Palestinian minhag

The Palestinian minhag or Palestinian liturgy, (Hebrew: נוסח ארץ ישראל‎‎, translit: Nusach Eretz Yisrael) as opposed to the Babylonian minhag, refers to the rite and ritual of medieval Palestinian Jewry in relation to the traditional order and form of the prayers.

A complete collection has not been preserved from antiquity, but several passages of it are scattered in both the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud, in the Midrashim, in the Pesiktot, in minor tractate Soferim, and in some responsa of the Palestinian Geonim. Some excerpts have been preserved in the Siddur of Saadia Gaon and the Cairo geniza yielded some important texts, such as the Eighteen Benedictions. One fragment of a Palestinian siddur discovered in the genizah was written in Hebrew with various introductions and explanations in Judaeo-Arabic. The Geniza fragments mostly date from the 12th century, and reflect the usages of the Palestinian-rite synagogue in Cairo, which was founded by refugees from the Crusades.

Though the Jerusalem Talmud never became authoritative against the Babylonian, some elements of the Palestinian liturgy were destined to be accepted in Italy, Greece, Germany and France, even in Egypt, against the Babylonian, owing to the enthusiasm of the scholars of Rome. The Babylonian rite was accepted mainly in Spain, Portugal and the southern countries.

Liturgies incorporating some elements of the Palestinian minhag fall into three distinct groupings.

1. The German ritual, itself divided into two rituals, the western or Minhag Ashkenaz and the eastern, or Minhag Polin. Minhag Ashkenaz was introduced in Palestine itself during the 16th century by German and Polish Kabbalists.
2. The Italian minhag, perhaps the oldest Palestinian-influenced ritual.
3. Lastly the Romaniot Minhag, more accurately, the Rumelic or Greek ritual; this ritual of the Balkan countries has retained the most features of the Palestinian minhag.

It has been argued that Saadya Gaon’s siddur reflects at least some features of the Palestinian minhag, and that this was one source of the liturgy of German Jewry. Another historic liturgy containing Palestinian elements is the old Aleppo rite (published Venice, 1527 and 1560).

This traditional view, that the Sephardi rite was derived from that of Babylon while the Ashkenazi rite reflects that of Palestine, goes back to Leopold Zunz, and was largely based on the fact that the Ashkenazi rite contains many piyyutim of Palestinian origin which are absent from the Babylonian and Sephardi rites. However, the correspondence is not complete. First, a few Sephardi usages in fact reflect Palestinian as against Babylonian influence, for example the use of the words morid ha-tal in the Amidah in summer months; and Moses Gaster maintained that the correspondence is the other way round (i.e. Ashkenazi=Babylonian, Sephardi=Palestinian). Secondly, Palestinian influence on any of the current Jewish rites extends only to isolated features, and none of them substantially follows the historic Palestinian rite.