The weeks leading up to the High Holy Days make us all aware that another year has passed, with thoughts of the shofar, tashlich, honey cake, and apples with honey. But perhaps the most moving element in this annual spiritual experience is opening the machzor, the prayer book for the Days of Awe, whose very name denotes the repetition of the annual cycle.
During the year, the Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur machzor stays on the shelf, so opening it after 12 months is a surprisingly moving experience, as is the prayer selection, its textual imagery, and music. This year – a year after the October 7 attack – reading from the machzor seems particularly pertinent.
One of the world’s largest collections of machzorim may be found at the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem. Some are on display, others are available for researchers to peruse, but in almost all cases they have been digitized and are available to the public online. Here is a small selection of some of the NLI’s rarest and most unusual machzorim.
The Catalan Machzor, 1336–1346
The Catalan Machzor represents one of the most important historical witnesses to the unique medieval liturgy of the small but influential Catalan Jewish community. Written in Barcelona between 1336 and 1346, it includes a compilation of all the piyutim (liturgical poems) recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
According to the library’s Judaica selector Idan Perez, writing in the book 101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel, “The Catalan tradition placed great emphasis on these piyutim, inserted into the traditional “Shema” and “Amidah” blessings. This machzor manuscript was taken by the Catalan exiles to Italy, then to Greece, and finally to Germany. It was smuggled out of Europe during World War II [and] sold in a public auction in 1984.” It was subsequently donated to the NLI by Ludwig and Erica Jesselson in 1986.
The Moskowitz Machzor, 1470-1490
The Moskowitz Machzor was created by one of the Middle Ages’ most important Jewish artists, Joel ben Simeon, a scribe and illuminator active in Germany and northern Italy, considered by many to be the most important Jewish artist of the Middle Ages. It includes prayers according to the Jewish Roman rite for the entire year, including the Haggadah, Pirkei Avot, various blessings, and Jewish legal rulings, piyutim, as well as rare variations of other prayers.
The machzor came to the National Library in very poor condition and underwent restoration over a long period of time. It is now in superb condition and was displayed in the NLI’s inaugural exhibition, “Encounters of Beauty.” It was donated to the NLI in 1970 by Henry and Rose Moskowitz of New York in memory of Henry’s parents, first wife, daughter, and other relatives murdered in the Holocaust.
The Worms Machzor, 1272–1280
This festival prayerbook of the Ashkenazi rite was written on parchment in beautiful calligraphy, with illumination and colorful ink decoration. According to Yoel Finkelman’s essay in the book 101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel, “When the Jewish community of Wurzburg, Germany, was destroyed in 1298, the refugees fled with two enormous handwritten parchment machzorim: one created in 1272, and the other in 1280… Some of the refugees settled in the city of Worms, and their rescued prayer books became symbols of the community’s identity and a source for its liturgy for hundreds of years. Cantors would regularly use these two volumes, adding their own handwritten notes to help navigate the prayers and tunes.
“After centuries of continual use, the machzors were almost stolen during Kristallnacht in November 1938. The city archivist...smuggled the books out of the Gestapo offices and hid them in the local cathedral, where they remained safe until after the war.”
In 1957, the city agreed to have them preserved at the National Library of Israel.
Finkelman notes that the first volume contains the earliest known example of written Yiddish, including a simple blessing to the person tasked with carrying the weighty tomes to and from the synagogue.
The heavy burden was lightened for all time when, in 1485, the first printed Hebrew machzor was issued in Soncino, Italy. Historian Abraham Milgram commented: “Observing that the material in the machzor-siddur is constantly increasing… and has become too cumbersome to be carried into the synagogue, a publisher with a pure heart decided to print the siddur in two volumes – the first to contain the daily prayers, and the second for the High Holy Days. This enabled one to purchase either part as he may desire.”
The advent of the printing press made it possible to produce liturgical volumes on a wider scale, and in our age digitized prayer books make them even more accessible to all.
Isaac Pinto: The first American ‘machzor’ hero
US history buffs will be interested to learn that the first printed American machzor – and the first translated into English – was issued in pre-revolutionary New York in 1760. There was no name on it indicating who had prepared that machzor. The second machzor, issued in 1766, was titled “Prayers for Sabbath, Rosh Hashanah, and Kippur or the Sabbath, the Beginning of the Year and the Day of Atonement...according to the Order of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews.”
The author of that translation was Isaac Pinto. A Sephardi Jew, he moved to the American colonies in 1740, almost a hundred years after the first American synagogue, Shearith Israel, had been established. During that period, all machzorim were in Hebrew only and were published in England. Pinto sought to change that, as he wrote in the preface: “[Hebrew] being imperfectly understood by many, by some not at all, it has been necessary to translate our prayers in the language of the country wherein it hath pleased the divine Providence to appoint our Lot. In Europe, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have a translation in Spanish, which as they generally understand, may be sufficient; but that not being the case in the British dominions in America, has induced me to attempt a translation in English, not without hope that it will tend to the improvement of many of my brethren in their devotion.”
Even without his name on the 1760 edition, Pinto could well have been its author, since he was both a teacher of languages (so advertised in the newspapers of the time) and a merchant. Before going to New York, Pinto had studied a variety of subjects in British schools. Most historians label him “the most educated Jew in the colonies.”
As a citizen of New York, Pinto demonstrated his loyalty to the nation to be when he signed the “Non-importation Agreement,” one of the earliest acts of defiance against England. His obituary stated, “he was a staunch friend of the liberty of the nation.” It should be a point of pride for Americans that the National Library of Israel has copies of both of Pinto’s New York machzorim.
A mimeographed ‘machzor’ for Sarajevo’s women
The Sarajevo Haggadah is one of the most important in the history of Passover haggadot. The manuscript, which was secreted during World War II, is today kept safely in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Now meet the Sarajevo Machzor, a Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) translation of the liturgy, intended for use by women. This machzor, in two parts, was produced on an early form of mimeograph machine in 1884. The authorship is attributed to Yosef Ben Eliahu Havilio (who later composed a book of hymns for celebrations such as Simchat Torah, weddings, and bar mitzvahs).
According to National Library of Israel (NLI) Ladino archivist Matan Stein, the volume is unusual for several reasons. Its intention, stated on the title page of both volumes, is “to be a privilege for women who will pray during these Days of Awe, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”
The machzor’s text is abbreviated, repetitive prayers only appear once, and prayers said by men only are not included. However, some community prayers, such as that recited when the Torah is removed from the ark, are included, and certain words have been adapted to the feminine form.
Stein adds that this is the first time he had seen a translated machzor only in Ladino, with no corresponding Hebrew text alongside. The reasons, he says, are twofold: Women of the community could not, in any case, read Hebrew; and economy – the machzor refers the worshiper to the regular siddur as needed. This could be the Seder Nashim, a Ladino siddur for women, one of the earliest printed works in this language, which appeared in Thessaloniki (Salonica) as early as 1565.
It’s wonderful to think of the Jewish men and women of Sarajevo walking to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, dressed in their finery, the women carrying their machzor. Imagine the author, Yosef Ben Eliahu Havilio, standing outside the synagogue, welcoming them and encouraging the women to enjoy the machzor he had created for them. The NLI’s ownership of this machzor highlights not only how Jews lived but, more importantly, it demonstrates that the community leaders wanted women to participate with their heart and soul.