Talk:Haftara

Length of article
Even though this article is incomplete, it's definitely more than a stub, so I'm going to remove the notice - Night Gyr 08:03, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

¶ I went through this article and un-italicized almost every appearance of "haftarah" - partly because it is burdensome to keep italicizing it and mostly because, in Wiki style (which closes up every gap to only one space) italics do not mix well with roman type.Sussmanbern (talk) 21:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC); ¶ I have done some fiddling with the formatting of notes in the Listings because printing the PDF of this article as a BOOKLET resulted in ugly line breaks, so my alterations were cosmetic in anticipation of booklet printing. Sussmanbern (talk) 19:27, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

¶ I would very much like some guidance or comment ASAP: Should I offer, in the section on the Blessings, the text of the Haftarah blessings? And, if so, must I offer the Hebrew text and a transliteration in Latin lettering or is it enough to offer a straight English translation of the blessings - whose Hebrew text is extremely easy to find elsewhere on the internet? I hesitate to offer Hebrew and transliteration because these were offered for other prayers in some other Wiki articles and the resulting presentations were not aesthetically pleasing. Sussmanbern (talk) 12:12, 17 June 2014 (UTC) ¶  Having gotten absolutely no response, I went ahead with nothing but the English for all the blessings, which I hope will satisfy most people. Sussmanbern (talk) 18:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

¶ I have revised the list of haftaro readings, a considerable effort - and, the material being what it is, incapable of pleasing everybody. Consider this work as done in honor of my parents. Sussmanbern (talk) 20:30, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

¶ Several contributors found and corrected errors I had made, for which I am Very Grateful, and, please, I hope people will continue to refine my list. Sussmanbern (talk) 00:54, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I am one of the people constantly checking the accuracy of this list. So I stay tuned. Thank you very much for compiling so much important information! Very great! --Chajm (talk) 08:38, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

¶ I am VERY grateful indeed for your kind words. And, yes, I have no doubt that errors crept into my work, so I am also grateful for the corrections. Sussmanbern (talk) 15:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I notice that (on 2 Oct 2018) the Editor eliminated the "See Also" segment, which contained links to Wiki articles on Torah Reading, Weekly Torah readings, Cantillation, Parsha, etc. I had not originated this segment, but I do feel that it was relevant and might well have remained. However, I am not so bold as to challenge the Editor's decision on this matter. Sussmanbern (talk) 14:59, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Other traditions
Nevi'im notes that Yemenites translate the haftarah verse by verse. That information should be included here, too, when someone writes about the procedure for reading the haftarah.  &mdash;msh210 19:11, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

¶ In 2014, some three years after I worked on the original list, I have made a point of printing out the Hebrew version of this Wiki article (available just by clicking the Hebrew option on the lefthand column when this article comes up) and comparing its list with the one here in the English language version. The Hebrew version's list of Haftarot readings, which is supposedly based on the Encyclopedia Talmudit article, contains a few regional groups that this list lacked: namely, Sefardic from Spain, Sefardic from Maghreb (North Africa), and Mizrahi Sefardic (this last may be simply Mizrahi). The Hebrew version did not include the Romaniote. I added a few new entries from the Hebrew list and spotted/corrected a few of my typos. It is clear that the Encyclopedia article mentioned is CONSIDERABLY more detailed and extensive than either Wiki list - although I suspect that the Encyclopedia list has been fattened up with evanescent variants that not only were very localized (perhaps to one congregation in a city of several congregations) but might have been very temporary (changed when another rabbi took over that congregation) and long ago discarded (that change of rabbis may have occurred more than a century ago, etc.) I continue to compare the two lists and make additions and corrections. Sussmanbern (talk) 04:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

¶ After collecting the lists from a number of supposedly authoritative publications, I find that no two lists match exactly (even the Jewish Publication Society Bible lists from 1917 and 1985 differ), and the more lists and authorities I accumulate the more variants I will pile up, so I have stopped looking for more lists. Sussmanbern (talk) 12:13, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

