Ma'oz Tzur
poem
"Ma'oz Tzur" (Hebrew: מָעוֹז צוּר, romanized: Māʾōz Ṣūr) is a Jewish liturgical poem or piyyut. It is written in Hebrew, and is sung on the holiday of Hanukkah, after lighting the festival lights. The hymn is named for its Hebrew incipit, which means "Strong Rock (of my Salvation)" and is a name or epithet for God in Judaism. It is thought to have been written sometime in the 13th century, although recent research suggests the 12th century. It was originally sung only at home, but has been used in the synagogue since at least the 19th century. In more recent years, of its six stanzas sometimes only the first stanza is sung (or the first and fifth).
Time and author
"Ma'oz Tzur Yeshuati" is commonly thought to have been written in the 13th century, during the Crusades. The first letters of the first five stanzas form an acrostic of the composer's name, Mordechai (the five Hebrew letters מרדכי). There are several hypotheses regarding his identity. He may have been the Mordecai ben Isaac ha-Levi who wrote the Sabbath table-hymn "Mah Yafit".
“Ma'oz Tzur” enters the record as poem. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ma'oz, Tzur and poem can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ma'oz Tzur” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ma'oz, Tzur and poem provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1785997. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Ma'oz Tzur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.