Editor's Jottings
Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet is the Editor of the latest edition of our Siddur, published in May 2008. Now at the end of an 8 year long process, Rabbi Magonet has penned a series of short 'jottings' relating to different aspects of this groundbreaking publication.
Blues in the Night
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
From early on in editing the new Siddur we faced the problem of how to show passages that are only read on certain occasions and could otherwise be ignored or skipped. In the first draft we tried using a grey background to the text, but this made it difficult for some people to differentiate the letters. Printing the passages themselves in a lighter print raised the same problem.
Never mind the quality, feel the weight!
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
Whatever debates there may have been about the contents of the new Siddur, whether or not to include transliteration; how far should we go with inclusive language; was introducing the Musaf service a betrayal of Reform principles?; etc, there was one thing on which absolutely everyone we talked to in the Movement was in complete agreement – the weight of the book! Memories of the Festival Prayer Book haunted us, as did the weight of the reprint of the 1977 Siddur on heavier paper than the original. If the new Siddur was too heavy we were lost before anyone even turned the first page.
Journey into Space
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
One of the most challenging problems was designing a functional layout. Consider the problem. How to include on the same page or double spread some or all of the following: the Hebrew text, translation, transliteration, commentary, footnotes giving sources, rubrics to indicate choices, options or continuity, subheadings to mark new sections, and cross-references to reflective readings. As a result we decided on a slightly larger format book because it was more economic to produce and also gave us greater flexibility in the page design.
To boldly go…
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
From time to time we have used bold type or enlarged letters in the Siddur for particular emphasis. The practice is familiar from the 1977 edition where the ‘ayyin’ of ‘Sh’ma’ and the ‘dalet’ of ‘echad’ were enlarged as they appear in the Torah scroll.
In the Picture
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
At an early stage we assumed we would retain the synagogue woodcuts that had been a special feature of the 1977 edition, with their quiet testimony to pre-war Jewish communities. But as the book and its layout evolved we explored new ideas. In response to concerns about the use of transliteration, we decided to encourage people to learn Hebrew and hence to use calligraphy as the basis for the illustrations.While the previous book looked at the Jewish past in Europe we searched for artists from European communities rebuilt or created since the war, pointing to the post-war renaissance of Jewish life.
Marking the Sections
Editor's Jottings
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet
If the contents of the new Siddur were shaped by the Editorial Board and through wide consultation within the Movement, the appearance is above all the work of one person, Marc Michaels. His were the various layout experiments before a general pattern emerged, and his has been the steady hand amending, correcting and refining it ever since.
