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Here in northern Israel, shepherdess Jenna
Lewinsky is raising a flock of Jacob Sheep, pictured here, as a
religious calling.
With anything up to six horns on each animal, the breed is
ideally suited for the manufacture of the horn traditionally
blown during the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, the
holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The spotted breed of Jacob Sheep was bred in England in the 17th
and 18th centuries, and this flock was brought to Israel from
Canada by Lewinsky in 2016.
But sheep have been recorded since antiquity across the Middle
East, and the modern breed's name echoes the ancient Biblical
story from Genesis in which the patriarch Jacob took "every
speckled and spotted sheep" as wages from his father-in-law,
Laban.
Turning her flock's horns into shofars is part of God's plan,
says Lewinsky, who calls herself a "traditional and God-fearing
Jew."
"The Jacob Sheep horns can probably be processed anywhere in the
world but what makes the horns special is that we are processing
them in Israel, which gives them a holiness," she said.
Robert Weinger, a shofar-maker who works with the horns from
Lewinsky's farm, said that a ram's horn made from the breed can
sell for $500 to $20,000 or more, depending on its sound
quality, as it produces a wider range of musical notes than
other shofars.
(Editing by Stephen Farrell and William Maclean)
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