Some like to call Purim the “Jewish Halloween.” Whether or not that is really a correct analogy, it seems that the same costume scandals that come up around October 31 also plague 14 Adar. The Jerusalem Post reports that the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) is urging consumers to boycott companies selling sexy Purim costumes….
While Purim is still more than a month away, Israeli bakeries are already full of hamentashen and newspapers and magazines are full of advertising campaigns for children’s costumes. In the charged atmosphere of Beit Shemesh, even Purim has now become a battleground in the escalating ‘exclusion of women’ in the ultra-Orthodox community. But the moral…
For all of its charitable mishloach manot-giving and passive-aggressive gragger-shaking, Purim is hardly the tamest Jewish holiday. At its best (worst?) the celebration follows a sort of Bakhtinian carnivalesque disorder, with masks, public denunciations of the villain Haman and booze — lots of booze. With that in mind, one would expect Moscow, surely a world…
Because sharing is caring, here’s a picture of Madonna dressed as Charlie Chaplin for Purim this weekend in New York City. L’Chaim.
This Purim, for the first time in more than three decades, I wore my wedding dress. It was a strange experience. The idea was born out of desperation. My husband and I only began thinking of costumes for the Megillah reading and Purim spiel we attend every year just hours before it was due to…
“What Are Your Favorite Sustainable Food Stories in America?” Serious Eats asks, for The Perennial Plate, a video series that will tour the country to tell the story of sustainable foodies, farmers and chefs. Not only is Sunday but it’s macaron day as well. And no, not the type we eat for Passover, but the…
The oil from the Hanukkah donut-fry had barely cooled before talk of our hamantaschen bake-fest began. Baking is my way of expressing devotion, particularly as single woman in her mid-40s for whom being an aunt is the closest I will come to Jewish motherhood. Before my sister gave birth to the first of her two…
Each Thursday The Arty Semite features excerpts and reviews of the best contemporary Jewish poetry. This week Jake Marmer introduces “Aggadic Guidelines to Ta’anit Esther.” It is perhaps not surprising that most Jewish holiday poetry out there is either about the High Holidays or Passover. The extensive liturgy and introspection in the case of the…
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