¶ As a follow-up, even the Hebrew version of this article creates problems. I have sources here that contradict the list in the Hebrew version and I am not willing to assume that all my sources are wrong and the Hebrew version's sources are right. So, where there is a significant conflict with plausible evidence for my own list, I have marked that "some" use this and "some" used the other. If there is a Wiki policy that the English and Hebrew versions must agree 100% please tell me ASAP. Sussmanbern (talk) 16:59, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

¶ In 2016 I again print out the Hebrew (Israeli) version of this article for the list of Haftaros, and the list there is given in the ancient and medieval manner (not using chapter and verse numbers) of quoting the words that begin the Haftaro reading, frequently without an explicit citation of the concluding words of the reading. It will take a bit of time to compare the list here with the Israeli list but I expect few or no differences. Sussmanbern (talk) 03:35, 20 August 2016 (UTC) ¶  As a follow-up, in early 2019 I check again and the Hebrew version has recast its list entirely in the style I use, with chapter and verse numbers (using Hebrew letters for the numerals) BUT the automatic computerized translation of the Hebrew version into English scrambles some of the abbreviations and only the Hebrew text is trustworthy. Sussmanbern (talk) 23:40, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

¶''' A VERY FUNNY THING: IN the course of making revisions I emailed the National Library of Israel to see if they could guide me to an authoritative list of the multitude of traditions of Haftarah readings .... and they sent me a link to this very list in this English language version of Wikipedia!!!''' Sussmanbern (talk) 17:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Torah portion
Torah portion does not belong on this page; it's irrelevant (and too long btw).&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 19:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi msh: (1) The Haftarah and the weekly Torah reading of the Parsha (Torah portion) are both part of the services on Shabbat. The Haftarah comes after the Maftir as the last part of each Shabbat's Torah reading. (2) The ancient Jewish sages who created the system of reading the Haftarah with the weekly Torah portion chose sections from Tanakh for the Haftarah to match a major a major theme in each week's Parsha, so that the Parsha and Hafatarah are intrinsically connected. (3) The template Torah portion is at the bottom of the Haftarah article's page, so essentially it's part of the "See also" section which is a legitimate way of connecting related and connected topics on an article. (4) If a reader finds the Torah portion to be "too intrusive" then any reader is free to click "Hide" on the top right section of the template's heading which shrinks it to an unobtrusive one liner. Finally, (5) the Torah portion is presently diligently updated weekly by User:Dauster early each Sunday so that any readers may learn more about the weekly Parsha. User:Dauster summarizes each week's Parsha and adds some interesting graphics which surely adds life and color to a page that may gain the attention of readers who don't know much about this subject and may want to learn more. Please refer all further comments and discussions to one centralized location at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism Thank you. IZAK 07:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

¶ I won't argue that the Torah portion is irrelevant, but it is plausibly relevant to the reason a passage from the Prophets was chosen for that week's Haftaro, and it seems a fairly good way to catalog the Haftaro portions, and apportioning them by Torah portions seems appropriate and efficient and not an outrageous use of space, so I re-inserted them. Perhaps this way their inclusion seems suitable. Sussmanbern (talk) 00:58, 15 January 2017 (UTC) ¶ I have added a very few notes about the reading of some Torah portions simply because I thought they would be of interest and because there seemed no other place in Wiki to put them and they were not conveniently findable otherwise. Sussmanbern (talk) 02:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC) ¶Very recently an unidentified person omitted one of my many notes about a tradition relating to a Torah reading, and I reinstated it. I worked hard on that list, the notes are brief but, I think, interesting and useful. And, I wish to emphasize, not otherwise available on Wikipedia - nor, in my own experience, in any one book but only from combing several bulky volumes over a considerable period. The Torah reading list was a sort of necessary skeleton on which to hang the list of Haftarah readings, and it seemed to me appropriate, as long as it was going to be done, to be as informative as could be done compactly. So I will be grumpy about such deletions. Sussmanbern (talk) 08:46, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

