🡄 (Previous category) :: 📁 Holocaust & Genocide Memorial Day Readings

📁 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday readings :: (Next Category) 🡆

🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings

🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings

This is an archive of public readings prepared for Martin Luther King Jr. Day (a/k/a MLK Day), or for reading on the shabbat immediately preceding MLK Day.

Click here to contribute a reading you have prepared for MLK Day.

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

💬 Excerpts from speeches by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1956-1968) selected by Rabbi Marcia Prager, cantillated by Ḥazzan Jack Kessler

These quotations from Dr. King’s speeches were edited by Rabbi Marcia Prager and set to Haftarah Trop by Hazzan Jack Kessler. This adaptation was first published in Kerem (Fall 2014), in Jack Kessler’s article, “English Leyning: Bringing New Meaning to the Torah Service.” . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings, Modern Miscellany

Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Cantillated readings in English, civil rights, Hafatarot, social justice, צדק צדק תרדוף tsedeq tsedeq tirdof, United States

Contributor(s): Jack Kessler (trōpification), Marcia Prager and Martin Luther King, Jr.

💬 Excerpts from the Speeches and Letters of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1958-1968) from an ecumenical MLK Day service by Temple Emanu-El & Abyssinian Baptist Church

Selections from speeches and letters by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. read in ecumenical services for Martin Luther King Day in the United States. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings, Modern Miscellany

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Btselem Elohim, civil rights, social justice, צדק צדק תרדוף tsedeq tsedeq tirdof, United States

Contributor(s): Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

💬 “I have a Dream” by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1963), cantillated by Rabbi David Evan Markus

In 2017, Rabbi David Evan Markus prepared the end of Dr. King’s famous speech read at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963) with trope (t’amim, cantillation). The following year on Facebook he shared a recording of the reading hosted on Soundcloud. Rabbi Markus writes, “This weekend at Temple Beth El of City Island, I offered the end of Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, which I set to haftarah trope because I hold Dr. King to be a prophet. When my community applauded, I offered President Obama’s response, ‘Don’t clap: vote.’ And do more than vote: organize, donate, volunteer, help, heal, advocate. Only then, in Dr. King’s words quoting Isaiah 40:5, will ‘all flesh see it together.'” . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings, Modern Miscellany

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Cantillated readings in English, civil rights, Hafatarot, social justice, צדק צדק תרדוף tsedeq tsedeq tirdof, United States

Contributor(s): David Evan Markus, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

💬 Four excerpts from a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1963), cantillated by Rabbi David Evan Markus

This is a haftarah comprised of excerpts from a “letter from a Birmingham jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. (16 April 1963). The haftarah was cantillated by Rabbi David Evan Markus for a public reading on MLK Shabbat (the sabbath preceding MLK Day). . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Readings, Modern Miscellany

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Cantillated readings in English, civil rights, Hafatarot, social justice, צדק צדק תרדוף tsedeq tsedeq tirdof, United States

Contributor(s): David Evan Markus and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=3023

Associated Image:

Rabbi A.J. Heschel, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath (holding Torah). March for Peace at Arlington National Cemetery on February 6, 1968 (cropped)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in category pages and 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=3023>.
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