In Tel Aviv and Boro Park

...animals, soldiers, policemen and clowns—even figures from American history (Washington, Lincoln) are all impersonated...

...Early afternoon Purim observances generally include the eating of the Purim meal at home around a festive table, the delivering of the Purim presents—shalachmones, and a semi-spontaneous street performance with a political message...

...Stealing"—of food from the shalachmones plate—is likewise sanctioned...

...young Mor-decais, and Esthers dressed in contemporary bridal gowns...

...In 1960, after they had been discontinued for sixty years, the Jewish Museum of New York revived this tradition for another ten years...

...A day before his "ordination" the future "rabbi" would be escorted to the mikvah for ritual purification, then dressed in a rabbi's robe and hat and escorted to a special chair at the academy, where he would proceed to preach a mock sermon...

...There are modern-day Hamans in Arab dress...

...The ballroom walls were freshly decorated with murals executed by leading contemporary artists— Lubin, Navon, Rubin and Zaretzky...

...Grand masked balls held in public facilities followed...

...Each year a new theme was chosen from the Bible, Jewish history, current events, or the agricultural, industrial and scientific achievements of the country...

...Tel Aviv celebrations were inspired by the vision of a group of artists and literary personalities strongly committed to the creation of a new Israeli culture which would nonetheless incorporate elements of the old Judaic tradition...

...The distinguished head of the academy, Rabbi Hayyim, and later his son Rabbi Itsile regularly "resigned" on Purim, to be replaced by a student selected by his fellows...

...The 1978 play entitled Der Zeyde is Gerekht ("Grandfather Is Right") was the first purimshpil to grapple in a contemporary setting with the traditional theme of resistance to the enemies of Judaism...

...The focus of the event was a parade including floats bearing general and topical messages—"The Rose of Jacob is Joyful and Happy" (a verse from the liturgy for Purim...

...From the hour of the reading of the megillah in the morning, until the Purim meal, the stealing of food is not to be considered robbery and the thieving boys are not subject to the jurisdiction of the court...

...in fact, for doing all the things that ordinarily can't or shouldn't be done...

...PURIM IN TEL AVIV AND BORO PARK SHIFRA EPSTEIN Purim is without a doubt the most enigmatic of the Jewish holidays— a feast day for drinking, masquerade, and merrymaking...

...flags and posters were displayed everywhere...

...In 1928, 500 kilos of sweets were thrown to the crowds from a zeppelin...

...This tradition is rooted in the midrashic account that Haman was hanged on the first day of Passover...

...The names of the streets were changed to Biblical names drawn from the Book of Esther—"Next-to-the-king" or "He-spoke-in-the-language-of-his-people...

...More than 100,000 persons attended the fabulous Purim celebration of 1932, among them 10,000 Arabs from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt...

...Grandfather's voice reminds the hero of the comforts and obligations of Judaism...

...Both phrases, incidentally, reduce to 502...

...The crowd which attended the famous parties of the noted Israeli bohemian artist Aggadatti dispersed at daybreak—only to return for two more consecutive nights of merrymaking...

...Through burlesque, Purim renews the social and spiritual determination that have firmly bound the Jewish community together and enabled it to survive...

...The jovial spirit of Purim has persisted unabated until the present day, in both Orthodox and in less traditional communities, in both the Old World and the New...

...The moral of the play—that the secular life is empty—is revealed in a dream sequence...

...The 1932 celebration was not called a carnival...

...A special "rabbi" would be selected from the student body to preside over the Purim celebrations...

...A new purimshpil is composed each year...

...Time and space are reserved for acting out fears and deviation is sanctioned...

...Although drinking to the point of intoxication is usually forbidden the Orthodox Jew, Rava, the talmudic sage of the fourth century, stated that "It is duty of man to mellow himself (with wine) on Purim until he cannot distinguish between (the verse) 'cursed be Hainan' and 'blessed be Mor-decai.' " Rava's dictum has invited various interpretations: in the tosa-fot (supplement to the Talmud), the sages extrapolated that Rava's dictum means one is mellow when unable to complete the song "cursed be Haman and blessed be Esther, cursed are all the wicked and blessed are all the Jews...

