A House of Prayer for All Nations
Tfilah is a growing collection of authentic Jewish prayers — translated into English, transliterated for those who cannot yet read Hebrew, and offered freely.
The project lives at the intersection of two ideas. The first is that prayer is a universal human longing. The prophet Isaiah wrote, in the name of God, that “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). The second is that the Hebrew prayers carry forms of speech and devotion that are worth preserving and sharing carefully.
Whether you are Jewish, descended from Jewish ancestors and seeking, or simply curious about how these words sound, you are welcome here. Read carefully. Pray honestly. Take what speaks to you.
How the prayers are presented
Each prayer page offers two ways to read:
- Translation — the prayer in fluent English, faithful to the Hebrew but readable in its own right.
- Phonetic — the Hebrew written out in Roman letters, so that the actual sounds can be spoken aloud.
Above each prayer is a short introduction explaining where the prayer comes from, when it is traditionally said, and what it asks for. Below each prayer is a short Q&A — often answering the question many readers ask: “can a non-Jewish person say this prayer?”
The companion site
Tfilah is the English-language sibling of tfilah.org, a much larger Hebrew-language collection of Jewish prayers built and maintained by the same team.