Shabbat Siren

A Shabbat siren is a civil defense siren repurposed to announce the approach of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, to the surrounding community, and is sounded in cities including Jerusalem and in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. In Jerusalem the siren sounds forty minutes before Shabbat begins, while in Brooklyn it has historically sounded twice, fifteen minutes before Shabbat and again immediately before it starts, warning residents to complete their preparations and to cease any work forbidden under Jewish law once Shabbat arrives. The practice descends from an older custom recorded in the Talmud, in tractate Shabbat 35b, describing six shofar blasts sounded on the eve of Shabbat in ancient times, each with its own purpose such as calling field workers back into the city or signaling the moment to light Shabbat candles, and the modern siren is understood as a contemporary substitute for that sequence of shofar blasts.