Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

Alan Wagner still pictures it as one of the most stirring religious experiences of his boyhood. Perched on his father’s shoulders in their synagogue in Omaha, Neb., he strained to catch an ...

The shofar originates from biblical times – it has been around for thousands of years and has carried the same meaning on its journey through time. From an ancient battle cry to a modern-day music ...

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 ...

Trumpet player Bruce Shapiro is the ideal person to perform the Rosh Hashana ritual of blowing the shofar – an ancient musical instrument that marks the beginning of the new year. “The whole idea of ...

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 ...

With our intentions — and especially our ears — tuned to the month of Elul, we might ask: Who turned up the shofar? For Jews, its soulful sound is not just for High Holy Days anymore, and today, a ...

In preparation for the Jewish new year, children and their families will craft their very own ram’s horn instrument, known as Shofar in Hebrew, at Chabad’s Shofar Factory. Children, with adult ...

If you listen closely to the opening notes of “West Side Story,” you’ll hear the gentle blow of the shofar. That’s because the shofar is a musical instrument, not just a ritual one, according to ...

It’s something they can all celebrate together.” The concept of the shofar is so appealing Chabad representatives took the instrument to area hospitals to toot for Jewish patients in their rooms on ...