What is Haftarah read from?
Is there a special scroll for this too, or is a "book-shaped" book used? Is a book of all the Nevi'im used or one that contains only the various Haftarah portions? Where is the book stored? -- 77.7.128.202 18:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The Haftarah is normally read from a chumash or tikkun, or from a booklet specific to that portion. I have seen -- in one place only -- a scroll of Isaiah, constructed just like a Torah scroll. (Form follows function to make a double-handled horizontal scroll.) A More Perfect Onion (talk) 15:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's actually more common to have the haftarah read from a scroll, however upon the printing press becoming prevalent it won. Anyhow there is no "special" book, just a book that has the text, with the cantillation marks. Saxophonemn (talk) 21:59, 20 June 2010 (UTC); -- There have been Haftarah scrolls, but they are at least as bulky as Torah scrolls, and, unlike the Torah - in which the text and its sequence are uniformly fixed - the Haftarah scroll presents the choices from among many possibilities made by the scribe or copyist. The many regional and idiosyncratic variants in the choice of Haftarah readings probably is one reason why books of Haftarah readings have tended to supplant the use of Haftarah scrolls (another reason is that the book form would have the vowels and accents). Sussmanbern (talk) 21:59, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

¶ I took it upon myself to delete a sentence from the paragraph on Torah Blessings, which claimed: "The Koren Tanakh, published by Koren Publishers Jerusalem is the official Tanakh accepted by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for synagogue haftarah reading." This sentence was marked nearly 3 years ago "" and no citation had been supplied. Moreover, I have my own doubts as the accuracy of the claim. The Koren edition had been highly praised by the Israeli govt when it first appeared in the late 1960s, it closely resembles the Baer-Delitsch massoretic edition of 1895, but it is not the edition that the Israeli govt distributes to its military troops (that one is a pocket sized edition edited by Dotan from the Leningrad Codex). Many other editions are in active use in Israeli and other synagogues, and a much more recent edition produced by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and based on the Aleppo Codex (the edition is called Keter Yerushalyam, 'Jerusalem Crown') had gotten the same sort of official praise that the Koren edition got nearly a half-century earlier. On another topic, I believe rabbinic authority permits the reading of the haftarah from a printed book, which would be equipped with vowel points and cantillation marks. Sussmanbern (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I do believe that it is now very common, but not universal, for the Haftaro to be read from a printed book in which the Hebrew text is supplied with all the 'points' - vowels and cantillation marks. Sussmanbern (talk) 09:03, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

¶I believe the following section is an error: "Some Orthodox insist that a scroll of haftarot is not sufficient, nor the scroll of an individual prophetic book, but require a scroll of the entire Prophetic segment of the Bible (Sefer Navi), which is relatively uncommon, although some would allow such a scroll to be written in ordinary ink or on ordinary paper (unlike Torah scrolls), and if such a scroll is unavailable the entire congregation must read the haftarah for themselves, silently or in a murmur, from books rather than the maftir reciting aloud from something other than a scroll." Sussmanbern (talk) 23:44, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

