On the eve of Rosh Hashana last year, as Lois Kittner was passing through security at the airport in Newark, a security screener halted her. He had a question about several strange items in her carry-on bag. One looked like some kind of animal bone; the other was a piece of metal that came to a suspiciously narrow point.<\/p>\n
So Ms. Kittner set about explaining. She was a cantorial student at the Academy for Jewish Religion and was headed to North Carolina to help lead services at a synagogue there. The bony thing was a shofar, the instrument fashioned from a ram\u2019s horn and blown to herald the Jewish New Year. As for that supposed weapon, it was a yad, a thin rod with a tip shaped like a pointing hand, which is used to follow the handwritten text on a Torah scroll.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to be that person in security who looks scared and uncomfortable,\u201d\u009d Ms. Kittner, 56, recalled in a recent interview. \u201cIt didn\u2019t even occur to me there\u2019d be a problem. Friends tell me there\u2019s never a problem with shofars when you go to Miami.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n