Toronto Day School Blasts Shofar World Record
Image by iStockphoto
The students at Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto are tooting their own horns now that it looks like they have broken the world record for the largest shofar ensemble.
Last week, the school’s community gathered together to blow 1,406 shofars simultaneously, shattering the prior record of 796 set in Boston in 2006. The new record will not be official until the school submits evidence of the feat to Guinness, and it is approved.
Associated, as the school is known among Toronto Jews, was able to pull off such a stunt because it is the largest Jewish day school in the city. It has more than 1,600 students on three campuses. In addition to the students’ bringing in shofars from home, the school held shofar-making workshops so that each student in grades 1-8 could make their own from a ram’s horn.
Then, of course, came the issue of teaching all the children how to blow a shofar. Principal Eric Golombek reported that the kids were really into it. “It’s been electric. Kids have been so excited about it,” he told a local news website. The educator emphasized that the focus was not only on breaking a world record, but more importantly about doing something exciting and unifying to usher in the Jewish New Year.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
