Storming the siddur scene

Everyone in Israel from IDF soldiers to the president of Israel take their oaths on a Koren bible in official ceremonies. The handy, blue-bound volumes with the recognizable typeface are a staple in Israeli synagogues. Next week, the U.S.-born owner of Koren Publishers Jerusalem is launching a full-scale attack on the North American market.

The new 1,200-page volume, which became available in Israel last month and will hit shelves in the U.S. and Canada on May 15, features a new translation, commentary and introduction by Sir Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. Rabbi Sacks' involvement signals the publishers' attempt to gain a foothold in the more modern and Zionist segments of American Orthodoxy. Currently, the more religiously conservative ArtScroll/Mesorah siddur, or prayer book, dominates that scene.

"I don't think there is any more articulate or original Jewish thinker in the Anglo-Jewish world today than Rabbi Sacks," said publisher Matthew Miller, a Brooklyn-born former businessman who has lived in Great Britain for over 20 years. "But it's not only his translation," Miller added, "what's so special about this siddur is [Rabbi Sacks' ability] to express and reconcile the angst of a modern Orthodox Jew living in the Diaspora. If you are Haredi, you have no [religious] conflicts. You live in your world, and you know that's your world. If you are secular, you have no conflict either, because you don't really follow anything. A modern Orthodox Jew outside of Israel has identity issues."

Miller, 56, first entered the publishing world in 1999, the same year he immigrated to Israel. Unemployed at the time, he founded The Toby Press, which focuses on English-language fiction.

In 2007, his love for books led him to buy Koren. "I've always been a bookaholic, but I can't write. If you can't write, you publish," he told Anglo File this week. Sitting in his Talpiyot neighborhood office in Jerusalem, he spoke about the plans he has for Koren but also brought up its almost 50-year-old history. Company founder Eliyahu Koren, Miller said, was a German-born graphic designer whose first claim to fame was the lion-emblem of the city of Jerusalem, which he created in 1949. The bible came much later and fused design with ideology. "

As a Zionist, Koren was obsessed with the idea of creating the first Jewish bible since the 1480s," Miller said, explaining that for hundreds of years Hebrew bibles were based on Christian editions. "He felt it behooved the Jewish state to have its own bible." The result, published in 1962 and recognized by scholars for its textual accuracy, became the Jewish state's quasi-official version of the Holy Scripture.

While an English translation appeared in 1967, Koren has until recently been an exclusively Israeli enterprise. "Three years ago, there were only a bunch of Israelis working here," Miller said. He has since hired several native English speakers, who today make up about half of Koren's staff.

Koren will continue to publish Hebrew-only bibles and siddurim, but Miller is refocusing the company's outlook on foreign markets: besides French, Russian and Amharic editions of the bible, Koren's English division is planning "at least half a dozen" projects with Rabbi Sacks, who will provide translations and annotations to prayer books for Jewish holy days (machzorim). Later this year, he is to take a sabbatical to write to a new English translation of and commentary to the Pentateuch, Miller said.

The U.S. and Canadian versions of the siddur will differ slightly, says Miller. "The Koren siddur contains a prayer for the government - and a prayer for the U.S. government would offend Canadians," Miller explains smilingly. Besides the prayers for the government and the military, the new siddur also includes prayers for the state of Israel, its soldiers and celebratory days, something that the standard edition of the ArtScroll Siddur omits.

While designed for North Americans, the Koren Siddur also includes prayers only said in Israel. "There is a whole halacha section at the end about what foreigners do when they comes to Israel," Miller said. "We have tried to make Israel the center of Judaism, which is where it properly belongs."