Georgia rabbi blows wake-up call to state legislators

(JTA) –When Rabbi Larry Sernovitz was asked to deliver the morning devotion to the Georgia state legislature, he came armed with an ancient alarm: A shofar, the ram’s horn blown in synagogues during the high holy days.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Sernovitz made history Tuesday when he blew a shofar in the legislature, a first for the state legislature — and, according to Howard Mortman, an author who has tracked rabbinical benedictions in legislatures, probably the first in any U.S. legislature.

Sernovitz, the rabbi of Kol Emeth in Marietta in Atlanta’s suburbs, delivered a...