Festival heralding sweet year for Jews

Some 35 young children sat on the grass Sunday in Schenley Park, paying rapt attention to the speaker’s explanation of the shofar, a ram’s horn that is blown on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

“Who here is a good person?” asked Rabbi Yisroel Altein, from Yeshiva Schools/Chabad.

Small hands shot up in the air.

“Who’s a good person who sometimes makes mistakes?”

Hands went up again, with less enthusiasm. Then the rabbi raised his own hand.

“We all make mistakes,” he said. “The sound of the shofar reminds us to come back home, to be the good person we really are.”

Then he and co-presenter Nachy Eisenberg — who, with his sunglasses, bushy dark beard and knitted skull cap could have been a sax player in a blues band — each picked up a horn.

They put the drilled tips to their lips and blew, emitting the plaintive wails that have echoed through the ages and will again next week on Rosh Hashana, when the shofar traditionally is blown.

The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday, marking the start of the year 5773 on the Hebrew calendar.

The shofar demonstration was part of Apples and Honey, a fall festival celebrating the new year and named after the traditional Jewish treats that symbolize hope for a sweet year.

Sponsored by Shalom Pittsburgh, the outreach arm of the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the festival drew about 300 registrants — 100 more than in 2011, its inaugural year.