Step 1: Tell us what you have in mind
Step 2: Choose the contents
Step 3: Together, we design the cover
Step 4: Add your own touches
Step 5: Include copyrights and credits
Step 6: Make it perfect
Step 7: Print and bind it
Step 8: Ship it!
Step 1: Tell us what you have in mind
CustomSiddur will ask you a lot of easy questions: what kind of event you’re planning,
when and where it will be, who will lead the service, and what style of liturgy you need:
Conservative, Orthodox or Reform. Then we can get started.
Step 2: Choose the contents
Working with you and your rabbi, CustomSiddur will help you pin down the details of your service,
with prayers and translations, special songs and readings.
Then we add your Torah/Haftarah portions or Megillah in Hebrew and English,
plus Birkat Hamazon, Shabbat table blessings and z’mirot, Havdalah …
whatever is appropriate for that day and your celebration.
Step 3: Together, we design the cover
Even the “standard” CustomSiddur covers will be customized for you,
with the name(s), date(s), colors and fonts you want.
Or, at no extra cost, we can brainstorm with you to design a cover
that matches your invitations or reflects your family’s unique style and interests.
From simple and elegant to funky and colorful,
we have lots of ideas and resources and examples to share.
Sorry, we only make covers for CustomSiddur prayerbooks.
Step 4: Add your own touches
Since your entire book is completely custom designed, CustomSiddur can include your own welcome letter, dedication or memorial page, family poetry, and other writings at no extra design cost. We will lay it out beautifully and let you see exactly how it will look before it goes to the printer.
CustomSiddur can include your own artwork in glorious color on the cover, or in black and white on interior pages.
We can scan it, clean it up, and find a terrific place for it. We can also recommend talented Jewish artists who will make something beautiful for the cover or the inside of your siddur.
Photographs of Israel, ritual objects and nature make wonderful backgrounds for your cover.
Your photograph needs to be in high resolution and we must be able to get permission to use it.
Step 5: Include copyrights and credits
Orthodox translations from the original Hertz Authorized siddur are in the public domain.
CustomSiddur has a modernized version of those translations that we use for Orthodox siddurim.
Custom Siddur has licensing agreements to use the English translations from:
- CCAR Press (Reform Movement) prayer books, including Mishkan T’filah,
- Reconstructionist Press – Reconstructionist prayer books, including Kol Haneshamah,
- Jewish Publication Society – Tanakh: Torah, Haftarah, and other Bible texts.
We also work with the Rabbinical Assembly to get permission for members of Conservative congregations
to use the translations from Siddur Sim Shalom.
If you find a wonderful poem or song or reading, we will do our best to get permission to use it.
We may already have permission – just ask.
Step 6: Make it perfect
At every stage, CustomSiddur puts together drafts of your book and cover
based on our discussions with you. We email it to you as PDF files so you can
see every page exactly as it will look in your book with Hebrew, English, graphics.
You can share it with your rabbi and family, and tell us what corrections
and changes it needs. We tweak it and send you another draft, as many as you like,
until we are all convinced that it’s as perfect as humanly possible.
Then we upload the cover and interior files to the printer.
Step 7: Print and bind it
Your custom siddur can be printed and bound in a wide variety of styles and sizes, Hebrew or English opening. Most families like “perfectbound” (glued binding) books with full-color glossy covers. For books of 40 pages or less, saddle stitching allows us to use beautiful papers, colored or metallic inks, embossing, foil stamping, and hole punching for ribbons. See our Printing Options page for explanations and more details.
Step 8: Ship it!
Your siddurim are shipped directly from the factory to you, by the least expensive method available to meet your deadline. If you are celebrating in the UK, we have a printer who can print the books there.
Note: as much as we dearly want to give our business to Israel, we have not been about to find Israeli printers that even come close to meeting our price requirements. For quantities under 100, it is generally best to print them in the US and carry them to Israel.