Haftarah

See also: haftarah

English

Alternative forms

• haftarah
• Haftorah, haftorah
• Haftara, haftara
• haphtara
• haphtarah

Etymology

From Hebrew הַפְטָרָה (haftará), also through Yiddish הפֿטרה (haftore).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /həfˌtɑːˈɹɑː/, /həfˈtʌ.ɹə/, /həfˈtɔː.ɹə/

Noun

Haftarah (plural Haftarot or Haftaros or Haftarahs or Haftaroth)

1. (Judaism) A selection from the books of Nevi'im and Ketuvim of the Tanach, usually corresponding to the week's parashah, publicly read in synagogue following the parashah.
   • 1874, Literary Remains of the Late Emanuel Deutsch, page 320:

     Recent scholars, on the other hand, without much show of reason, as it would appear, variously hold the Haftarah to have sprung from the sermon or homiletic exercise which accompanied the reading in the Pentateuch, and took its exordium (as Haftarah, by an extraordinary linguistic passage, adapted in a manner to the Mosaic text under consideration; or, again, they imagine the Haftarah to have taken its rise spontaneously during the exile itself, and that Ezra retained and enforced it in Palestine.