He wrote a beloved prayer book. But his gravestone misspelled his name.
Philip Birnbaum, who died in 1988, was a man careful with language, yet a stone of eight words had three errors
Siddur
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The Schmooze Marilyn Monroe’s Annotated Jewish Prayer Book Expected To Fetch A Fortune At Auction
A bright white prayer book, published in 1922 and owned by American bombshell Marilyn Monroe, will be sold at auction on November 12. Jonathan Greenstein, of the auction house J. Greenstein & Company, says he’s sold Sammy Davis Jr.’s menorah and Alan Dershowitz’s judaica, “But nothing like this — Marilyn Monroe’s personal siddur.” Hubba hubba….
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News New Orthodox Prayer Book Made With Women In Mind
“This Siddur seeks to reflect a sensitivity to women’s prayer experiences.” That understated line is nestled in the editor’s introduction to a Modern Orthodox group’s new siddur, or prayer book. It’s part of a short, scholarly bullet point outlining how the siddur accommodates women through its textual and grammatical updates. Many of those updates, however,…
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News Conservative Prayer Book Reaches Out to Diverse New Generation
Do Jews still want to call God their Lord, King and Master? Maybe not. Some words and phrases like this won’t resonate for many American Jews, said Rabbi Edward Feld, the senior editor of a new prayer book for the Conservative movement, Siddur Lev Shalem. “The word ‘king’ is just empty for people living in…
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News A Satmar Girl Remembers Rosh Hashanah With Honey and Fear
If you live in a Jewish neighborhood like I do, you may periodically hear the wailing of a shofar in the distance in the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah. It is a common daily practice among Orthodox Jews, a reminder that the High Holidays are not far off. The evening air, at one time…
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Breaking News 1,200-Year-Old Jewish Prayerbook on Display in Jerusalem
A Jewish prayer book believed to be the world’s oldest will be exhibited in Jerusalem for one month. The 1,200-year-old siddur was unveiled Thursday at a ceremony at the Bible Lands Museum. In a news release, the museum described it as the oldest Jewish prayer book. Steve Green, the museum’s chairman, purchased the book for…
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Life Siddur: ‘Thank God for Making Me a Woman’
Equality for Jewish women is not a 20th century invention. A siddur, or prayerbook, from the year 1471 contains an alternative text to the much abhorred “shelo asani isha” blessing that thanks God for “not making me a woman,” a text that is not only misogynistic in content but assumes that the person holding the…
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