Children at Jacob Duman JCC get an earful

Children at Jacob Duman JCC in Buffalo Grove were treated to father and daughter ba’al tekiyah (sounding the shofar) on Thursday.

A ba’al tekiyah is the Hebrew name for a person who sounds the shofar, a trumpet-like instrument fashioned from a hollowed ram horn. It is played in the synagogue during Rosh Hashana and at the end of Yom Kippur. The unmistakable, piercing sound is intended to rouse listeners to reflect on the past and plan for the upcoming year.

Dr. Harris Goldenberg joined his daughter, Trudi R. Krames, the director of early childhood at Jacob Duman JCC in the morning shofar-sounding ceremony. The shofar is sounded at several JCC early childhood sites every weekday morning before Rosh Hashana during the Jewish month of Elul (this year, Sept. 1-28).

Krames was taught to sound the shofar by her father, Goldenberg, who himself is self-taught.