www.atlantajewishtimes.com
By Michael Jacobs
[email protected]
C
oming soon to a synagogue, religious school or day school near
you for the High Holidays: an allnew Shofar Factory from JCrafts, the
Chabad-backed organization whose
holiday highlights also include an olive
press for oil at Chanukah and a matzah-making factory at Passover.
Rabbi Levi Mentz, who heads
JCrafts in Georgia, said that compared
with last year’s version, the new Shofar
Factory includes better costumes and
the addition of music. “This is much
better,” he said. “You gotta keep things
fresh and innovative.”
The Shofar Factory demonstrates
the entire process that turns a ram’s
horn into a shofar. It includes a brief
history of the shofar and an exploration of which horns can and can’t be
used.
It’s hands-on education: Each child
gets a raw shofar and uses machinery
to extract the cartilage, drill a hole and
create a mouthpiece. The shofars-to-be
then ride a conveyor belt into a machine that strips off the coarse outer
layers of the horns and prepares them
for shellacking.
Participants finish painting their
shofars, then learn to blow them before
taking them home.
“The kids love it,” Rabbi Mentz
said. “The dads love it possibly more
than the kids.”
The workshop lasts about an hour
and is free for participants. Although
JCrafts offers the demonstration to
preschoolers, children who are going
to use the machinery should