The Jewish prayer book, the Siddur, and Jewish liturgy contain phrases that have been criticized as promoting inequality since the 16th century. Initially, this concerned three of the blessings recited in the morning, in which God is thanked for not having been created as a non-Jew, a slave, or a woman. Subsequently, criticism was also directed at those blessings in which God is praised for choosing the people of Israel from among all nations, which could also be understood as a claim to Jewish superiority. Finally, other formulations in the Siddur underwent a gender-equitable and socially just revision.
The paper will present and analyze these three phenomena in their historical context. Furthermore, it will ask to what extent there is a sensitivity on the Jewish side to potential inequalities that is not (yet) found in Christian liturgy, e.g., in the appropriation of the Aaronic blessing at the end of Protestant services.