LISTEN, BROTHER

Firman, 6, of Squirrel Hill, blows a shofar in his 4-year-old brother Brian’s ear during Sunday’s Apples and Honey Festival in Schenley Park. The event was a runup to Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which begins Sunday at sundown.

Rachael Altoff, director of the Young Adult Division, said Apples and Honey is its biggest event of the year.

Added organizer Amy Cohen: “The festival is a way to engage people in the community and get them ready for the holidays. I just hope the rain holds off.”

It did. Sun broke through the clouds as families munched apples (donated by Giant Eagle) and honey sticks while milling among the tables.

At one, a glass-enclosed honeycomb swarming with bees displayed the origins of the thick, sweet substance, courtesy of Hannah’s Honey of Fox Chapel, which also offered tastes of its fall honey (dark and sweet) and spring honey (light-colored and lighter tasting).

Children made small beeswax candles at a table run by Ward Troetschel of Edinboro Creations in West Mifflin, which sells full-size beeswax candles online.

His wife, Nin, showed Sasha Forrest, 6, and her brother Ezra, 3, how to warm a wax rectangle between their hands to soften it, lay the string wick along the edge, roll and squeeze the edge to hold the wick and then keep rolling until the finished candle emerged.

“Look what I made!” Ezra said to his parents, Jamie Forrest and Rachel Kranson of Squirrel Hill. “It smells like bees,” he added.

Other craft tables were run by Hillel Academy, Community Day school, The Jewish Community Center, Yeshiva Schools and PJ Library, which sends a free Jewishthemed book each month to Jewish families with young children.