Kristallnacht • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

This is an archive of prayers composed for, or relevant to, Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan, or 15 Marḥeshvan on years where 16 Marḥeshvan falls on a Thursday). Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
If you have composed a prayer or prayer-poem for Kristallnacht, please share it here.
Looking for something else?
For prayers composed for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, please visit here.
For prayers composed for Yom haShoah in the State of Israel (27 Nisan), please visit here.
For prayers composed for the United States commemoration: Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, please visit here.
For public readings selected for Holocaust & Genocide Memorial Days, go here.

אֶפְתַּח פִּי לְךָ אָדוֹן | Eftaḥ Pi L’kha Adōn, a seliḥah for Kristallnacht by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Categories:

Kristallnacht, International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust

Tags:

Third Reich, פיוטים piyyutim, acronym, קינות Ḳinnot, השואה the Shoah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Alphabetic Acrostic

There’s a lot of controversy over Yom haShoah as a date. One of the key issues is this: traditionally, the ways Jews mourn communal tragedies is through establishing a fast day. It’s forbidden to fast during the month of Nisan. It’s hard to pick any specific date to commemorate a tragedy as enormous as the Shoah, but one which seems appropriate to me would be 16 Marḥeshvan, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom. This piyyut is a seliḥah for Kristallnacht, to be recited on 16 Marḥeshvan (or 15 Marḥeshvan on years like 5782 where the sixteenth falls on a Thursday). . . .

סֵדֶר לְיוֹם הַשׁוֹאָה | Seder for Yom haSho’ah, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Categories:

International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th), Kristallnacht, Yom haShoah (27 Nisan)

Tags:

27 Nissan, speaking truth to power, North America, symbolic foods, Mourning this Broken World, השואה the Shoah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., the Holocaust, כ״ז ניסן Nisan 27

The most traumatic event in recent Jewish history is the Holocaust. At this time, the survivors of the camps are aging, and in the lifespan of people alive today it is likely that the last survivor will die. We say we must never forget what happened during the Holocaust, but if we think of it as a tragedy that happened to our ancestors we will forget. But it has been 3000 years since the Exodus from Egypt, and the Haggadah keeps its history vivid and alive. We are taught that in each and every generation we are to think of ourselves as having been slaves in Egypt. May it be that just as we never forgot the wonders of the Exodus, so too we never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and continue to strive that such horrors may never happen again until all live in freedom and peace. . . .