JOFA Endorses Koren-Sacks Siddur
by Rebecca Honig Friedman
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) has officially endorsed the new Koren-Sacks siddur, the prayer book published in conjunction with the Orthodox Union (OU), that is posing the first serious competition to the Artscroll Siddur, which, for the last couple of decades, has been the prayer book of choice in most Orthodox congregations.
See my full post over at TJC’s Newsdesk blog.
Posted on May 19th, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized |
I published my review of the Koren Siddur on the Tradition Seforim blog in December:
http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm/2008/12/9/Book-Review-The-Yehuda-Bilingual-Edition-of-the-Koren-Siddur
It included the following paragraph:
The Koren Siddur is more inclusive of women both in terms of its content and in terms of its instructions. The content includes the liturgy (imported from the Sephardic rite and increasingly prevalent in Israel) of the “Zeved ha-Bat” celebration upon the birth of a daughter (it appears in the excellent “Life Cycle” section of the siddur). It furthermore includes the thanksgiving prayer recited by a women after childbirth, which includes “Birkat ha-Gomel”. The ArtScroll Siddur makes no mention of this obligation (and the practice is even discouraged in the ArtScroll Women’s Siddur, which follows the minority opinion of the Mishna Berura on this matter without recording dissent). With regard to zimmun, the ArtScroll Siddur applies the practice to “three or more males, aged thirteen or older”. The Koren Siddur, on the other hand, states that “when three or more women say Birkat ha-Mazon with no men present, then substitute “Friends” for Gentlemen”.
You may also want to see my (much more bloggerish) review of the ArtScroll Women’s Siddur, here:
http://adderabbi.blogspot.com/2005/07/artscroll-womens-siddur-men-and-women.html
Elli,
Thanks for sharing these reviews. “Where to begin?” in the Artscroll review made me laugh.