...an Italian Purim Ball, a Dutch Purim, an Israeli night, the Lower East Side...

...The queen of the ball, a Queen Esther, was elected annually and crowned with a tiara of precious stones, silver and gold...

...Once a year on Purim, whether in New York, Tel Aviv, or any Jewish community around the world, Judaism laughs at its plight instead of lamenting it...

...The late 1920's and early 1930's were the golden age of Purim festivities— before World War II and internal economic and political difficulties reduced the scale of the celebrations...

...of purimshpil) is an outgrowth of the Purim story and its moral—in each generation an enemy will arise to destroy the Jewish people who must be triumphantly resisted...

...The upside-down aspects of the Purim celebration institutionalize and familiarize disorder...

...Annual Purim balls have been known in New York since 1862...

...Theirs is perhaps the only community today that maintains the tradition of the purimshpil as an integral part of the larger Purim celebration...

...Tel Aviv, on the other side of the globe, held widespread celebrations as early as 1910...

...On most important festival days Jewish Boro Park's shops are closed and traffic is prohibited in areas near the synagogues...

...It has numerous yeshivot, synagogues, and Chassidic courts, and all the items needed to keep a kosher home can be found on its main street, Thirteenth Avenue...

...The band played throughout the night but dancers, seeking a change of atmosphere, might sip Turkish coffee in the Oriental room adjoining the main ballroom, or relax in beach chairs in another room...

...The prize for the best costume was usually awarded to a masquerade with contemporary political meaning such as the group masque "The funeral ceremony of the British mandate"—chosen from scores of enemies of Judaism, mock Cossacks, Turks, British officers, and Arabs...

...His stocks fail, his hippie son moves to California, and Grandfather dies...

...On Purim, Thirteenth Avenue is transformed into the stage of carnival where all of Boro Park Jews become performers in a festive event...

...By noon young children— and even an occasional yeshiva student or an adult—dressed in traditional and modern costumes, intermingle with each other in the streets...

...Boro Park's Jewish section has been a modern shtetl since the large influx of Orthodox Jews settled there more than twenty years ago...

...The prominent theme of all the Bobover's purimshpil (pi...

...For Purim 1978, the supporters of the Jewish Education Program of Agudath Israel inaugurated the "Event of the Century," a fund raising project to be repeated annually...

...Meier DizengofT, the mayor of Tel Aviv at that time, hoped the celebrations would draw thousands of tourists to the area...

...Yet the release is illusory...

...The improvised sermons, studded with biblical and talmudic allusions and imitative of the dialectical style of talmudic discussions, constituted a witty critique of the values and the rhetoric of the venerated academy masters...

...For ultimately, the festival of Purim makes sense only because it dramatizes and justifies the need for rules in daily life...

...The irony is that although the convert is no longer at home in the Old World, he is only a misfit in the New...

...I Love Clean New York...

...The story of Esther itself had with hesitation been included in the biblical canon, and from medieval times Purim has emerged as a holiday when everything is turned upside down—a time when non-halachic behavior becomes the norm...

...Contemporary Purim Celebrations: New York and Tel A v/'v A notable contemporary New York festival is held in Boro Park, a residential area of Brooklyn with sizable Jewish, Italian, Irish and Puerto Rican communities...

...Its stores are crowded with last-minute morning shoppers eager to buy all the necessary items for their festive meal before the closing of the shops in early afternoon...

...the custom of stealing food from the shalachmones plate mirrors the tradition of "stealing" the afikoman on Passover...

...Preparations for the Adloyada in the 20's and 30's were spectacular...

...Maimonides suggests that to fulfill properly Rava's dictum one must drink until sleep sets in...

...Folk belief argues that since Purim is connected with lottery (Haman chose the day of massacre by lottery), the miraculous delivery of the Jews is to be commemorated by participating in various games of chance...