The source quotes Rav YD Soloveitchik and Rav Hershel Schachter, but both of them use the term "Sefer Navi" as a scroll of an individual Navi (i.e. Sefer Yehoshua or Sefer Shmuel), not as Sefer Kol HaNeviim (scroll containing all prophets). This can be verified directly with Rav Schachter or any of his talmidim at YU. In other words, their opinion is the same as the second point of this section (Shitas HaGR"A). 108.27.224.15 (talk) 19:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC) ¶ I am reluctant to omit this sentence completely because it has some documentation supporting it, but I have added some words to indicate that it is definitely a minority opinion. Sussmanbern (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2018 (UTC) Thank you, and I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I"m saying that the author of this section misunderstood the sources in footnote 20, and the sources do not require "a scroll of the entire Prophetic segment of the Bible", but talk about a scroll of an individual book, just as described above this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.27.224.15 (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Additions of special haftarot and Italian tradition
Although not common with Haftarot lists, I have provided the verse numbers for each week's Torah reading; these seem to be universal, and I thought it might make the list a trifle more helpful (and it's a very small addition). I did not know - at least not about Mizrachi and regional traditions - the verses read for those Sabbaths that combine two parshas, nor the Torah readings for the various holidays, so I did not provide those. Perhaps someone with sufficient Yiddishkeit can fill those gaps.Sussmanbern (talk) 22:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I filled in the list of 'haftarot' for special occasions and the Italian custom for each portion. My source for the Italian custom is the website www.torah.it which has a page listing available MP3s of various Italian rites, including all the 'haftarot'. While the page is in Italian, the list of 'parshiyot', occasions and 'haftarot' should be straightforward enough for an English-speaker. I have noticed a few instances where the text indicating the 'haftarah' differs from what is in the MP3, in which case I would go by what is in the recording since the one in the recording makes more sense (for instance, the text indicates that the 'haftarah' for Shabbat coinciding with Rosh Chodesh omits the verse which is the reason why that particular section was selected for the occasion, while the recording includes that verse and is the same as all other customs). I checked several of them, but I might have missed a few discrepancies. Sussmanbern (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

The 'haftarot' for special occasions for Ashkenazic and Sephardic customs are listed in virtually any chumash. Sussmanbern (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

162.84.234.174 (talk) 06:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)Scott

