The Mahzor, meaning prayer-book, is capable of division from different points of view. According to its contents we may divide it into two parts,—the Smaller and the Larger. The Smaller Mahzor contains the ordinary prayers, together with the poetical insertions and the lessons from the Pentateuch and the Prophets used on the Yamim N^oraim i or “Awe-inspiring Days” (i.e., New Year and the Day of Atonement), and those used on the Yamim Tobirn, the three principal festivals (Passover, Pentecost, aud Tabernacles). The Larger Mahzor is, indeed, the only one which really deserves this name, since it embodies the ordinary prayers, together with the poetical insertions for the whole year, and the lessons from the Pentateuch and the Prophets for all feasts and fasts and the other extraordinary occasions. According to its various “uses” the Mahzor may be divided into the Rabbanite and the Anti-Rabbanite. The Anti-Rabbanite Mahzor comprises the Karaite, used by the so-called Karaites, or Scripturalists, inhabiting Russia (especially the Crimea), Galizia(Austrian Poland), Egypt, Palestine, <fcc,, and the Semi-Karaite, adopted by the so-called “Reformed Jews” of England, in reality the “Congregations of British Jews” of London, Manchester, and Bradford. 8 The Rabbanite Mahzor may be divided into that of the Ashkenazim, the Sepharadim, and the Italiani. The Italian Mahzor, though embodying large Ashkenazic and Sepharadic elements, is yet a distinct “use.” It branches out at home into three subdivisions— (1) the Roman, (2) the Neapolitan (now extinct), and (3) the Italian proper; and abroad into (4) the Greek Rites of Kaffa, Crete, &c. (Crete having very early received a large influx of immigrants from France and Germany, but chiefly from Italy), and (5) the Romanian, i.e , the “use” obtaining, among others, at Constantinople and other Byzantine cities. The Italians who, long before the year 1000, had given Jewish learning and poetry, not merely to Germany, but to the whole Roman empire, received in the 14th century numerous immigrants from northern France, in the 15th century from Spain and Portugal, and at all times from Germany. The “uses” of these immigrants are practically preserved side by side with the native Italian to this day. The pure Sepharadic Ritual represents, in the first instance, of course, the “use” of the Jews formerly inhabiting Spain and Portugal, who now form the minority in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Manchester, London, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Temesvâr, Semlin, Bucharest, Venice, Rome, and some other Italian and Greek cities, as also in Canada and the United States, and the majority in India, Persia, Morocco, Leghorn, Corfu, Belgrade, all Bulgaria, Constantinople, Palestine, Egypt, South Arabia, and other parts of the Turkish empire, in the French possessions in Africa, and in the south of France. Some of these, although characteristically Sepharadic, are distinct enough to claim a ritual of their own, as those of “Catalonia,” Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Tlemcen, Ceylon and Cochin in India, the Comtat in France, and Provence, as a whole, in bygone days. The “use” of the Ashkenazim, i.e., of the majority of the Jews inhabiting Germany, the Austrian states, Hungary, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, France, Belgium, Holland, the British empire (India excepted), the United States, &c., branches out into two rituals, the German proper and the Polish. This latter has some differences of use between Great Poland and Little Poland. The German proper had in times past the separate rituals of Worms and other cities in the empire, which are all now extinct. Those of Frankfort-on-the-Main and of other towns are not sufficiently marked to deserve separate notice. It should, however, be mentioned that there are scattered everywhere, both at home and abroad, “Reformed congregations,” whose separate uses and practices are more or less an imitation of the “Temple” (Reformed congregation) of Hamburg.

Some of these have only introduced choirs, others have introduced instrumental music, and others again have considerably curtailed not merely the poetical insertions, but the ordinary prayers themselves, and have introduced hymns and prayers in the vernacular. (s. μ. s.-s.)