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I don't really understand what "prayer book" means in this instance.

In my understanding a prayer book can refer to either (1) a notebook specifically used to list things to pray for, or (2) a book with liturgical(formal) prayers for use at certain times end events.

The text quoted in the article seems to detailed for (1) and too specific for (2). Maybe I'm looking at this from a too Christian perspective? Do prayer books have a different meaning in Judaism?

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A Jewish prayerbook (or siddur) is basically (2) — giving the text of the prayers to read for the daily services and other events.

However, my understanding is that this note doesn’t form part of the prayers themselves, but merely happened to be written on a page of the prayerbook.

The prayer book in this article is most likely a book with liturgical prayers. The text that the article discusses was just written on a leaf in that book (likely one of the opening or ending ones). It's quite common to find in books of the era notes about personal or communal events written on what were blank (or mostly blank) pages.

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