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I also double-checked the Haftarot, particularly for the Yemenite & Italic readings, using the tables at the end of the following editions of the Hebrew Bible: Cassuto, the Israeli Defense Ministry, and the Jerusalem Crown. All of these have the Ashkenaz, Sfardic, and Yemenite lists, and Cassuto also has the Italian list. ¶ Very quickly I found that these lists did not always agree with what had been previously posted here. Additionally, the list in this article included at least two unidentified references: SN under Noach, and Q under Vayera. I changed some entries on the basis of the Bibles I was using: Chayei Sarah, Toledot, Vayetze, Vayishlach, Miketz, Bo, Mishpatim, Ki Tisa, Pekudai, Tzav, Acharei, Kedoshim, Naso, Masei, & Vayelech -- someone else may want to check if my meddling was an improvement or not; my lists did not provide for those weeks when two parshot are combined. There were instance where the Bibles I had in front of me disagreed with each other. Perhaps someone armed with more authoritative lists can triple-check the list here. ¶As a further follow-up, I found elsewhere on the internet a list very similar to the one here, at www.experiencefestival.com; it explained the abbreviations I previously could not figure out: Q meant Kariate and it had only a few entries for that (which I changed to "K" and used here), SN was for Mahgreb (which I spelled out, used only once I think) and a couple of other abbreviations for regionalisms that it never actually used -- but these regional peculiarities only appear for readings in Genesis, and I suspect the compiler of the list simply became slack. I also revised the entire list using the notes in the ArtScroll and Hirsch chumashim (Hirsch in particular mentions some Italic and Frankfurt readings), compared with the lists in the Jerusalem Crown Bible, the Israel Defense Forces Bible, the Koren Bible, and the (for English-speaking Jews) ubiquitous Hertz chumash; evidently there is some disagreement or confusion over a few Haftarot, which I have tried to note. Sussmanbern (talk) 00:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As a further update, I came across a complete Karaite list, on the website of one (of the very few) Karaite synagogues in the US: orahsaddiqim.org. This matched the few Karaite entries from the experiencefestival list, so I gambled that it is reliable, and I have added these K entries throughout the list. You might notice that the Karaite readings rarely coincide with anyone else's, that there are about an equal number of instances where the K reading closely approximates that of another group, and that many of the unique K readings are from the middle part of Isaiah. Sussmanbern (talk) 12:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Further good luck, I was fortunate to acquire a back issue of the Luach Colel Chabad, for the year 5763 (Sept. 2002-Sept. 2003). This provides the AH Haftarot for some of the Sabbaths - it omitted the specific Haftarot primarily for those Sabbaths where, it appears, the Ashkenaz and Sefardic lists were in agreement, and in that particular year, as in any year, some of the Sabbaths did not recite the "usual" Haftarot because the date was also associated with a New Month or some other holy day. However, I did my best to extract useful information from that one calendar. It turns out that the current Chabad luach is obligingly online as www.colelchabad.org, so using the current year's calendar I was able to add a few more items. I found a fairly complete array at www.chabad.org, and using that I was able to fill in most blanks. As a generality, Chabad follows the standard Ashkenaz list, certainly where the Ashkenaz and Sefardic lists agree, and I have specified the AH reading primarily for exceptions. Sussmanbern (talk) 04:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC) ¶ I must shamefully admit that I was the last person to realize that Sefard is very different from Sefardic. Most Hassidic congregations use a Sefard (not Sefardic) nusach, which is much closer to Ashkenaz than to true Sefardic tradition. Someone described to me the Sefard liturgy as "Ashkefard". It follows that Sefard haftaro lists mostly follow Ashkenaz tradition, with variants that may differ from one Hassidic school to another (e.g., the Chabad has its own list). Sussmanbern (talk) 22:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Haftarot list in Encyclopedia Talmudit (1961, volume 10)
¶ A recent update:  I asked around and the best source, according to a couple of scholars who took my question seriously, of the multitude of traditions about the haftaro schedule is the list appearing at the end of volume 10 of the Encyclopedia Talmudit, edited by Bar-Ilan (Jerusalem 1961)[ISBN 9654450003, Library of Congress call number BM500.5.E6]. I was able to xerox this at the Library of Congress. It is painfully comprehensive but also painfully hard to read; it is entirely in Hebrew, of course, but not the prayerbook Hebrew that some of us (e.g., me) are limited to. It sometimes indicates where some traditions start a reading but not where they end it. It references numerous non-Israeli locations by using Hebrew names which may be relatively recent and some are not found in my Hebrew dictionaries. A few I could make out the hard way; e.g., Amstrdm probably means Amsterdam. Some I am unwilling to guess at. It also references an array of rabbinic books with which I am completely unfamiliar. Some of the references, I suppose, are entirely obsolete -- traditions noted in a pre-industrial age that were wiped out when, for example, the community was scattered by adversity or the local minhag supplanted by printed volumes from bigger communities. I would estimate it lists more than 300 items for approx 52 weeks of haftarot, but, as I said, some were very obscure and/or long out of use. I am going to add SOME of these to the list over the next several months. Sussmanbern (talk) 21:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello to all. I am currently working on a comprehensive list of this sort here at the Hebrew Wikisource, and making good use of the list at the end of volume 10 of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, which I agree is the most comprehensive and reliable source for this. If anyone has any questions about using the list and how to translate it, please ask freely and I'd be glad to help. Shabbat Shalom, Dovi (talk) 05:19, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

A thousand blessings on you, Dovi. "Any questions"? I have nothing but questions! So far I have only been able to scratch the surface of the encyclopedia's list -- there are dozens of geographical and bibliographic references that are completely beyond me. I am quite willing to yield the floor to you, and ask you, please please please, to provide us with an English version (with helpful comments for the non-Yeshivish) of your list and/or the Encyclopedia's list. Sussmanbern (talk) 12:10, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Shavua tov, sorry that I don't have the time and energy to do an English list (the Hebrew one has taken a couple of years). But if you have any specific questions trying to understand the ET list I'd be glad to help. Dovi (talk) 20:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

