Purim Festivities

We're celebrating the holiday of Purim - maybe I'll get some nice photos to describe this holiday. Maybe not. Purim was celebrated by the rest of the world yesterday, but in Jerusalem, it is celebrated today.

In any case, I tried to have an interfaith gathering at my home yesterday which totally flopped. For one, Tamer from a West Bank village tried unsuccessfully to get a permit to get into Jerusalem. During the holidays, though, there is a total closure on the West Bank so that even people with permits do not get in. He complained to me that in general they won't give him a work permit because he isn't married, then asked me to find him a wife. Any single Moslem women out there? He doesn't even mind married an "International" - i.e. a non-Moslem. Somehow, I think he'd even prefer that over a local woman. But his calls are coming in to me daily, and he seems to be getting desperate to get some kind of work permit. They did give him one, finally, but only for 3 days after the holiday. Not much work you can find for just 3 days.

But the others did not come either - it is difficult to go outside Jerusalem - so it ended up being one person (Jewish) from the interfaith group and the rest from my neighborhood. I managed to buy and cook a turkey for the occasion, but I see that most Israelis do not. The bird just barely fit into my Israeli-made oven and it was only 7 kilo (15 lbs).

Our guests talked about the new meaning of Purim for us - that this holiday resulted because of a Persian anti-semite who wanted to destroy the Jews, but miraculously the Jewish queen Esther saved the day. Haman, the Hitler of that day, descended from the tribe of Amalek, and there is a biblical commandment to stamp out Amalek. Unfortunately today, we each think the Other is Amalek and attempt do everything that can be done to "stamp" the Other out (Although I do think the current Iranian nuctcase president is a close relative to this tribe of Amalek). But we are told to "blot out the memory of Amalek" - because if none of us really check ourselves, we can become this "amalek-type" being and just wish for the Other's annihilation. Now that we are in Israel, and relatively safe in our land (which we share with the Other), it would be good to really blot out the memory of Amalek so we could live peacefully with one another.