For the Jewish People, there is no day of the year holier than Yom Kippur. It stands out as the day that all Jews commit to a long day of fasting and repentance. Each kehilah joins together at their synagogue, harnessing the power of communal prayer to beseech the Merciful Judge to have compassion on His people. Such a solemn and consequential day imposes considerable demands on every one of us to dedicate our minds and open our hearts to the task at hand. How much more enhanced would our efforts be if we could understand the basic translation and the deeper explanations of our prayers? For the English-speaking Jew of Moroccan descent who is interested in attaining this level of cognizance, Emet LeYa'akov is essential.

This prayer book is built in the same structure and style as Siddur Tefillat Shemuel, our first prayer book project. It features English instructions, translation, commentary, prayer laws, and sources. Within the Moroccan Sephardic tradition, the liturgy on Yom Kippur varies more so than on other holy days. The variance in prayer arrangement and songs (piyyutim) between the common practice of communities from the Spanish-speaking northern part of Morocco verses the rest of the country demanded the production of two different versions of the machzor. As such, we produced two versions of Emet LeYa'akov – The Oziel Edition is tailored to those who follow the arrangement from northern Morocco and the Rbibo Edition for the French-speaking communities, who constituted the majority in Morocco