The Standard Prayer Book

The Standard Prayer Book is a book by Simeon Singer, first published in 1890. Rooted in the traditional Hebrew siddur, Singer’s work renders the fixed order of Jewish daily and festival prayers into clear, idiomatic English while preserving the dignity and cadence of the original.

Designed for use in synagogue and at home, the volume gathers weekday and Shabbat services, holiday variations, and material for life-cycle events, offering readers both the Hebrew text and an accessible English rendering that suited congregational use across Britain and the wider English-speaking Jewish community. Singer’s translation played a formative role in standardising English liturgy at a time when many communities were seeking a stable, “authorized” service text.

The book’s measured language and practical layout made it a lasting reference for worship and instruction: clergy, lay readers, and families found in it a balance of fidelity to traditional formulas and readability for modern worshippers. Its influence is reflected in later editions and in its continued appearance in libraries, reprints, and digital archives as a touchstone of Anglo-Jewish liturgical practice. This edition was first published in 1915 by the Bloch Publishing Company.