קולטור

The Many Traditions of Purim

In this movie, Nomi and her friends celebrate the holiday of Purim — a festive day marking the defeat of an evil decree to destroy the Jewish people. The story of Purim is told in the Book of Esther, known in Yiddish as Megilas Ester (or simply as di megile), and there are many rich traditions associated with the holiday.

The story in the megile takes place in the ancient Persian empire, and tells of the king Akhashveyresh. He chooses the beautiful Ester as his queen, and not long after, Akhashveyresh’s royal vizier Homen issues a decree to destroy all the Jews of Persia. Ester — who is Jewish — is encouraged by her older cousin Mortkhe to appeal to the king, at great personal peril to herself, to save the Jews. She is successful, Homen is defeated, and the Jews in the empire celebrate their deliverance with feasts and rejoicing, exchanging gifts of food, and giving charity to the poor.

The heroes of the megile are often referred to in Yiddish with a traditional epithet that reflects their role in the story:

The mentioning of Homen’s name during the megile reading is traditionally accompanied by the stamping of feet (to signify the blotting out of his name) or by the rattling of noisemakers called gragers. Moby can be seen holding a grager at the end of this lesson’s movie and in the image above.

Purim is a joyous holiday, and we see Nomi and her friends celebrating by dressing up in fun costumes and exchanging gifts of food called shalakh-mones (known in Hebrew as משלוח־מנות). The gifts that Nomi and Moby prepare include poppy- or jelly-filled Purim pastries called homen-tashn, literally “Homen pockets”. In the movie, Moby combines two Purim traditions at once by dressing up as a large homen-tash! Many other traditions of the holiday are derived from Megilas Ester and include hearing the megile read aloud in Hebrew, giving to charity, and eating festive meals.

The Purim Shpil

The reversal of the evil decree in the Purim story — the overturning of the social order — is reflected in customs such as dressing in costume or mock sermons (“purim-toyre”). This reversal also inspired the custom of the purim-shpil, or Purim play, which had a long tradition amongst Yiddish-speaking Jews in Europe. Allowing for theatrical performance that otherwise had no place in traditional Jewish society, many plays were based on the megile or other biblical stories, and often included comic, satirical elements that mocked local personalities. The modest purim-shpil even gave birth to future generations of Yiddish theater: Avrom Goldfadn, founder of the celebrated modern Yiddish theater, was undoubtedly influenced by his experiences acting in Purim plays while attending rabbinical seminary.

The Megile-lider, or Megile Poems (1936) by Itsik Manger (1901-1969) is one of the best known works of Yiddish literature on a Purim theme. Conflating the ancient Persian setting of the story with elements of an Eastern European shtetl, Manger creates his own version of the story that serves as social critique while deriving humor from anachronism.

Another Yiddish Purim story inspired Nomi and Moby’s adventure in this lesson, although Sholem Aleichem’s “Tsvey shalakh-monesn” does not have such a happy ending. Two poor serving girls meet in the shtetl street, each carrying shalakh-mones to the household of the other. They haven’t yet had anything to eat that day and they can’t resist sitting down and snacking on the delicacies until there is very little left. The depleted shalakh-monesn cause a great dispute between the two households, each of which feels insulted by the meager Purim gift it received from the other. When the truth comes out, both serving girls are dismissed from their jobs.

At the beginning of the movie Nomi is singing the refrain of “Homen-tashn” by M. Pirozhnikov, a well-known children’s song about an amateur baker named Yakhne-Dvoshe and her attempt to make homen-tashn (the text of song can be found with the Purim materials in the לײענען און שרײַבן section of פֿאַרן לערער). Yakhne-Dvoshe’s homen-tashn may turn out “half raw, half burned”, but the upbeat tune of the refrain makes light of the disaster and reflects the general merriment of the day.