tagged: 14th century C.E. • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

צוּר מִשֶּׁלּוֹ אָכַֽלְנוּ | Tsur Mishelo Akhalnu, a paraliturgical Birkat haMazon (translation by Sara-Kinneret Lapidot)

Contributor(s):

Sara Lapidot (translation) and Unknown Author(s)

The piyyut, Tsur Mishelo, in Hebrew with an English translation. . . .

💬 מְגִילַּת יְהוּדִית לְאָמְרָהּ בַּחֲנֻכָּה | Megillat Yehudit, the Medieval Scroll of Judith to be said on Ḥanukkah

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Susan Weingarten (translation), Moshe Shmi'el Dascola, Unknown Author(s) and Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

This is a faithful transcription of the text of the medieval Megillat Yehudith (the Scroll of Judith), not to be confused with the deutero-canonical Book of Judith, authored in Antiquity. We have further set this text side-by-side with the English translation made by Susan Weingarten, and vocalized and cantillated the Hebrew so that it may be chanted. . . .

אֱלֹהִים בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל | Elohim b’Yisrael :: A piyyut containing the 42 Letter Name, recorded in Sefer haPeliah

Contributor(s):

Nir Krakauer (translation), Unknown Author(s) and Aharon N. Varady (translation)

The earliest recorded prayer or piyyut providing an acrostic for the 42 letter divine name. . . .

בְּכִסְלֵו – מאבן בֹחן | On Kislev, from the poem “Even Boḥan” by Rabbi Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir (1322)

Contributor(s):

Susan Weingarten (translation), Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir

Before potatoes entered the diet of Ashkenazi Jews, latkes were cheese pancakes, or cassola, as described in the poem “Even Boḥan” (Touchstone) by Rabbi Kalonymus b, Kalonymus ben Meir. . . .

תפילה להפך – מאבן בֹחן | Prayer for Transformation, from the poem “Even Boḥan” by Rabbi Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir (1322)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (translation), Nir Krakauer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Steven Greenberg, Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir

A prayer by Kalonymus b. Kalonymus ben Meir that appears in his poem ספר אבן בוחן, יג Sefer Even Boḥan (§13), describing the author’s wish to have been born a Jewish woman. . . .

💬 מגילת יונה | Megillat Yonah with its Yevanic (Judeo-Greek) Targum ca. 14th c.

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Unknown Translator(s) and the Masoretic Text

This is a 14th-century translation of the entire book of Jonah into Judeo-Greek or Yevanic, the traditional language of the Romaniote community of Byzantium. To quote the Judeo-Greek expert Julia G. Krivoruchko, it “exhibits a fusion of contemporary vernacular language with archaic elements” and “favors an extremely literal translation style.” This translation was first published in Greek transcription by the Dutch hellenist Dirk Christiaan Hesseling, who misdated it to the 12th-century based on a mixup between the Seleucid and common eras. Included as part of a Romaniote maḥzor (Bodleian Library MS. Oppenheim Add. 8° 19), this translation was almost certainly in use as a targum for the reading of Jonah as the Yom Kippur minḥa haftarah. In the original manuscript the majority of verses are preceded with a few words of the Hebrew, a common practice for written targumim. . . .