No dancing, sukkah “crawls” or shared shofars, said Her Majesty’s Government — among other decrees handed down on Monday. British Jews have received an extensive list of don’ts and dos for this year’s High Holiday season, covering Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and the festivals of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. The list was released…
(JTA) — Now that it’s Elul, the month that precedes Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish world is filling with the sounds of the shofar. But what about Sea World? Try listening to this 100 times. ? pic.twitter.com/GV277Kwkm8 — Johnny Kunza (@johnkunza) August 23, 2020 A viral video combining the call of sea lions with the blasts…
With the High Holidays fast approaching, Jewish congregations and communities are rethinking how to fulfill the commandment of hearing the shofar blown at a time when the COVID-19 crisis has scattered so many worshippers. The loud blare of the shofar is meant to inspire awareness, inciting greater self-reflection and attention to God during the High…
Rabbi Ariel Stone stood at the protest with a gas mask hanging around her neck, a megaphone in one hand and a shofar in the other. Gathering with the Portland Clergy Interfaith Resistance on Sunday, Stone, a longtime human rights advocate and leader of Portland’s Congregation Shir Tikvah, called for an end to the use…
75 Rosh Hashanahs ago, in 1944, the sound of a shofar rang out at Auschwitz. Very few heard it. It was Rosh Hashanah, and as the Jewish year 5704 turned into 5705, Chaskel Tydor, a Jewish work dispatcher at Auschwitz III-Monowitz, arranged for a minyan of prisoners to be sent to an isolated part of…
(JTA) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attempted, and failed, to blow a shofar while on a visit to northern England. During a visit on Friday to meet voters in Doncaster, Yorkshire, the newly minted prime minister was approached by a woman who invited him to “blow the holy shofar.” She explained that the instrument,…
Being little more than a husk of keratin hacked off the head of a ram, the shofar is not a very versatile instrument. Because there’s no real mechanism to alter pitch within the hollow horn, the burden is on the blower, who can modulate tones using his or her lips, teeth or tip-of-the tongue. For…
How do we know when Jews have made it in America? When neo-Nazis show up at Jerry Seinfeld shows eating tzimmes? When public schools have half-a-day for Shmini Atzeret? Or maybe, just maybe, when hip-hop karaoke videos featuring shofars go viral. Oh happy, happy Wednesday! Unintentionally kicking off Elul with a blast of early High…
100% of profits support our journalism
