The Ewoks' victory horns in The Return of the Jedi are actually a real instrument: they are shofars. A shofar is a Jewish ritual musical instrument made from an animal's horn (usually, though not always, a ram). Shofars are still played on important Jewish holidays, festivals, and other occasions, especially during the High Holidays--Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). Furthermore, the specific shofar recordings used for the Ewoks' celebration scene were first recorded by the film composer Elmer Bernstein for the 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments. During a 1991 interview with Terry Gross on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," composer Elmer Bernstein described how he recorded these shofar sounds: "When we realized that a shofar was going to be seen on the screen, we had to find somebody to play the shofar. And for those who don't know, the shofar is a very ancient instrument made out of a ram's horn. Well, who plays shofars, of course? Rabbis. Because it's still used in Jewish ceremonies. We must have had, oh, I guess 20 or 30 rabbis on the scoring stage."

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