#siddurim

[thejewitches]

A siddur from 1937, in accordance with the German & Polish tradition. Sold via Instagram.

[todaysjewishholiday]

14 Sivan 5784 (19-20 June 2024)

The 14th of Sivan 5270 saw a celebration among Ashkenazi Jews over the reversal of a decree nearly as horrible as the decree proposed to Ahaverosch by Haman in the Book of Esther, for though this was not a decree for the destruction of Jewish lives, it struck at something almost as dear to our hearts— the sacred books of Judaism.

Ashkenazi Jews had endured a precarious existence from the first settlements of Jews in the newly Christianized lands of Central Europe. By 5269, Ashkenazi communities had experienced centuries of violence inspired by the crusades and other forms of religious persecution. Maximilian I, who claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor, had expanded his own treasuries for much of his reign by permitting cities to pay him for the right to expel their Jewish populations, then allowing those Jews to resettle in other territories under his control. Unlike his contemporaries in the Iberian Peninsula his aim was not to force Jews to convert but simply to capitalize on antisemitism for his own enrichment. In 5269, however, he was provoked to issue a decree calling for the seizure and destruction of Jewish religious texts including the Talmud and siddurim by a Jewish apostate and antisemitic agitator who claimed these books attacked Christianity and ought to be destroyed by the Christian ruler. Maximilian’s decree was immediately met with outrage not only by the Jews of the empire but by scholars, nobles, and priests who understood their importance, including the Catholic archbishop of Mainz. Eventually the pleas of these advocates and impassioned defenses of the Talmud by Christian Hebraists including Johannes Reuchlin persuaded the emperor to reverse his decree on the 14th of Sivan, and books which had been confiscated were returned to their Jewish owners. While Jewish life in Christian lands remained precarious, one disaster had been averted.

[germiyahu]

I had completely forgotten about this 🫨

[nonstandardrepertoire]

OVO WHAT'S THIS

Siddur Davar Ḥadash is an attempt to imagine one form that a de-gendered, de-stigmatized, Diasporist liturgy might take. All the prayers are fully transliterated and translated with all-new translations, all of which are released into the public domain to use and edit without restriction

And now!!! You can get your very own hard copy! Wow!!!

(And if you'd like to read some more personal thoughts about this project and what's ahead, I just put out a little newsletter with that very information! Neat!)

[shalom-iamcominghome]

All the people who own their own siddur have all these tabs in theirs and I completely understand why - I'm going to load this up with my own. Like this siddur has so much in it, I love ArtScroll but come on 😭😭

Every order should come with a set of 150 tabs or something. I'm trying to have a whole color system so g-d willing I can actually adhere to and remember it. And I have a shabbos one coming in soon so I'm going to need to start doing this to that one

[transmascpetewentz]

girl help i was asked by the guy who does education at my shul to buy a siddur but they r $55+... how am i going to even do this

[vhenadahls]

@artisanalgoats Reform/Reformative here to say that I do like Mishkan T'filah a lot, and that they do have a non-transliterated version if you want to move towards that! There definitely is a fair amount "missing" compared to Conservative or otherwise more "traditional" siddurim, so it really depends on what you're looking for (I am not sure any version of Mishkan T'filah has Tachanun, for example, but don't quote me on that). I have a copy that has Shabbat, weekday, and festival davening all in one volume (it is. Large.), and if you're affiliated with a Reform shul, they'll likely have a copy of something like that that they might let you borrow to peruse before determining whether it's something you want to buy for yourself.

At the moment I do prefer Mishkan T'filah to Lev Shalem, but I have a Lot more experience with the former, so it may just be familiarity bias. But I like how much "white space" is used in MT to make it feel more readable and to give you space to breathe, and in the transliterated versions I like that they're like by line and opposite one another rather than sequential, so it's easier to follow along if you need to switch between the Hebrew and the transliteration.

MT also has a lot of alternative transliterations and additional readings (poems, stories, etc), which can add to or detract from your davening, it's very individual.

I hope you find a siddur that works for you!

Chag sameach, Avital! I'm in the market for a new siddur, and I was hoping you might have some thoughts (or be able to broadcast this to those who do!). I'm Reform and can read Hebrew decently and I've used Conservative siddurim before. I've heard good things about the Mishkan T'filah, but I wanted to see if you or anyone else has any suggestions :)

Yeah! So the boring (but real) answer is that it's usually best to just use the siddur that your community uses. Now, if you're Reform and your community doesn't do weekday minyanim but you want to do weekday davening, that's a different story.

If your Hebrew is good enough that you don't need transliterations at all (or are committed to weaning yourself off of them) and you're willing to write in or verbally add in the egalitarian stuff on your own (or aren't bothered), I really like the Koren siddurim I have. I have a Nusach Sfard standard siddur with English translations and a Nusach Ashkenaz talpiot (mini travel siddur) with just the Hebrew. I love both.

I do not own, but I have used, multiple excellent ArtScroll siddurim, and I own an ArtScroll Tikkun (basically a giant chumash written in STAM script for the purposes of learning various parts of Torah leyning) that I really like. Some ArtScroll siddurim have in-line translation and transliteration under the Hebrew, if that interests you also. I will say that you will have to have some tolerance for Ashkenzish transliteration; it's very frum Ashkenazi that way.

