Photos

In honor of the Jewish New Year coming up this Friday night and Saturday, I'm posting a picture of a pile of shofars, which are one of the symbols of the holiday. Although it is a sacred instrument, one can see boxes and bins of them for sale all over the Old City, like this one here.

The shofar is blown to mark special events (in Jerusalem, the start of Shabbat is announced with a 3-minute blast resembling a shofar), and it is particularly associated with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, because of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, which is read on Saturday morning (Sunday morning for the Conservative and Orthodox), where at the last minute a ram is substituted for Isaac. So a shofar is generally made from a ram's horn, though it can be made from any kosher animal (except the cow, because of the Golden Calf); a long twisty shofar, for example, might be a kudu's horn.

Technical: Lots of post-processing here, but mainly a conversion to B&W. I deliberately left the graininess in.

לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמנו May we be inscribed and sealed for a good year.