Ashkenazic Morning Watchers

In the late seventeenth century, numerous Shomrim la-boker (“Morning Watchers”) confraternities were established in Italian Jewish communities. Rather than providing mutual aid or other sociable and charitable functions, members of these devotional confraternities engaged in special predawn rituals. The first such society was founded in Venice in the late 1570s by members of the synagogue that followed the Italian rite. Over the coming decades, both the Ashkenazic and Levantine Jews in Venice founded their own societies, as did the communities in Mantua, Modena, Ancona, and other Italian cities, all with slightly different characteristics. This proliferation was influenced by the arrival of Iberian exiles, the spread of kabbalah and kabbalistic rites from the land of Israel, messianic hopes, and a similar phenomenon in Counter-Reformation Christian society. Rising around an hour before dawn to recite prayers, penitential hymns (seliḥot), and Psalms, the societies’ rituals focused on mourning the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile and repentance, hoping to hasten the coming of the Messiah. Initially, members used existing prayer books. However, they later composed and published their own collections. They also kept record books that provide fascinating glimpses into the societies’ workings, aims, and activities.