Palestinian minhag

The Palestinian minhag as opposed to the Babylonian minhag, or Palestinian liturgy, refers to rite and ritual of medieval Palestinian Jewry in relation to the traditional order and form of the prayers.

A complete collection has not been preserved from antiquity, but several passages of it are scattered in both the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud, in the Midrashim, in the Pesiktot, in Soferim, and in some responsa of the Palestinian Geonim. Some excerpts have been preserved in the Siddur of Saadia Gaon and the Cairo geniza yielded some important texts, such as the Eighteen Benedictions.^[1] One fragment of a Palestinian siddur discovered in the genizah was written in Hebrew with various introductions and explanations in Judaeo-Arabic.^[2]

Though the Palestinian Talmud never became authoritative against the Babylonian, the Palestinian liturgy was destined to be accepted in Italy, Greece, Germany and France, even in Egypt, against the Babylonian, owing to the enthusiasm of the scholars of Rome. The Babylonian rite was accepted mainly in Spain, Portugal and the southern counties.^[1]

Ashkenazi Jews accepted many elements of the Palestinian minhag which evolved into three distinct groupings: the German ritual, itself divided into two rituals, the western or Minhag Ashkenaz and the eastern, or Minhag Polin. Minhag Ashkenaz was introduced in Palestine itself during the 16th-century by German and Polish Kabbalists.^[3] The Italian minhag, perhaps the oldest branch of the Palestinian ritual and lastly the Romanic Minhag, more accurately, the Rumelic or Greek ritual; this ritual of the Balkan countries has retained the most features of the Palestinian minhag.^[4][5] Saadya Gaon’s siddur reflects the Palestinian minhag, which was in-cooperated in to liturgy of German Jewry.^[6]

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