My husband is recently visually impaired with a condition called NAION. He has been using the Artscroll large print siddur on Shabbat and a siddur app on his phone for weekdays. I want to get him Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur machzorim and am wondering if anyone has compared the large print Artscroll and Jewish Heritage for the Blind machzorim for font-size, readability, convenience, etc.
Thank you and shana tova.
I'm not familiar with this vision condition. However, here are my thoughts on each of the two Machzorim.
The Jewish Heritage Machzor, I'm not sure contains everything. It has been a while since I last viewed it. However, the print is large. If I recall, it is spiral bound, which is a huge advantage in that it can lie flat. It also is much lighter than the Art Scroll one.
The Art Scroll is thorough and has large font. However, if I recall, it tends to use gray shading for certain prayers. I know that reason alone was why when my shul tried to convert their year-round Siddurim to Art Scroll, the older congregants protested, so we didn't use it. We do use Art Scroll (regular size) machzorim for High Holidays. I use the large print one as I am Shaliach Tzibbur. It definitely is missing some English translation of some prayers, and it is a bit heavy. (I have a slight problem coordinating my page numbers with the rest of the congregation, as the organization is different in the large print. But, I know Hebrew well enough to figure it out. However, if following along is a concern, this may be an issue for you.)
So, there are advantages / disadvantages to one Machzor over the other. Hope this helps you decide. Shanah Tovah.
