Jules Harlow

Julius Edwin Harlow (June 28, 1931 – February 12, 2024) was an American Conservative rabbi and liturgist.

Birth
Harlow was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Henry and Lena Harlow ( Lipman) in 1931.

Career
In 1952, he earned a B.A. at Morningside University (then Morningside College) in Sioux City, and from there went to New York City to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he received his semikhah, and thus was ordained as a rabbi, in 1959. He then became a staff member of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the international organization of rabbis in Conservative Judaism.

Harlow soon began work as a liturgist on the RA's prayerbook committee, working with Rabbi Gershon Hadas on new siddurim (Jewish prayerbooks) for use in Conservative congregations. Under Hadas's editorship, they printed the Weekday Prayer Book in 1961. He took a greater role by editing and translating the movement's mahzor (prayerbook for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) which was published in 1972. He soon became the chief liturgist for the Conservative movement, and was the editor of Siddur Sim Shalom in 1985. Siddur Sim Shalom became the prototype for a family of later Conservative siddurim, including Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Yom Tov, Siddur Sim Shalom for Weekdays and Or Hadash: A Commentary on Siddur Sim Shalom. His other publishing activities within Conservative Judaism included being literary editor on the Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary.

Harlow, together with his wife Navah, worked with The Masorti Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal since 2005 for the cause of the Bnei Anusim (descendants of crypto-Jews) in and of the Iberian Peninsula.

Personal life and death
Harlow and his wife had two children. His son, David, is a lawyer and his daughter, Ilana, is a folklorist.

Harlow died from pneumonia on February 12, 2024, at the age of 92.