\u201cJocularly, folks sometimes say, \u2018Purim is like Yom Kippur; \u2018Yom K\u2019Purim,\u2019\u201d he begins. \u201cSadly, from my American perspective, the current (and longtime) political leadership in both the US and Israel leads me to say: \u2018Our American and Israel political leaders need to make Purim into Yom Kippur \u2013 a serious day of atonement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammerman continues: \u201cFor the rest of us, we do need a \u2018day off\u2019 from the daily onslaught of bad news. Let\u2019s celebrate our victories against our ever-present enemies in times past and today. As I have been privileged to do so in the US and Israel, let us heed Mordechai\u2019s dictum: to transform these days from grief and mourning to days of feasting and merrymaking, sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n
With everything transpiring, I continue to live in the past, recalling my early celebration of Purim. Annually, back in the 1940s in Atlanta, Georgia, we knew that Purim was the commemoration of the near-destruction of the Jews but was sadly opposite to the destruction of the Jews in the Holocaust. We were taught over and over in Hebrew school \u2013 no \u201cday schools\u201d yet \u2013 that the Jews of Persia were only saved by the strength of character of Queen Esther, our exceptional predecessor. There was no sexism about Purim \u2013 Esther rose to the fore with those moving words: \u201cIf I perish, I perish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israelis are seen in costume for the holiday of Purim, in Jerusalem. (credit: FLASH90)<\/p>\n
We sang with gusto, \u201cEsther was the lovely queen,\u201d and the girls back then were all dressed as queens. None of us, however, filled the streets of the famed \u201cSouthside,\u201d where a goodly number of the city\u2019s 40,000 Jews lived. Observing and enjoying Jewish faith and fun was done indoors.<\/p>\n
Quickly, we learned the traditional song \u201cOnce there was a wicked, wicked man and Haman was his name, sir; He would have murdered all the Jews, but they were not to blame, sir.\u201d The present-day Haman is moving fast to destroy us again, but an and thus to assure the safety of Israel. By the time my words are revealed, we will see what the president of the USA has done.<\/p>\n
Groggers, Hamans, and hamantashen<\/p>\n
At my synagogue, Shearith Israel, friends and I had a wonderful time coming in costume for the large party on a Sunday before Purim. Parents watched joyfully as their kids danced excitedly. There was a professional dance teacher in our synagogue who worked up a \u201cPurim Square Dance,\u201d in which we did \u201cEsther and Mordechai\u201d formations instead of the typical do-si-do.<\/p>\n
The Grogger Banging and Twirling contest filled the \u201cvestry\u201d room to the ceiling with \u201cnoise, noise, and more noise.\u201d I never used my unusual noisemaker in the contest. Maybe I would have won, and maybe not. My personal grogger was much larger than all the others and was made by my grandfather, Cathriel Birshtein of blessed memory, for his little girl and my mother, Anna. That grogger exploded with an ear-splitting sound, an imitation of thunder, so I was never allowed to use it. My parents did not want to pay for any burst eardrums.<\/p>\n
In Atlanta, there were multifaceted celebrations of Purim held and a variety of hamantaschen to devour. Noted producer for CBS\u2019s 60 Minutes and winner of many Emmys and the Edward R. Murrow Award, Henry Schuster, who grew up in Atlanta, wrote an article about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get something straight about Purim,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019m a chocolate hamantaschen guy. Raspberry sure, but chocolate and raspberry even better. At our synagogue, in the \u201850s in Atlanta, the Purim carnival was an annual highlight. The carnival was always better than the costumes,\u201d he stressed. \u201cSure, the toys were junky and most didn\u2019t last more than a week or two, but it was the sugar rush felt in many forms filling the toys. And best of all, you got out of Hebrew school early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike what transpires now, Schuster pointed out that \u201cPurim wasn\u2019t a booze fest at our synagogue then \u2013 or maybe I just didn\u2019t realize it, being a kid. When my kids were in Boy Scouts, a Jewish troop then, we had a weekend trip to Charleston, South Carolina. We happened to be at one of the shuls on the evening of Purim, and all the boys were scandalized when they were personally welcomed by an extremely drunk rabbi during services\u201d In some locales, temperance on Purim was still enforced. As Schuster emphasized, \u201cHe, the spiritual leader, put the grog in grogger.\u201d Times have changed.<\/p>\n
He then stressed a significant aspect of Purim: \u201cAs a child, you appreciate the toys, the costumes, the delicious hamantaschen made only once a year, and the chance to be noisy during a service without anyone saying \u2018Be quiet.\u2019 Of course, the shalah manot were filled with a variety of candies and sometimes even little toys.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly when you get older,\u201d he stressed, \u201cyou realize how many Hamans are out there and how few Esthers and Mordechais.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three personal Esthers<\/p>\n
All of us living in Israel experience our Purim in a different way. As Rabbi Sidney Greenberg stresses in describing us here, \u201cWe stand taller when we read of Mordechai, who would not bow down or kneel before Haman. Here was this prime minister, next to the king, the most powerful representative of a most powerful empire, before whom all bowed in submissive obeisance. One person alone, Mordechai, denies him adoration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greenberg in his wisdom wants all of us to learn more from our Purim holiday. \u201cThe Purim story has taught all of us how inextricably the destiny of the individual Jew is intertwined with the fate of all Jews. Here, Haman was offended by a single person, Mordechai.\u201d Then the rabbi\u2019s message becomes stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when Haman learns that Mordechai is a Jew, the megillah tells us, \u2018it seems contemptible in his eyes to lay hands on Mordechai alone\u2019… Wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.\u201d A single Jew pricks his pride, and Haman is ready to destroy them all.<\/p>\n
How proud I was of Esther when I was growing up. I had three personal examples. My mother, Anna, was the first asked to be involved when a new project of a Jewish nature was being undertaken. My paternal grandmother, Sara Hene Geffen, founded a sisterhood for the synagogue, and in 1918 she led women in the synagogue, who contributed ten cents up to $10 to buy a sefer Torah<\/a> for the synagogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then there was Frieda Birshtein, my mother\u2019s mother, a noted dispenser of tzedakah; all the traveling men visited her for contributions. Most noted for me, she bought me a new \u201cstripped-down Chevy\u201d when I was 16.<\/p>\n