...It is in Yiddish and everyone involved in the production— actors, directors, stagehands, and so forth—is from the Bobover community...

...He might be Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, a landowner in eastern Europe or the forces in the secular society which may destroy Jewish identity by encouraging assimilation...

...Annually Purim provides relief from the burdens of everyday life and the angst of exile through the relaxation of everyday codes of behavior in song, masquerade and pageant...

...a new Hebrew term had been chosen instead...

...Purim morning was reserved for sport activities, acrobatic displays, and curiosities such as a live chess game played with human chess pieces...

...Momenl/41 42/ Moment Isserless (the sixteenth century Ashenazic glosser of the Shulchan Aruch) justified the practice of stealing food on Purim because this is done in spirit of merriment and good will...

...By six o'clock of Purim eve, a fleet of cars carrying trumpeteers rushed from City Hall into the streets of the city to announce the official commencement of festivities and the public reading of the megillah...

...Moses An historic float in Tel A viv, 1932 The crocodile float is a symbol of the black market, a prevailing practice in Tel A viv at the lime...

...The new word for Purim festivities became Adloyada (until one knows not)—an allusion to Rava's famous dictum—chosen from more than 200 suggestions...

...In the nineteenth century, the Volozhin yeshiva in Poland was especially famous for its "Purim rabbis...

...Nor is it considered offensive to mimic the most venerated citizens of the community, the Chas-sidic rebbes, something which small children with long false beards and brocaded robes who smoke cigarettes and assume a hunchbacked posture successfully do...

...It tells the story of a man who has turned his back on Old World values and replaced them with fashionable American values, represented by his bright plaid suit and polka-dot bow tie...

...Purim eve's festivities climaxed with a fabulous display of fireworks and aerial displays set off in the "King's Courtyard...

...Remember to Observe the Sabbath...

...The lifting of prohibitions against gambling, a distinctive feature of Purim celebrations in German Jewish communities, likewise indicates an inversion of everyday norms...

...The balls were masquerades, with a different international theme each year...

...Some children wear purely fanciful costumes directly or indirectly relating to the specific historical or moral themes of Purim...

...In 1977, the Jewish Defense League voiced its opposition to Ford's Middle East policy by burning Kissinger in effigy...

...Reports of children pelting one another with nuts, and of adult horsemen brandishing flaming branches in their hands while shouting and blowing trumpets to celebrate the festival of Purim are found in the writings of Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, the fourteenth century Italian scholar and satirist...

...In Holland the carnival—which often lasted an entire week—generally included masquerades, musical fanfares, and the performance of Yiddish folk dramas in public places (especially the market place...

...Evening festivities in Boro Park have for the past decade included an elaborate purimshpil (Purim play, a folk-drama), presented by the Bobover Chassidim, a Galician sect, many of whose surviving members moved to Boro Park after the Holocaust...

...A strict interpretation of the Jewish code forbids both attendance and performance in the theater, so the purimshpil is still another inversion of everyday norms...

...The Purim customs of the yeshi-vot (talmudic academies) of eastern and western Europe are still more curious...

...buntings festooned the avenues...

...Adlovada...

...His hope was fulfilled...

...Various accounts dating from the sixteenth century through the eighteenth century describe equally festive and popular Purim celebrations in Holland and Germany...

...the judges were careful to promote national unity through their annual selection...

...She might be an Ashkenazic, Sephardic or Yemenite beauty...

...A parade attended by a large and enthusiastic crowd followed in the afternoon...

...Its attractions included stunt bicycle and motorcycle corps, live bands and floats—commonplace to us now, but a true spectacle in the Middle East of the 20's and 30's...

...and "Give a Hand...

...Rabbi Jacob ben Moses, known as the MaHaRiL (1365-1421 in Germany), maintained that one is mellow when he can no longer calculate the gematria (numerological significance) of the phrases "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mor-decai...

...The special theme of the Purim celebration is ever-the same—it is a day when halachic requirements are relaxed, when special allowances are made for merrymaking, for genial satire, and even for drinking, gambling, and light-hearted mock thievery...