Did you miss the Shofar FlashMob last year but loved our videos or your friends' encounters? Did you participate and want to do it again? Stay tuned for updates by joining our mailing list and checking back on our website later this spring. Don't hesitate to let us know about your creative ideas.

Art Kibbutz NYC’s first public event – the global Shofar FlashMob – took place in seventeen cities around the world on September 18th, creating the glorious cacophony envisioned by its creators…and then some.

From the United States to Europe to Israel and beyond established and emerging artists gathered together with creative volunteers to sounding the Shofar in places both urban and rural, traditional and off-the-beaten-track.

In addition to New York City, Shofar FlashMobs in Jerusalem (Israel), Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Kiev (Ukraine), Gomel (Belarus), Chicago (Illinois), Milwakee (Wisconsin), San Francisco (California), Oakland (California), Las Vegas (Nevada), Los Angeles (California), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Wolcott (Vermont), Salem (Massachusetts), and St. Louis (Missouri) comprise the edgy Rosh Hashana art video greeting above.

The Shofar FlashMob was like a Midrash. Everyone interpreted the sound of the shofar their own way. The participants also greatly differed in each location – with some even opposing each other in intention, style, approach and modality. Yet these discrete spiritual public art action were performed simultaneously by people who would never meet otherwise or would be willing to work together.

The central NYC Shofar FlashMobs proved so successful that it was necessary to create two consecutive blowings at the Lincoln Center location for eager latecomers - a person couldn't park but wouldn't want to miss the blowing so he joined our crew from his car...

The jazzy flashmob at the JCC in Manhattan and the Jerusalem Shofar FlashMob at the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall both featured Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook's Shofar poem, performed by Rabbi Yitzhak Marmorstein, Jake Marmer, Rabbi Greg Wall and Jordan Hirsch.

In Budapest organizers sounded bicycle bells to raise awareness about the CarFree World Day, in San Francisco they blew on a hill with sound instruments, in Chicago volunteers gathered by the Cubs before a game, while in Brooklyn organizers blew a gigantic, scary blast as part of an exhibition opening about terror. 

At these public art projects there was sound, there was spirit, there was community but there was so much more. The sight of people gathering to sound the ancient ram’s horn stopped passers-by in their tracks, fulfilling the Shofar’s truest functions: creating energy, awareness and intentional community. Our Shofar FlashMob demanded that attention be paid…and it was.

Yours in inspiration,
Eszter Margit and Shira Dicker 

Check out the latest article about the Shofar FlashMob in EJewishPhilantropy, Huffington Post, Jerusalem Report, Culture Shuk of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, Arutz Sheva and much more.

Our global project at the nexus of sound, spirit and technology! 
On September 18th, Art Kibbutz NYC hosted the greatest Shofar-blowing event since Sinai, a worldwide art performance that took the Jewish tradition of sounding the Shofar daily during the Hebrew month of Elul...and gave it a 21st century, postmodern twist.

A large group of artists and creative volunteers on September 18th blowed the shofar together at 17 locations for 2 minutes as a call for teshuvah (return). This was the first-ever FlashMob utilizing a Shofar. Their action was synchronized with other FlashMob teams around the world. This creative event is documented and incorporated into an artistic, Rosh Hashana electronic greeting card. This is your chance to learn how to use the instrument and make a teruah gedolah (huge blast) that rouses the heavens, and makes Jews around the world, the international media and passers-by tremble.

Traditionally a ram’s horn, the Shofar was used in Biblical times for many purposes, including announcing the new moon (thus the new month), to herald the commencement of the festivals and in battle.  Today the Shofar is sounded at times of Jewish celebration such as Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and during the holiest day of Yom Kippur. But what is the Shofar? Is it a musical instrument? A ritual object? A siren? All of these above?

A flash mob is a group of people who mobilize on short notice to perform a collective action. Howard Rheingold, in his 2002 book, dubbed them "smart mobs," noting that they "consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. 

A flash mob is an organized routine of a group of performers working together on a large scale within the everyday usual public environment to surprise, entertain, and amuse the general public for a temporary period of time with a spontaneous performance. Flash mobs are usually about a brief dance but other types of performance might be used as well, such as song, a short performance, or even record breaking attempts.

Saxophonist Rabbi Greg Wall has performed and recorded with Hasidic New Wave, Greg Wall's Later Prophets, The Ayn Sof Arkestra and Bigger Band, Neshama Carlebach, the Hi-Tops, Greg Wall's Unity Orchestra, Jazz Talmud Quartet, and has made many session appearances for record dates and film scores. He was the musical voice of James Earl Jones in the recent feature film "On the QT". His compositions for dance, jazz orchestra, and electronica have been widely performed and recorded. Greg performs frequently at top venues throughout North America and Europe and has been featured at many major festivals. Greg is equally fluent in the jazz and world music idioms and recently premiered his Unity Orchestra, a pan cultural ensemble featuring 8 musicians from 5 continents. He is the rabbi of the 6th Street Synagogue. He recently formed HaOrot -  The Lights of Rav Kook with Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein, born in Israel and raised and worked in Canada, has been translating Rav Kook’s poems into English since the 1980's. Their first CD was released with Wall's new band Later Prophets on Tzadik Records, a label run by the well-known musician John Zorn which specializes in experimental jazz.  Greg is also the rabbi at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, in New York's East Village.

The Shofar FlashMob is visually directed by András Böröcz, founder of two non-profits, Alma on Dobbin, NYC and 2B Galley in Budapest. He is a Brooklyn-based artist working in numerous mediums, in sculpture, drawing, installation, multi-media performance and book arts.  Böröcz’s artwork addresses personal history through the boundaries between objects of daily life and art. He also creates works based on Jewish themes & Judaica, such as his version of Purim noisemakers or his more recent installation of suspended Torah pointers or Yads.  Böröcz frequently collaborates with musicians, architects, writers and artists. He has exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the US and in South Africa, and is included in numerous institutional and private collections internationally. 

The Sway Machinery - a Brooklyn-based collective that performs a cosmopolitan amalgam inspired by ancient Jewish Cantorial music, blues, afro-beat and rock - will give a free Rosh-Hashana themed concert for Art Kibbutz NYC at the JCC in Manhattan. Their new album, which features Timbuktu vocal superstar Khaira Arby, builds on the success of Sway Machinery's previous recording Hidden Melodies Revealed that garnered critical praise from the Village Voice, SPIN and Very Short List, among others. The Sway Machinery consists of Lockwood (guitar and vocals, Balkan Beat Box), and some members of AntiBalas, also known from the Fela! musical on Broadway.
Contributing artists include: Jake Marmer, HaOrot, Evan Kleinman (Punk Jews), Richard McBee