#siddurim

[thestrangerinyourmidst]

From משכן תפלה (Mishkan T'filah) World Union Edition (pp. 479)

[thejewitches]

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

[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!)

[pomegranates-and-poppies]

my siddurim eit ratzon arrived!! as someone who knows a little about graphic design I'll say I wish they were prettier (I could make them prettier) and i kinda wish the pocket edition had a leather cover but they seem pretty ok! so glad I found something egalitarian but not reform and with transliteration and as a bonus, commentary!

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Alright, this is an incredibly overdue critique of the siddurim put out by antizionistsiddur project people. It's going to be in liveblogging format, inspired by the hard work of the wonderful @greco-roman-jewess and awesome mutual @kosher-toasty (both of whom deserve like. a lifetime supply of free drinks at whatever pub or establishment they go to), and also because I'm putting off two other papers to write this.

I'll be starting off with the second publication, Siddur Soshanat Yadi and then moving on to the first siddur since kosher-toasty is already doing awesome work there and any comments that I have are more glosses at this point than anything else.

Sit back with a drink of your choice and prepare for the exact opposite of a treat...

[son-of-avraham]

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

[eliyahu613]

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

[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.

[pomegranates-and-poppies]

why are siddurim so damn expensive

[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!!

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Alright, I've had a cup of tea, davened Shacharit (not with this siddur), and done the dishes. Onwards to Shacharit as described by an antizionist siddur

(Full disclosure: I'm using the UK's Authorised Daily Prayer Book from 1998 as the "control" text right now because it's siddur that was in arms reach of my desk)

Did anyone think I was kidding about this layout? Where are my eyes supposed to go? For a layout that's supposed to help daveners take a closer look at the words and make connections between the Hebrew text and English translation, it does a pretty bad job of that.

With that out of the way, let's talk about tefillin.

Shoshanat Yadi, thankfully, does not compare tefillin to kink clothing the way that Tatir Tzrurah did. It does have an interesting note about the Vilna Goan saying that one does not say a separate blessing for the shel rosh unless interrupted. This is true for Sephardim like myself, but as far as I know, Ashkenazim don't hold by this and do say two separate blessings. I'm bringing this up because this siddur does contain the second bracha for tefillin, which to me contradicts the note that they put in.

This is definitely an nusach Ashkenaz (really minhag Polin nowadays) siddur. If they want to hold by the Vilna Gaon and have this be a minhag haGra siddur, then I'd find that to be hilarious since minhag HaGra is the dominant Ashkenazi practice in Israel today.

[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 👍

[aqlstar]

A fun fact about my Zaydie (Granfather) is that he once went to Russia for a week on a diplomatic trip week and wore a single outfit the whole time because he had filled the suitcases that were supposed to carry his clothes with illegal siddurim (Jewish prayer books).

[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.

[germiyahu]

So I haven't received it yet cuz shipping, but I ordered this one from Congregation Sha'ar Zahav because it was highly recommended!

https://shaarzahav.org/our-siddur/

I also discovered that Artscroll is currently giving away siddurim, including non-Ashki ones!

https://hashemlovesyou.net/

I also have and love Mishkan T'filah, and am currently waiting for my travel version to be delivered 😊

Thanks! I'll have to pass on the Sha'ar Zahav for now, it's awfully expensive and I just did a payment plan on my credit card for the Lev Shalem and the Mahzor Lev Shalem together. But I'd be interested to check that one out someday!

But I will take advantage of a free Siddur, if it's not inappropriate, I asked for a Nusach Edot haMizrach, because I would also like to have a Sfaradi perspective even if I'm 90% sure my congregation is Ashkenazi?