Hours of Devotion - Stunden der Andacht

Fanny Neuda (a wife of the Lostice rabbi Abraham Neuda) is the author of an important book of prayers, written in Lostice in 1854. Her book is titled: “Studen der Andacht” (Hours of Devotion) is quite significant, because it was the first of its kind to be written by a Jewish woman for Jewish women. Soon it became a best seller, published in more than 30 editions. Around 1860 it was also translated into English (Published in New York in 1864, reprinted until 1900.

The new enlarged English edition was recently prepared by Dinah Berland (editor of Getty Publications) and will be published by Schocken Books (New York) in August 2007.

In the fall 2007 Dinah Berland will go on the book promotion tour throughout the United States. Her tour will start in the Congregation Hakafa in Glencoe, Illinois. For many years the Congregation uses the Torah, which was in the19th century created for the Lostice synagogue. In 2005 Rabbi Bruce Elder and members of the Congregation Hakafa visited Czech Republic and the town of Lostice. Rabbi Elder served service in the local synagogue. It was the first service in the Lostice synagogue since the beginning of the WWII. Dinah Berland, who was already working on her book, learned about the visit and contacted the Foundation Respect and Tolerance. The first contacts developed into a cooperation and exchange of information about Fanny Neuda and “her” Lostice synagogue. Mrs. Berland is planning to come for her second working visit to Lostice in Spring 2008.

The first reactions:
„Written in the nineteenth century, rediscovered in the twenty-first, timeless in its wisdom and beauty – the first full-length book of Jewish prayers written for women by a woman“.?
Schocken Books catalogue 2007

“Ms. Berland has given us a treasure for the praying heart. Her English rendering of Fanny Neuda’s book of prayers for Jewish women is elegant as well as capable of opening hearts. It stirred mine.” Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Co-author of Jewish with Feeling

Dinah Berland a Mayor of Lostice Ctirad Lolek in Lostice Synagogue. May 2006

For more information please see: Others - Fanny Neuda and Dinah Berland and also www.dinahberland.com