¶ Using the aforementioned list in the Encyc. Talmudit, I have added the Romanian (R) list, which is nearly complete. The Encyc list does not include Karaite readings, but the duplication and near-duplication between Romanian and (from another source) Karaite readings may be significant. There are also differences between the lists found in authoritative Bible editions of the last hundred years and the Encyc list, which I am sure is significant. Sussmanbern (talk) 17:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That's interesting. The list at Hebrew Wikisource shows fairly clearly how all of the main traditions in rabbinic Judaism (Eastern, Ashkenaz, Italian and Yemenite) are all related traditions. Even when they don't agree with each other exactly, the differences are usually minor variations related to the starting or stopping point. Significant variations (i.e. reading an entirely different section) are very much in the minority. When you compare these similar traditions to the list of Karaite haftarot at the Hebrew Wikipedia, however, it quickly becomes clear that we are dealing a separate tradition, because the majority of haftarot are completely different from all of the rabbinic ones (different sections entirely). While even the minority of similarities can be explained as logical choices.


 * If we take the haftarot for the entire book of Genesis, for instance, there isn't a single major divergence amongst the rabbinic haftarot (with the possible exception of va-yetze). But the Karaite haftarah only coincides with the rabbinic ones for three parashiyyot.


 * A strict comparison of Romanian versus Karaite haftarot would be interesting, to see whether there is something there, and if there is whether there is a historical explanation for it. Dovi (talk) 20:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

To expand on my last comment: I can make out only SOME of the geographic references in the Encyc. list (I can guess that "amstrdm" means Amsterdam (5 &#1499; ), but I am not sure if "srkusa" (8 &#1500; ) means Syracuse in Sicily or Circasia in western Russia - and there are many like that. But if I were to compare the list of start/end verses in the Encyc (without regard to their attributed sources) with the lists in reputable Bibles of the last century or so, I would notice that the modern Bibles not only do not agree 100% with each other (as I have sometimes noted) but also not agree with anything on the Encyc list for some parshas. Sussmanbern (talk) 01:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It means Syracuse, Sicily, which had an ancient Jewish community dating back to Roman times. Dovi (talk) 05:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you give me one or two specific examples of this? Dovi (talk) 05:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I can certainly give you more than one or two. I hope you will excuse my transliteration.  Under &#1499; Caph, Ashkenazic localities:  1 (Israel?), 2 (an abbreviation: Ppdm), 3 (lyssa). Under &#1500; Lamed, Sefardic localities: 2 (bbl, is this Iraq? but the next entry is Baghdad), 4 (an abbreviation: grbh), 5 (halav), 6 (Tripoli - but the one in Libya or the one in Lebanon?), 7 (kfa - evidently related to Croatia), 10 (prs - I would guess Persia but maybe Paris), and 11 (knstntin, which I would guess means Istambul). ¶ I don't even try to figure out the other source citations - editions of Humashim, textbooks, manuscripts, etc.  I suspect some of these lists, and some of the locality lists, were not deeply ingrained but were temporary and confined to the preferences (or whims) of a single rabbi in a single synagogue. Sussmanbern (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I meant one or two examples of lack of agreement between published lists that you mentioned. :-)

Regardless, I'd be happy to explain the place-names: Ashkenaz (Kaf) Sepharad (lamed):
 * 1=Land of Israel
 * 2=Frankfurt en Main
 * 3=Leszno, Poland
 * 2=Bavel=Babylonia=Iraq from a study of Babylonian Jewish liturgical poetry
 * 3=Bahgdad from a list printed in a prayer book
 * 4=Djerba, Tunisia
 * 5=Halab = Aleppo, Syria
 * 6=Tripoli in Libya
 * 7=I don't know.
 * 10=Paras=Persia=Iran
 * 11=I believe you are correct that it is Istanbul, despite Constantine, Algeria. Dovi (talk) 20:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you enormously. I will use this information to add some more localized data to the Haftarot list here.  I would be very appreciative if someone who knows the Wikipedia technology would add the ref to the Encyc list to the footnotes. Sussmanbern (talk) 00:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Lamed 7 is the rite of Feodosiya (Crimea) and stands for the “unfied siddur” of the Crimea (Kaffa rite). --Chajm (talk) 08:33, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Lamed 9 is the rite of Fez (Morocco) --Chajm (talk) 09:56, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

