Purim

Purim in Israel is definitely an experience. Think Halloween but with nothing scary – Purim is happy, fun, everyone is dressed up and in a great mood.

The season started a few weeks ago when bakeries began selling Hamantaschen, three-pointed cookies with filling. In the States the fillings are things like cherry, apple, and poppy seed; here the fillings are chocolate, fig, and date.



Even the stores got in the act, selling Purim costumes, foods, baskets, and everything else commercial you can think of. Here’s one aisle in our local supermarket, and our cute little Purim basket.





But how did we celebrate, you ask? First we dressed up in our beeyootiful costumes:


I went as a clown, Jonathan went as me (he even carried my purse!)

Then we arrived at HUC. The “service” was hilarious, because it was so tongue-in-cheek – instead of usual prayers we sang contemporary songs on the topic (ie. instead of Mi Chamocha, praising God for getting through the Red Sea, we sang Disney's "Under the Sea", and instead of Ahavat Olam was "Can you Feel the Love Tonight?"). The main part of the evening was the Megillah reading, aka the reading of the entire Book of Esther. The cantors learned the special Esther trope (singing) and did beautifully, but even so, it was over an hour.


Service leaders Phil Monroe and Frum Josh.


After the service ended, everyone headed over to the moadon (large room with a small café) for a falafel dinner and the Purim Shpiel. The Shpiel is a traditional part of Purim, and usually involves retelling the story of Purim in a wacky way. This one wasn’t actually about the holiday, but was a fabulous spoof on professors, students, and life at HUC. There were skits on Celebrity Jeopardy featuring professors, a Chasidic Ladies Man skit, an ad for why you want to work out at the HUC gym (located in the bomb shelter), and even a SNL Cheri Oteri/Will Farrell cheerleaders sketch on cheering for the various parts of the service (“how long is silent prayer going to last already?!” and “ooh ooh better get people prepped for the Torah service so they don’t fall asleep!”)

After the Shpiel, most people went out for the traditional drinking and partying. (It says somewhere in the texts that you should get so drunk you can’t tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman, the hero and the villain). But Jonathan and I are old, apparently, cuz we stayed home and were really happy. I got up really late the next morning and spent hours on email… a very good vacation, if I may say so myself.

Here are some more pictures.


Nicole the pomegranate, Joe the lemon tree, and us.



Mara the fairy and I.



Jonathan, Ethan, Kim, me, Nicole.



Mara and Sleeping Beauty Rebecca.