Do-it-yourself willow bark horn

Mayer Kirshenblatt from Toronto, Canada, made this horn in the early 1980s. It replicates a handmade toy he remembered from his childhood in interwar Opatów, Poland. Children made horns like this one in the springtime and called it a trompayte (trumpet) or shoyfer (shofar, the ram’s horn blown in the synagogue during the High Holidays). Jewish children in small towns often made their toys, passing on the craft from one generation to another.