)

קדיש יתום | Mourner’s Ḳaddish, a translation by Everett Fox after Franz Rosenzweig

קדיש יתום בלי מנין או אם לבד (אשכנז)‏ | Abbreviated, Personal Mourner’s Ḳaddish for when Praying Alone or Without a Minyan (Nusaḥ Ashkenaz), by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Holy Tears: A Not-Ḳaddish, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor

קדיש יתום | Mourner’s Ḳaddish for a Minyan of Ten People (including Jews and non-Jews), by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org)

קדיש יתום | Mourner’s Ḳaddish — a creative translation by Rabbi David Zaslow

Loss of what could be; but is – a prayer-poem in eulogy after a suicide, by Andrew Meit

Each Loss Breaks a Pattern, a prayer for a shiva by Trisha Arlin

Yizkor: Instructions for Remembering, by Rabbi Nina Mizrahi

Prayer for the Interment of Sacred Writing in a Genizah, by Morah Yehudis Fishman

קדיש יתום | Mourner’s Ḳaddish, an interpretive rhyming translation by Alan Wagman

קדיש יתום בזמן מלחמה | Mourner’s Ḳaddish in Times of War and Violence, by Arthur Waskow

Kiss of death: a prayer upon the death of a parent, by Andrew Meit

אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים | El Malé Raḥamim (Prayer for the Departed), translated and sung by Effron Esseiva

אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים | El Malé Raḥamim (Prayer for the Departed), interpretive translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

תפילה על מת בהמה או חיה מחמד | Prayer on the Death of a Beloved Animal, by Aharon Varady (1994)

בַּשָּׁנָה הַבָּאָה | baShanah haBa’ah (Next Year), an elegy by Ehud Manor for his brother killed during the War of Attrition (1968)

תפלה למספד על המלך גארג | Prayer for the Memorial Service of King George Ⅵ (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the UK & the Commonwealth, 15 February 1952)

“Ein Mensch ist ein räumlich und zeitlich beschränktes” (A human being is…limited in time and space) — a letter of consolation by Albert Einstein (1950)

Ohne dich | Without you, a prayer for Natalie Baeck by Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck (7 March 1937)

[Prayer] for Those in Sorrow, by Basil Lucas Quixano Henriques (1916)

Am Grabe einer jungen Schwester | At the grave of one’s younger sister, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Am Grabe eines jungen Bruders | At the grave of one’s younger brother, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Am Grabe des Gatten | At the grave of one’s husband, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Am Grabe der Mutter | At the grave of one’s mother, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Am Grabe der Eltern | At the grave of one’s parents, a teḥinah by Anna Lachmann (1907)

Gebet eines Waisenkindes | Prayer of an Orphan, by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Der Schmerz, a meditation on grief by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Beruria, an ode to the sage by Lise Tarlau (1907)

On the Loss of a Beloved One, a prayer in the evening by Annie Josephine Levi (1900)

On the Loss of a Beloved One, a prayer in the morning by Annie Josephine Levi (1900)

Prayer on Losing Some One Near and Dear, by Lilian Helen Montagu (1895)

Prayer after the death of President Ulysses S. Grant, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (8 August 1885)

Prayer in Eulogy for Rabbi George Jacobs, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (18 July 1884)

Prayer in Eulogy for Vice President Henry Wilson, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (1 December 1875)

Prayer for the Departed (הזכרת נשמות), by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

[Prayer] on the Anniversary of a Parent’s Death (יאָרצײַט‎), by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Prayer for an Orphan, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

A Widow’s Prayer, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

[Prayer] at the Grave of a Child, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

[Prayer] at the Grave of a Brother or Sister, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

[Prayer] at a Mother’s Grave, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)