This is a yad, Jewish ritual pointer, often made from silver, used to point at the Hebrew script on the Torah parchment rolls during a reading. The parchment is not to be touched, as the scripture is considered sacred, and in more practical terms, this prevents damage to teh fragile parchment from the oils of the skin.

Taken during a demonstration in the New West End Synagogue, Bayswater, London.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts today.

Shana Tova Umetukah!
(A good and sweet new year!)


(the geeky bit: taken with Fujifilm S5 Pro, RAW converted with Silkypix Developer Studio 3.0. An interesting bit of software, not very well known, but the results I've had from it from my short trial so far are excellent... takes a bit of getting used to, and way better value than Lightroom, IMHO. I seem to be getting a bit quirky since getting a rather quirky camera. What next...Polaroid, maybe :)