Philip Birnbaum

Philip Birnbaum (; March 30, 1904 – March 19, 1988) was a Polish-American religious author and translator. He is best known for his work Ha-Siddur ha-Shalem, a translation and annotation of the Siddur first published in 1949.

Biography Title page of the Birnbaum Siddur. One can scroll through the entire siddur by clicking on the image. Birnbaum was born in Kielce, Poland and emigrated to the United States in 1923. He attended Howard College (now Samford University) and received his Ph.D. from Dropsie College. He served for several years as the principal of a Jewish day school in Wilmington, Delaware, and directed Jewish schools in Birmingham, Alabama, and Camden, New Jersey. He was a regular columnist and book reviewer for the Hebrew-language weekly Ha-Doar. He also served on the board of directors of the Histadrut Ivrit b'America, an American association for the promotion of Hebrew language and culture.

His works include translations (with annotation and introductory material) of the Siddur (first published in 1949), the Machzor, the Torah with Haftorot, and the Passover Haggadah (published by the Hebrew Publishing Company). These translations sought to express reverence without appearing archaic. His Siddur and Machzor were pioneering in that the Hebrew text is of uniform typeface, "unlike the helter-skelter boldface paragraphing … found in Old World siddurim". His Siddur also contains the rarely published Megillat Antiochus.

Until the advent of the Artscroll and Koren translations, the Birnbaum Siddur and Machzor were widely used in Orthodox and Conservative synagogues, selling over 300,000 copies.

Birnbaum is also well known for his works of popular Judaism: his excerpted translation of Maimonides Mishne Torah, was one of the first into English; his "Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts" and "A Treasury of Judaism" (an Anthology excerpting over 70 classic works) were widely referenced. He also produced a "readable" summary and translation of the Tanakh.

Birnbaum, a bachelor, was a long-time member of the Jewish Center in Manhattan, and led classes there.

Birnbaum's original gravestone misspelled his name, had the wrong birth year, and called him a "renouned author & scholar". In 2022, the original gravestone was replaced with one with all three mistakes corrected and a Hebrew verse from the High Holiday liturgy added.

Publications

Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Nusach Sefard. Hebrew Publishing Company. 1958. .