Purim

The Book of Esther tells how Haman, chief minister of the Persian king Ahasuerus, plotted to destroy all the Jews of the empire after the Jew Mordecai refused to bow to him. Esther, Mordecai’s cousin, had become queen without revealing her people. At the risk of her life she went before the king uninvited, exposed Haman’s plot, and the Jews were saved.

The day before Purim many keep the Fast of Esther, recalling the fast she asked of her people before she went to the king. Walled cities such as Jerusalem keep the festival a day later, Shushan Purim, after Shushan, the Persian capital where the fighting lasted an extra day.

Purim has four commandments. The Megillah is read in the evening and again in the morning, and every time Haman’s name is read the congregation drowns it out with rattles, graggers, stamping and booing. Friends exchange parcels of ready-to-eat food, mishloach manot, at least two kinds to at least one person. Gifts are given to at least two poor people, matanot la-evyonim. In the afternoon comes the festive meal, the seudah, with wine and song.

Children and adults dress up, schools and synagogues stage comic plays, the Purim spiel, and bakers sell hamantaschen, triangular pastries filled with poppy seed or jam.

In Israel, towns hold street parades called Adloyada, the best known in Holon, and schools close for the day. Jewish communities everywhere fill synagogues with costumed children for the Megillah reading, often the noisiest service of the year.