The joyous Jewish holiday celebrates Jews' escape from annihilation as told in the Book of Esther. A lesser-known end to the story takes on new meaning during this time of war in the Middle East.
Jewish men and children in Purim costumes celebrate in the Mea Shearim ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood in Jerusalem, on March 18, 2022. The Purim holiday is celebrated with parades and costume parties to commemorate the deliverance of the Jewish people from a plot to exterminate them in the ancient Persian empire 2,500 years ago, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther.
After Haman's plot is foiled, the Jews are actually still in danger — because the king's decree to kill the Jews has gone out, and can't be repealed. So instead, they arm the Jews to let them fight back.From a historical satire to the modern era "It's really only in modern times that people sort of refocus attention on it. And say like, wait a second — this is actually kind of bloodthirsty, and a little bit over the top," says Koller."You take 2,000 years of fantasy violence and marry it to a real world in which people actually have machine guns, and suddenly it gets really dark."Vintage color lithograph from 1882 of Haman as he lays his Complaint before Zeresh his wife and all his friends.
Professor Aaron Koller points to Nazis like Julius Streicher who read Chapter 9 as evidence that the Jews were bloodthirsty, and should be eradicated before they attacked. And thirty years ago Baruch Goldstein, an extremist Israeli settler, murdered Muslim worshippers in Hebron — an attack carried out intentionally on Purim.
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