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a community-grown, libre Open Access archive of Jewish prayer and liturgical resources
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אֶפְתַּח פִּי לְךָ אָדוֹן | Eftaḥ Pi L’kha Adōn, a seliḥah for Kristallnacht by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer Contributor(s):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). . . . Prayer of Intercession [for Britain in the War against Nazi Germany], by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1940) Contributor(s):“Prayer for Intercession,” almost certainly written by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, was published in the Prayer Book of Jewish Members of H.M. Forces (Office of the Chief Rabbi 1940), pp. 18-19. . . . Prayer on the Declaration of War [against Nazi Germany], by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1940) Contributor(s):This prayer for victory and deliverance in the war against Nazi Germany, simply titled “War Prayer,” appears in the Prayer Book of Jewish Members of H.M. Forces (Office of the Chief Rabbi 1940), pp. 16-17. Sections of the prayer were adapted from the prayer on the declaration of war by Rabbi Hertz in 1914 at the outset of World War I. In the preface to the payer book, Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz specifically mentions this prayer, among others, as having been newly revised for this publication. The initial version of the prayer, likely to have been written by Rabbi Hertz, was published by the Office of the Chief Rabbi for a 17 Tammuz service in July 1938. A revision was disseminated after Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). This is the third version of the prayer. . . . תפילה לעזרת היהודים תושבי גרמניה | Prayer for German Jewry under Nazi oppression before and after Kristallnacht (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1938) Contributor(s):An untitled prayer on behalf of German Jewry under Nazi oppression disseminated in Bombay, likely after Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). . . . Contributor(s):This prayer for the country is found in the Siddur Sephat Emeth, which was published by the venerable Rödelheim publishing house in Frankfurt in 1938. This was probably the last siddur ever published in pre-Holocaust Germany. This prayer is full of pathos and yearning, and in a time of rising government-sponsored antisemitism worldwide it’s worth keeping in mind. . . . Contributor(s):This is the Kol Nidrei as offered by the Hannover Synagogue on Yom Kippur in 1937 according to the text provided in a poster, “Agende für Kol-nidre und Seelenfeier in der Synaogen-Gemeinde Hannover” (10 September 1937). Thank you to David Selis for providing digital images of the poster. . . . Prayer for all Jewish Communities in Germany for the Eve of the Day of Atonement, by Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck (10 October 1935) Contributor(s):This is the prayer which Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck had disseminated to Jewish communities throughout Germany to recite on Yom Kippur, 10 October 1935. The German text here is as found in the archival notes of Helmut Grünewald, Ein Judenjunge durfte kein Deutscher sein (Bristol, 1998), pp. 20-21 in the collection of the Leo Baeck Institute. The English translation is as published by Dr. Michael Meyer in Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times (2020), pp. 106-107. . . . |
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