Both Koren and ArtScroll are, however, definitely orthodox/non-egal. If you're looking for Masorti/Conservative/traditional egalitarian siddurim, I do really love my Lev Shalem (official Conservative movement siddur) for Shabbat and Festivals, and I am fine with using Sim Shalom for weekdays. (I don't dislike it personally, but I also hope they update it to match Lev Shalem soon.)

If you're interested in something both Sephardic and avant-garde, I definitely recommend checking out Or veShalom:

If you do, tell me about it! My primary community is Ashkenazi so that's been my default, but this honestly looks amazing and I've been meaning to invest in it for a while. (I am a little hesitant in that I'm worried that if I start davening out of this, I won't want to daven out of anything else, but that's a risk I'm willing to take when I have the money to buy it, lol.)

Hope that helps, and a belated chag sameach!!

[roboromantic]

What I went into the thrift store for:

a small hall tree and/or a bookshelf, maybe some clothes and/or shoes too

What I actually left the thrift store with:

A copy of Psalms based on st called the Grail translation? I’d never heard of that version iirc but after looking at the intro, this particular book’s apparently an “inclusive-language” version from 1993, by which they mean they did the equivalent of going through and changing all instances of “firemen” to “firefighters and not much else afaik

1997 copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Somehow a  second copy of the exact same version of the Good News Bible that I already had because I’ve uh. lost track of what versions and translations I have.      

First edition copy of the Anchor Bible version of the Wisdom of Solomon, complete with an errata sheet. woulda been cool to have the whole set, but that woulda been a Lot to carry around and find somewhere to store

Book copy of The Chosen to go with the DVD I already have. It’s also got highlights and a notecard from the previous owner with a few of their notes on chapter 16, so that’s neat

The first canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, another book where I wish I’d found the entire series 😔

The Animation Book by Kit Laybourne bc I keep thinking maybe one day I’ll actually commit to learning how to do 3d animations

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Learn to Program with Minecraft: Transform Your World with the Power of Python.        this came out in 2016 and “requires Minecraft 1.8 or 1.9″

[fromgoy2joy]

Let's write about Jewish characters in dynamic ways- that make it clear "Yes this is us. Yes, we are living our lives with this happiness and ritual, and we love it. "

Like it's so easy to write about, to have casual observances of Judaism and cultural practices be in the background of stories. I'll write of the few examples I can think of in my frame of reference as a college student-

there's a mezuza in the doorway of a college kid's apartment. Whenever his friends come over, it's a reach for some of them to touch it because both he and the rabbi who installed it are 6 foot three. The others feel like a middle school boy slapping the ceiling as they try and reach for the damn thing.

Characters rush on public transport to get to a rabbi's house on shabbat. The train is due. There's a flurry of regrouping, then trying to call a missing friend to get there, and then the process of methodically hiding Magen davids and jewish objects because getting to shabbat dinner without a situation was an order from college Hillel staff.

A character is half-drunk at 2 AM at the convenience store but has to scan the list of ingredients on their chemically disgusting snack for gelatin.

Said character is prevented by her friends from only sustaining herself on 7/11 slushees "even though it's all kosher!"

There are references to the Purim incident constantly- it is never clarified what happened on Purim.

the hypothetical gang of characters are in the middle of nowhere on a grand magical adventure. The main character notices a mezuza on a door of a cabin, knocks on it, and has an in-depth conversation with the resident. Then, he waves his friends over. "Hey, guys! We have a place to stay tonight!" Because through the magic of Jewish geography, it was discovered that the grumpy old Jewish man in the woods is the grand uncle of one of his Jewish Day school teachers

A character who eats cheesy bacon bagels regularly on passover has a deep respect for jewish ritual items. He kisses the siddurim as they're handed back into a pile, he always kisses his kippah that he wears for ritual purposes of shabbats and minions. He's very careful with these objects and keeps on claiming dropping something He is observant, and he cares so much, but not in the "typical" way. Just... please show the nuance in practice.

The big "going out night" for our fearless college student isn't Friday but saturday night because of shabbat.

The stain on the rabbi's couch is not to be mentioned

A character keeps on mentioning the stain anyway.

Jewish goodbyes after any event take a minimum of two hours and that's why the gang is delayed on their journey to save the world .

I want more representation than characters in novels saying "haha I'm jewish but eat bacon and love Christmas!" in such flat ways. Please feel free to add more hypothetical ways of representation in the comments !!! About or inspired by your own life and experiences ! Let's make this post vibrant!

[therainingkiwi]

I am a Jew.

I did not know that civilians lived in Palestine until i was probably sixteen. SIXTEEN. You know when I first learned that Palestine existed? Oh, probably when I was three or four, in Hebrew school.

I was literally taught that Palestine is a nation of terrorists. I thought it was basically one giant army base where Hamas planned attacks, rather than a real country with hospitals and cities and schools. Again: I did not know that civilians and everyday non-terrorists lived in Palestine until I was a fucking TEENAGER (and even then, it was despite my synagogue's best efforts, not because they changed the shul curriculum or anything).