¶ I have also compared the list that appears in Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia, ed. by Aron Dotan (rev., 2001, Mass.: Hendrickson Publ'rs) appendix E; which includes the usual Ashk/Sfardic as well as mentions of the Chabad, the Frankfurt, "Maghreb communities" (North Africa), Portuguese, et al., and added some entries from this list as well (many entries are simply for "some communities" without further identification, so I have not added those). Sussmanbern (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC) ¶ The more variants I see in more lists, the more I suspect that some of these regional variants are not permanent traditions but mere transitory preferences of the current or recent (or maybe not at all recent) rabbi, the edition of the Humash that could be bought in bulk for the congregation, etc., and would perhaps change with a new rabbi or new Humash. It may well be that some of the variants on various lists were taken from old documents of previous generations and reflect variants that have already been discarded; this may explain the multitude and contradictions of some listings Sussmanbern (talk) 03:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC) ¶ I fully expect that the list of Haftaro readings in various traditions is not totally exhaustive - if only because some obscure traditions still await discovery and/or because, even at this moment, the rabbi of some congregation or the editor of some Humash is going to indulge his own preferences. This list cannot please everybody and I doubt it would completely please anybody, and I expect it to be tinkered with decades after I am dust. Sussmanbern (talk) 22:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC) ¶ I have ceased hunting up more variants for the very simple reason(s) that (1) there are diminishing returns at this point, finding more variants requires a lot more digging and the difficulty of finding them indicates that they were not used by a sizeable demographic, and, perhaps more important, (2) little can be learned from additional variants (and probably little can be learned from some already listed) - they do not indicate much about the history or peregrinations of liturgical traditions but many of these are the result of the congregations buying in bulk humashim from some other region, or the innovation of one rabbi - which may or may not have been countermanded by a subsequent rabbi or the subsequent purchase of another edition of humashim, etc. Sussmanbern (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC) I have NOT translated/listed every item from Encyc. Talmudit - I have skipped those whose descriptions suggest that they were not widely used but may have been the evanescent whim of a single rabbi or a single Humash editor. On the other hand, I did go to some sources (such as Dotan's Bible) to get items not listed in the Encyc.Talmudit. I certainly hope that people, even if they don't agree with my choices, understand the thinking behind my decisions on this. Sussmanbern (talk) 09:18, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Karaites
For the point of this article it doesn't seem to matter what they do, it clutters the article, I would reduce it to Ashkenazi and Sfardi, and put more footnotes elsewhere. Saxophonemn (talk) 22:03, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that the inclusion of Karaites is worthwhile for historic studies (and because this data about Karaites is so hard to find through other means). BUT ... would someone please explain somewhere in the article what "Dardai communities" (e.g. for Genesis, Chayye Sarah) are! Sussmanbern (talk) 17:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Dardai or Dor Daim are a subset of Yemenites. This article links to the article that explains this. I strongly advocate the inclusion of as many traditions as possible. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As noted in the previous section, I got a complete Karaite list from a website of one of the very few Karaite synagogues in the US: orahsaddiqim.org. This matched the few Karaite entries already in the list, so I supposed that the rest of the list was reliable. Sussmanbern (talk) 12:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC) ¶ I agree with Sir Myles about including as many traditions as possible. I have found references to a Romanian tradition, which evidently has a few variants from (I suppose) the Askenaz list. Sussmanbern (talk) 15:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC); ¶ I have since discovered that the "minhag romanian" was actually used in Greece & Turkey, made use of a sort of Greek version of Ladino or Yiddish -- i.e., Greek vocabulary using Hebrew grammar and written in Hebrew lettering, and moreover is now fallen into total disuse and is extinct. Sussmanbern (talk) 19:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC). Follow-up in previous section mentions that Romanian list tends to resemble Karaite at least as much as Ashkenazic readings.Sussmanbern (talk) 17:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's Romaniotes, not Romanian, though the liturgy is called minhag Romania. There are still Romaniote communities, but they now use the Sephardi liturgy. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I am an American Karaite, and would be happy to provide any information I can, although I'm not sure what would be the most useful. As to the similarities between Romanian and Karaite Haftarot (mentioned above), the link is in all probability historical. Karaites used to be in Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East, but political strife, long separation, and cultural changes in both regions have rendered the populations of the areas distinct. Karaites are now generally understood to be non-Talmudic Jews mostly originating in the Middle East, while Qaraims (or Kraylars) identify themselves as a non-Jewish, semitic ethnic group in Eastern Europe. My understanding from old-timers is that the division has happened in the last hundred or so years. Hope that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.213.73.48 (talk) 08:43, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Typo in Haftarot for Leviticus
In the text:

