Letter to the Editor: October 3, 2024

Dear Editor,

A ritual I have had for many years is to visit used bookstores. Sometimes I buy books, sometimes I do not. These visits amount to escapism and stress relief and temporarily put me in an alternate reality. For me, this is a personal ritual of learning and mental health preservation.

But there is a special component within this ritual I tend to immediately gravitate to the section with Jewish themed books. Inevitably, there is a collection of popular titles, presumably used by students, that include “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “Night.” These titles do not catch my eye as much as the synagogue prayer books. Siddurim, Chumashim, Machzorim, in all shapes and sizes. The traditional to the modern. I wonder, how does a synagogue prayer book end up in a used book store? What is the possible story?

Recently, one book inspired me to do some investigating. As the crow flies this bookstore in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio is just over 1,000 miles away from the siddur’s one-time home congregation in Houston, Texas. It was donated to Congregation Adath Emeth, an Orthodox synagogue that was in existence through 1965 when it went through a merger with two other congregations. The result the merger is a nearly 60-year-old congregation known as United Orthodox Synagogue of Houston. Through the assistance of the American Jewish Archives here in Cincinnati, I was able to access some of the congregation’s historical documents. From what I read of their rich history, this was once a thriving congregation that faced the realities of demographical changes and otherwise in what is now America’s fourth largest city.

Who was the donor? Who was the deceased? Available sources were not 100 percent clear. What exactly happened to this siddur that it became nothing more than just another item at a bookstore? How long has this book been sitting unopened in a box someplace? We may never know.

One of my fondest memories from my previous career in synagogue administration was arranging for several hundred out-of-date prayer books and high holy day machzors to be sent for use by Jewish soldiers stationed at the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seeing these decades-old books get a new home in a war zone, where presumably there was not a Jewish book for thousands of miles to this day, warmed my heart. While we had the intent of giving these volumes a proper burial in a geneza, they were instead given a new lease on life to serve the spiritual needs of Jewish soldiers.

I have come across this situation before in bookstores around the country and tried to “do the math” where I could. Some of these congregations sadly no longer exist, or in the case of this one particular siddur from Houston, have blended with another congregation. On a few different occasions, I have bought books with similar histories and returned them to the rightful congregation where it could be identified. 

While this book may be out of date by many decades, does it not deserve better than just taking up space on a shelf and facing the likely destiny of a landfill? I tried to track down the donor of the book in the photo and the deceased whose names were in the bookplate, but i did not have much success. It saddens to know this book meant something to people at the time of the donation, but it has now been relegated to sit on the shelf of a used bookstore for what may be many more years. 

To me, Judaism and prayer have always been very personal things. In my own journey, Judaism has always been centered around relationships rather than transactions. It is my hope for whatever reason, that Jewish prayer books will not become just another transaction to someone looking to clean up their shelves.

Rob Festenstein

Blue Ash, Ohio