About the Machzor
The new Machzor weaves together diverse prayer texts and piyyutim from all the communities of Israel, incorporates Israeli poetry from recent generations and from our own time, and features original liturgical writing by rabbis of the Reform Movement. Together, all of this invites a spiritual immersion into the depths of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Sample the pages of the Machzor
These sample pages are from the seminal prayer of Kol Nidrei. The pages include the traditional prayer, bringing together the Sephardic and Ashkenazi tradition (Nusach), a Hebrew version from the Italian tradition, a contemporary version written by Israeli Reform Rabbi Alona Lisitsa and a much-loved Naomi Shemer classic. This small sample holds together all that we are bringing to the world in the Machzor- a diverse mosaic of prayer that speaks to the past and to the present.
Meet the Editors of the Machzor
Rabbi Professor Dalia Marx and Rabbi Leora Ezrachi Vered
Editor at large
Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D.
Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D., is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy and Midrash at Hebrew Union College’s Taube Family Campus in Jerusalem, and teaches in various academic institutions in Israel and Europe. Marx, a tenth generation Jerusalemite, earned her doctorate at the Hebrew University and her rabbinic ordination at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and Cincinnati in 2002. She is involved in various research projects and is active in promoting liberal Judaism in Israel. Marx writes for academic and popular journals and publications. Marx is the lead editor of the Israeli Reform siddur, Tfillat HaAdam (2020). She is the author of When I Sleep and When I Wake: On Prayers between Dusk and Dawn (Yediot Sfarim, 2010, in Hebrew), A Feminist Commentary of the Babylonian Talmud (Mohr Siebeck, 2013). She is currently working on the new Israeli Reform High Holidays Machzor, together with Rabbi Leora Ezrachi Vered. Her book on the Jewish calendar, Bazman (Yediot Sfarim, 2018), which was endorsed by Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel, was translated into several languages, and recently into English: About Time: Journeys in the Jewish-Israeli Calendar (http://time.ccarpress.org). Marx also co-edited a few books. See Marx’s website. Rabbi Dalia’s HUC podcast with Rabbi Dan Prath, Kanfei Ruach (Produced and Edited by Doron Levin) about Jewish Prayer. Marx lives in Jerusalem with her husband, Roly Zyblersztein, Ph.D. They have three children.
Executive Editor
Rabbi Leora Ezrachi Vered
Born in Jerusalem, a fourth-generation Reform Jew. Leora was ordained as a rabbi by Hebrew Union College in 2017, following many years of work in the field of informal education within the Reform Movement. After seven years serving as the rabbi of the “Nigun HaLev” community in the Jezreel Valley, she moved on to lead the NGO “Ruach Galilit” (Spirit of the Galilee), which is dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and peace in the Galilee. Since the age of fourteen, she has served as a cantor in synagogue, a teacher of biblical cantillation, and a leader of prayer. The prayers of the High Holy Days have always been especially dear to her, from traditional cantorial melodies to the Hebrew songs that accompany the season. She feels deep pride in working alongside Rabbi Dalia Marx in editing an inspiring and meaningful Machzor for our time.
Join us and support the emerging Machzor
Join us in taking part in the publication of a new prayer book for the High Holy Days—the new Israeli Reform Machzor!
Contact the Editors: leoraez@gmail.com
Join us in taking part in the publication of a new prayer book for the High Holy Days—the new Israeli Reform Machzor!
The prayers of the High Holy Days lie at the very heart of the Israeli–Jewish annual cycle: beginning with the Selichot prayers of Elul, which open the door to the closing of the year; continuing with the Rosh Hashanah prayers, which speak directly to the depths of the soul, accompanied by the hundred shofar blasts on the Jewish Day of Judgment; and culminating in the Yom Kippur prayers, which accompany a shared process of inner reflection on a day that brings with it stillness and moral reckoning.
The Machzor is a direct continuation of the Israeli Reform prayer book Tefillat HaAdam (“The Human Prayer”), published in 5781 (2020), which has since become a cornerstone of Israeli Reform worship.