Siddur Or Zarua was created with one main goal in mind: to provide an experience that is as traditional as possible while remaining fully egalitarian. The nusach follows minhag Ashkenaz, preserving the traditional liturgical text with care and fidelity.
The egalitarian adaptations are few and considered. In the Amidah, the matriarchs are named individually alongside the patriarchs — Elohei Sarah, Elohei Rivkah, Elohei Rachel, v’Elohei Leah — reflecting the conviction that each matriarch stood in her own covenantal relationship with God. The birchot hashachar blessings “shelo assani goy,” “shelo assani aved,” and “shelo assani ishah” have been replaced with the positive formulations “she’assani Yisrael,” “she’assani ben chorin,” and “she’assani b’tzalmo,” following the approach of the Masorti movement. Feminine call-up language is provided for aliyot to the Torah.
Notably, the text does not add the bare word “v’Imahot” after “Avot.” This is for two reasons. The first is grammatical: the word avot functions in Hebrew as a generic plural, meaning ancestors rather than fathers exclusively, and the matriarchs are already encompassed within it. The second reason is ideological. Some feminist scholars have argued that appending “v’Imahot” creates its own problem — by constructing two parallel, gendered categories of ancestors, it implicitly positions the matriarchs as an addendum to the “real” ancestors rather than as equal inheritors of the covenant. Naming the matriarchs themselves, as the Amidah does, is the more meaningful corrective.