Kadish Yatom

A memorial prayer sheet you print yourself, made on your own device

The name is Hebrew for “Mourner's Kaddish”.

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kadish-yatom.web.appLive and in use

The problem

At a graveside you want the right prayers in the right order, printed clearly enough to read without searching. This site turns a name and a few choices into a ready-to-print Hebrew prayer sheet that includes the Mourner's Kaddish.

What we built

What makes it different is what it does not have: a server. The site is a set of ordinary pages, and the PDF is made on the visitor's own phone or computer, so no server is needed to build the sheet. Because the file is made right there, the Hebrew prints correctly, with the vowel marks in the right place. Visitors choose their tradition, which prayers to include, the font and the paper size, and they see the sheet before they print it.

Servers used to make the PDF: None
Prayer traditions: Ashkenaz, Sefard, Edot HaMizrach
A Kaddish-only sheet: 1 page (A4 or Letter)

The story behind it

The story: why there is no server

Most websites that make a PDF send what you typed to a server, which builds the file and sends it back. Here, what you type is the name of someone who has died. So we built the PDF inside the visitor's own browser, with no server to build it.

Hebrew with vowel marks is hard for PDF software, because every mark has to sit in exactly the right place on its letter. The PDF tool we use began as an open project. We extended it ourselves so the vowel marks and the right-to-left text come out the way a Hebrew reader expects.

It started as a few plain HTML pages that printed out as eight sheets of paper. We wanted something calmer and clearer, so we built a small step-by-step wizard around it. Every choice about the sheet is kept in the page address, so a finished sheet can be opened again exactly as you left it.

Try the real thing

Kadish Yatom

A finished sheet for the placeholder name Peloni ben Almoni (פלוני בן אלמוני). Go back a step, change anything, and watch the sheet change. Nothing here is saved by us.

This opens the real site inside this page. It may take a moment and uses some data.

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