Start the Year on a High Note:
Shofar Factory Workshop at the Jewish Children’s Museum

The Jewish Children’s Museum of Crown Heights, Brooklyn invites children everywhere to grab the ram by the horns this erev Rosh Hashana. On Sunday, October 2nd, the museum will be hosting Tzivos Hashem’s celebrated Shofar Factory.

The Shofar, an instrument with over five thousand years of Jewish history, is the Factory’s main attraction. Guests of the Shofar Factory will explore the role of the Shofar in Jewish history. They will also learn how Jewish communities the world over, guided by the ageless precepts of the Torah, have developed their own distinct variation on the classic Shofar.

Visitors will get to see, touch, smell, blow and listen to Shofars of all shapes and colors. Shofars thin and narrow, straight and twirly, round and burly, flat and squat, snow-white and misty-grey will all be on display. An array of Angora, Spanish Goat, Ibex, and Ram horns will be crafted into working Shofars before the children’s eyes. The Shofars will be measured, sawed, drilled, sanded, and polished. The models will inspire the young apprentices to find their own voice in the clarion call of the Shofar.

“The real magic of this program is its sense of empowerment,” says Tzivos Hashem’s Michoel Albekurk. Indeed, some of the older children will learn to perform the mitzvah for an elderly grandparent or a sick neighbor. The workshop trains community leaders with a deep sense of civic responsibility. One boy reported that his souvenir Shofar is an heirloom he will display beside the Shofar his father crafted in the early years of the factory.

The Shofar Factory is a program that fits perfectly with the museum’s aim to foster a proud sense of self and community. Since its inception in 1988, the Shofar Factory has trained over 100,000 children in its traveling workshops. The Factory finds trumpeters among Boy Scout troops, community centers, Jewish day schools, summer camps, festivals and fairs.

The Jewish Children’s museum, located in the heart of Crown Heights, Brooklyn is an interactive wonderland open to all children. The dominant mode of education is through play. Visitors experience the seven days of creation, witness the revelation at a blooming Mt. Sinai, globe-trot as olive-pressers and archers, participate in the rituals of Shabbos as pint-sized guests at a colossal table, and become responsible shoppers at a model Kosher supermarket.

General Admission to the Jewish Children’s Museum: $10.00
Workshop: $2.00 additional
Sunday, October 2nd
Museum Hours: 10am – 6 pm
Workshop at 4:30pm