Abstract
When the Jews of Prague had passed unharmed through the volatile events of the early stages of the Thirty Years' War, from May 1618 to November 1620, they instituted a local annual commemoration of their safe deliverance observed, in part, by the recitation of selibot [liturgical poems] composed for the occasion by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller. The observance and its liturgy not only expressed gratitude to God, but also sought to crystallise the community's pro-Habsburg political stance. Moreover, in loosing locally-based models for the liturgy's form, its author both reflected and helped shape his community's historically-based local consciousness. Adapted from the source document.