The newest siddur to hit the market is giving Artscroll a run for its money, The Sacks Siddur “enter sexual joke here” (named after the chief Rabbi of England) is on the market and already Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the upper east side ordered 400 copies according an artciel in the Jewish Week, they claim they don’t want to replace Artscroll but I don’t buy it. Apparently the translation is updated from Artscrolls and is more geared towards modern orthodox worshipers.
The siddur is endorsed by the OU, I have wondered when these “novelty” siddurs would hit the frum community. I kind of like the old English of the Birnbaum siddurs, but I am always down with change.
Exactly what makes a siddur modern orthodox is beyond me, and how they could make money marketing a siddur to only the modern orthodox crowd is also beyond me – being that modern orthodoxy is dying quick – being sucked into pluralistic Judaism on the left and yeshivish on the right.
I guess a modern orthodox siddur should have a little blurb where it tells us to say half hallel on Rosh Chodesh and the last days of Pesach also says that according to some opinions Half Hallel is said on Yom Haatzmaut as well – while the majority of opinions hold that full Hallel is said.
Does it have the prayer for Israel in the place that most people say it, or tucked into the back? Is there some sort of song list so that modern orthodox shuls can extend their shabbat services beyond the traditional 12:30pm mark.
Maybe they even have a Rabbis edition with tips for ways to make people comfortable with waiting for what seems like eons until his family is present. What about the halachos of having women speak during shul, or strategies for getting women to don those little doilies so we can tell which ones are married or not.
There already are other siddurim on the market, but translated orthodox siddurim are hard to find. Just like Artscroll has a monopoly in the general frum community, those yellow covered Tikun Mayer siddurs has a monopoly with the older folks, Tehilas Hashem monopolizes chabad and now possibly the Sacks siddur will take over at low mechitza/kipah sruga shuls everywhere.
I have seen siddurim that changed God to a she and took out the morning brachos where it said Thank God for making me a man. I didn’t see it but I wrote about the Gay siddur and I am sure there are a bunch of other novelty siddurim I don’t know about – but what about orthodox novelty siddurs?
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