Merrick Fagan is a bass player and bartender, not a rabbi, but during the High Holy Days, he is entrusted with a sacred, God-ordained task. At Rosh Hashanah morning services, he blows a hollowed-out ...

Growing up in White Meadow Lake during the 1960's, Eric Freedman had an unspectacular career at Hebrew school. He recalls daydreaming about basketball during classes and making the occasional ...

Hearing the shofar [ram’s horn] sounded on Rosh Hashana is the quintessential New Year ritual. People come to synagogue on the New Year to hear a shofar master sound the alert sequence just as it was ...

The curling kudu horn is almost as tall as Andrew Epstein. The 8-year-old hefts the burnished horn to his lips and blows. His initial sputtering gives way suddenly to a deep, sonorous blast. Ah, the ...

When Jews gather Tuesday for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Stuart Jacoby will look forward to the sounding of the shofar at Temple Sinai in Sharon. It’s the moment in the service when the blast ...

The shofar is the sound of a desperately needed unity: simple, piercing, undeniable. Spirit as strength The shofar is also remembered as a weapon – though not one made of steel. At Jericho, its blast ...

Rabbi Aaron Potek has been getting ready for weeks now, rising each morning to sound his shofar, a hollowed-out ram’s horn used to usher in Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Mostly, he performs the ...

This coming Monday, Oct. 3, at sundown with great solemnity, the curved horn of the shofar will be lifted once again to sound the distinctive wailing notes – Tekiah – Shevarim – Teruah – Tekiah – in ...

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Santa Barbara’s Jewish community is kicking off its High Holiday Days with a twist on tradition. Despite the coronavirus pandemic moving many events online, members of ...

To Isaac Weiner, the long, single blast of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur signals both a beginning and an end. "The sound of the blast marks both an end to the very intense introspection and a ...