Ma'Oz Tsur

("O Fortress, Rock [of my salvation]"; cf. Isa. 17:10). Opening words and popular title of a hymn sung by Ashkenazim on the ḥanukkah festival, both at home and in the synagogue, after the lights have been kindled and the prescribed benedictions recited. Written in 13th-century Germany, this hymn comprises six stanzas, the initial letters of the first five being an acrostic of the author's name, Mordecai, who is otherwise unknown. Stanza 1 is a prayer for the Temple's restoration and for the deliverance of Israel; stanzas 2-4 gratefully recall successive rescues from Egyptian bondage, Exile in Babylonia, and Haman's bid to annihilate Persian Jewry; stanza 5 then concludes with a summary of the events that are celebrated on Ḥanukkah. A sixth stanza, rarely sung, alludes either to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), who protected the Jews to some extent, or to the armies of the Crusaders who massacred Jewish communities. Other stanzas were written subsequently in the course of time but have been forgotten.

Of the traditional tunes to which Ma'oz Tsur is sung, one current among the Ashkenazi communities of northern Italy has spread to Israel and the United States. Though less Jewishly authentic, another and older melody (15th cent., Germany) has become popular throughout the world and is now regarded as the standard motif. Several versified English translations of Ma'oz Tsur have been written, notably the Rock of Ages paraphrase by two American Zionist rabbis, Gustav Gottheil and Marcus Jastrow. This often replaces the Hebrew text in U.S. Reform worship. Ma'oz Tsur never entered the Sephardi, Yemenite, and other non-Ashkenazi rituals, but, in Israel especially, the practice of singing this hymn on Ḥanukkah has been adopted by many Sephardi-Oriental communities.

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