Haftarot for Leviticus

* Vayikra (1:1–5:26) o A, S: Isaiah 43:21–44:23 o Y, I, some Maghreb: Isaiah 43:21–44:6 o R: Isaiah 43:21–44:13 o K: Isaiah 53:21–54:23

The final item looks inconsistent, especially as Isaiah 53:21 does not exist. I assume it should read: o K: Isaiah 43:21–44:23 --87.113.47.214 (talk) 23:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

¶ I thank you for correcting my error. Sussmanbern (talk) 04:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

¶ In April 2014 I printed out the Hebrew version of this Wiki article and compared the lists. In so doing I was able to add some items and spotted & corrected some errors I had made in 2011. Sussmanbern (talk) 13:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC) ¶ I can admit, with some confidence, that typos were not confined to Leviticus. Dealing with multitudes of numbers, sometimes expressed in Hebrew letters, sometimes in tiny type or blurry microfilm (and once or twice the fault was in the book I was reading from), it's a wonder I didn't make more mistakes. I am grateful for every effort to correct my errors. Sussmanbern (talk) 15:44, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The Romaniote Haftaroth
Could someone please tell me from which books the informations of this article about the readings of Romaniotes originate? In the following texts I found other data:

"The prophetic readings of the Byzantine ritual differed fundamentally from those of the other Rabbanite Jews of the diaspora. They have been preserved in the editions of the haftarot published with the Commentary of David Kimchi in Constantinople, 1505; and in the edition of the Pentateuch and haftarot, published in Constantinople, 1522" (and theorizing the Romaniote readings were a perpetuation of the selections of early medieval Eretz Yisrael). Louis Finkelstein, "The Prophetic Readings According to the Palestinian, Byzantine, and Karaite Rites", Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. 17 (1942-1943) page 423; Adolf Büchler, "The Reading of the Law and Prophets in a Triennial Cycle (part ii)" Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 6, nr. 1 (Oct. 1893) pages 1-73, discusses in some detail evidence of very early choices of haftarot, particularly of the Karaites. Informationskampagne (talk) 22:02, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ¶ @User:Informationskampagne This list is based on the list of the Encyclopedia Talmudit - as far as I can see. This tradition was marked with a Resh (R) in the ET. Another user assumed this points to the Romanian minhag. This is somewhere above :-) --Chajm (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Chajm :)! Informationskampagne (talk) 11:29, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I was wrong! @User:Informationskampagne (sorry) The romaniote haftarot are marked with a tet ט in the list of the ET. The Romaniote are marked with an R here in the Wikipedia list of the haftarot. --Chajm (talk) 22:00, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@User:Chajm. Ok thanks that you have remember this. For which word stands the tav? Is it in the ET under "Haftarah"? Informationskampagne (talk) 00:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * @User:Informationskampagne From my point of view the creators of the table simply started with Alef and used the whole alfabet to mark the different minhagim. The letters are not meant as abbreviations. --Chajm (talk) 12:15, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

What "New" Testament?
From a Jewish perspective there is, of course, no "new" testament. Therefore I changed one unqualified reference that was not a quote from "New Testament" to NPOV "Christian Bible". There are couple of other instances in Reference number 8, but I seem to be unable to edit that section. Dori1951 (talk) 18:59, 15 July 2022 (UTC)