I'm not saying this because I'm proud. I am DEEPLY ashamed to have once believed this. It's why I focus my anti-Israel activism around the Jewish community in particular: I do not trust myself around Palestinians because I fear I haven't rooted out my prejudices enough for them to be safe in my company. I'm not sure I ever will.

But you need to know how intense Israeli propaganda is. You need to know WHY so many people can't distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Israel has spent lots of time and money on its international image. They've spent possibly even MORE time and money to smear Palestine into the mud. Israel relies on the world seeing their colonization as valiant Jews holding steadfast against evil Islamic terrorists. Without their indoctrination, they don't have power.

I hope Palestine rises higher and freer than Netanyahu's worst fucking nightmares.

I was asked why there's a zionist claim that the Palestininian identity is not legitimate. And I think it's important to understand why Palestinians as a whole are seen as a threat by Israel. To understand why it's not about Hamas.

The claim is that the Palestininian identity was made up in order to push us out. Palestinian existence is a threat to the legitimacy of Israel as a country.

I was taught in school that Palestine was empty when we got here. They used a Mark Twain quote. It was a barren land full of swamps and some nomadic people (Beduins) but as soon as we wanted to come here, the awful antisemitic Arabs sent people to settle here before we could to take up the space. I was in school in the settlements though. I was taught the most extreme version of this.

Another version of this is that Palestine was never its own thing, they're just Arabs the same as all Arabs from the surrounding countries. So they could just... scooch over and give us the space, please and thank you. In Israel no one uses the term Palestinian. If I do, people roll their eyes and dismissively go "Arab." An Arab is an Arab. It's a way to strip away their unique identity and blend them in with the rest to say they could always move to Jordan, or Syria, or Lebanon, and it's all the same to them.

It's a way to make Palestinian existence by itself into a malicious plot to deny us a homeland.

Because if Palestinians exist as a distinct group of people, we aren't the only ones with a connection to this land. And you don't create an ethnostate by sharing.

You still hear echoes of this mentality. Why won't all these Muslim countries take the people of Gaza as refugees? That's asking why they won't let Israel make its ethnic cleansing more neat and convenient. Yes, refugees should be taken in and given shelter. But this question shifts responsibility away from Israel. Palestinians shouldn't be forced suffer either ethnic cleansing that leaves them as refugees, or a genocide.

[germiyahu]

For background: my synagogue is nondenominational, but the Shabbat service is quite traditional. There is a prayer book provided to everyone for the service but I can't remember what it was called off the top of my head. It had Hebrew, English, transliteration and some commentary.

I need to practice קבע prayer at home, and I love the thrill of buying books so I'm too impatient to ask for my Rabbi's advice lol (she'd probably advise me to pick whichever one I felt the most affinity toward anyway). I know these four correspond to Movements, and I have some vague idea of which Movement speaks the most to me, but obviously I don't know enough, and I'm part of a congregation that doesn't put much stock in Movements to begin with.

Also, to those of you who own any of these, feel free to tell me how good the translations and commentary are, advocate for your favorite siddur. Oh and they all cost around the same for a "Weekend and Holiday" edition hard cover/flexicover, so that's not an issue.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I forgot hebrew is written right to left and was very confused when the text was aligned like that when I was about to use the search bar in your blog

Made me chuckle, so I felt like sharing

Do u have any idea how long it took me to start picking up Hebrew-language books the correct way?

Now, of course, I frequently try to pick up English-language books as if they're right to left also, so problem solved 👍

[applesauce42069]

Unpopular opinion: All Siddurim should have translations and transliterations for numerous reasons. 1) If you are teaching your kids Hebrew, transliteration helps a LOT 2) If you have family over, this allows them to participate such as with a Bar/Bat Mitzvah 3) If someone wants to convert, not having something they can understand to even figure out if they want to start the process is only harmful both to them and the wider Jewish community as we've shut them out of even the most basic aspect of Jewishness.

AMEN

[challahbeloved]

Where I currently have a stack of books, is where I had my smaller tealight Shabbos candle holders.

I use beeswax candles.

And always have a HEPA filter air purifier running.

I wish I could transmit to y’all the image-memory of my cat last night, curled up on the quilt on my bed, with the glow of my shabbos candles behind her

[vaspider]

Well, that's me sobbing hysterically over the first 5 minutes of ep 6 of Agatha All Along bc it's so so so Jewish in such a casually present way.

Thank you for this Sukkot gift, Marvel.

William/Billy's bar mitzvah 😭

I'm so happy that they gave us a Maximoff who is - fucking FINALLY - canonically Jewish.

I lost my fucking shit at watching everyone reach out their tallitot & siddurim for the Torah. Seeing one man touch the siddur to the Torah and kiss it, I... it was so small and so simple but... you just don't see that on TV? Like. It was so clearly a Reform shul. It reminded me of my old shul in PA that I miss so much.

[evilwickedme]

I vote we stop everybody from using the word "Ashkenazi" until they can prove they know what it means by picking an Ashkenazi siddur from a pile of siddurim