Purim (/ˈpʊərɪm/; פּוּרִים Pūrīmⓘ, lit. ‘lots’; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from annihilation at the hands of an official of the Achaemenid Empire named Haman, as it is recounted in the Book of Esther (usually dated to the 5th century BCE).
In Modern History:
Adolf Hitler banned and forbade the observance of Purim.
In a speech made on 10 November 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht), the Nazi politician and prominent anti-Semite Julius Streicher surmised that just as:
“The Jew butchered 75,000 Persians.”
in one night, the same fate would have befallen the German people had the Jews succeeded in inciting a war against Germany; the
“Jews would have instituted a new Purim festival in Germany”.
Bytwerk, Randall L. (2008). Landmark Speeches of National Socialism. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-60344-015-8.
Landmark Speeches of National Socialism – Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)
Nazi attacks against Jews were often coordinated with Jewish festivals.
On Purim 1942, ten Jews were hanged in Zduńska Wola to “avenge” the hanging of Haman’s ten sons.
Cohen, Arthur Allen; Mendes-Flohr, Paul R., eds. (2009). 20th Century Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. p. 948. ISBN 978-0-8276-0892-4. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015.
“This outstanding volume presents 140 original essays on the fundamental concepts, movements, and beliefs in historical and contemporary Jewish thought.”
In a similar incident in 1943, the Nazis shot ten Jews from the Piotrków ghetto.
Elliott Horowitz (2006). Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-691-12491-9.
Elliott Horowitz’s learned, humane, and exciting book will rattle many platitudes and disturb many pieties. Purim will never be quite the same; and the complications that Horowitz introduces into the history of Jewish self-representation will be ferociously debated for many years to come. Horowitz’s lack of interest in edification is itself edifying; his love of truth is fully the match of his love of tradition. Reckless Rites is a model of the lost art of troublemaking scholarship.–Leon Wieseltier<p>This is a book of tremendous importance that explores some of the most significant themes in Jewish history, especially the relations between Jews and Christians and the question of Jewish passivity and meekness. Horowitz disputes scholarly and popular accounts that ascribe these characteristics to Jews, in part by showing that both Jews and Christians have had polemical and apologetic motives in making such representations. This book represents a vitally significant reorientation of Jewish historiography. It will be controversial, no doubt, but it is certain to be a turning point in the field.–Daniel Boyarin, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley<p>Reading Elliott Horowitz is always a treat and an education. He has an unusually keen eye for topics that other scholars have bypassed, and his work reveals extraordinarily wide reading–not only of Jewish sources but also texts that few Jewish historians would bother opening. And he follows the sources wherever they lead, regardless of conclusions that may startle or even affront readers. </i>Reckless Rites</i> will raise the eyebrows and perhaps elevate the blood pressure of some readers, but it illuminates dark corners of the Jewish past.–Marc Saperstein, Charles E. Smith Professor of Jewish History and Director of the Judaic Studies Program, George Washington University<p></p> <h3>Kalman Neuman – Jerusalem Report</h3> <p>In his new book, Elliot Horowitz attempts to undermine the conventional wisdom about Jews and violence. Focusing on Purim, he convincingly shows that the image passed down over the centuries, of Jewish passivity and nonviolence during the medieval period, is, if not wrong, at least in need of correction. . . . [A] thought-provoking book, whose trees are often as memorable as the forest.
Reckless Rites : Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence – Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)
On Purim eve that same year, over 100 Jewish doctors and their families were shot by the Nazis in Częstochowa.
The following day, Jewish doctors were taken from Radom and shot nearby in Szydłowiec.
[Ibd]
In 1942, on Purim, the Nazis murdered over 5000 Jews, mostly children, in the Minsk Ghetto.
All of the victims were shot and buried alive by the Nazis.
Rhodes, Richard (2002). Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. Random House. p. 244. ISBN 0375409009.
“In Masters of Death, Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen’s role in the Holocaust. These “special task forces,” organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar. These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers. In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign’s architects as well as its “ordinary” soldiers and policemen, and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.” – Publisher
Still, the Nazi regime was defied, and Purim was celebrated in Nazi ghettos and elsewhere.
HOLOCAUSTIANITY – Library of Rickandria
a Yad Vashem exhibition
Marking the Holiday of Purim – Before, During, and After the Holocaust (yadvashem.org)
In an apparent connection made by Hitler between his Nazi regime and the role of Haman, Hitler stated in a speech made on 30 January 1944, that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews could celebrate “a second Purim”.
Indeed, Julius Streicher was heard to sarcastically remark “Purimfest 1946” as he ascended the scaffold after Nuremberg.
Satinover, Jeffrey (1997). Cracking the Bible code. New York: W. Morrow. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-688-15463-9. according to the October 16, 1946, issue of the New York Herald Tribune
Cracking the Bible code – Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)
Kingsbury-Smith, Joseph (16 October 1946). “The Execution of Nazi War Criminals”. Nuremberg Gaol, Germany. International News Service. Retrieved 26 February 2021 – via University of Missouri–Kansas City.
The Trials of The Nuremberg Trials (umkc.edu)
According to Rabbi Mordechai Neugroschel, there is a code in the Book of Esther which lies in the names of Haman’s 10 sons.
Do Miracles Still Happen Nowadays? (torah-box.net)
150-Strong Jewish Delegation Appeals for Snipiskes Cemetery Restoration (savevilna.org)
Haredi rabbi slams Bennett for Conservative visit | Israel National News – Arutz Sheva
Three of the Hebrew letters—a tav, a shin and a zayin—are written smaller than the rest, while a vav is written larger.
The outsized vav—which represents the number six—corresponds to the sixth millennium of the world since creation, which, according to Jewish tradition, is the period between 1240 and 2240 CE.
As for the tav, shin and zayin, their numerical values add up to 707.
Put together, these letters refer to the Jewish year 5707, which corresponds to the secular 1946–1947.
In his research, Neugroschel noticed that ten Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg Trials were executed by hanging on 16 October 1946, which was the date of the final judgement day of Judaism, Hoshana Rabbah.
Additionally, Hermann Göring, an eleventh Nazi official sentenced to death, committed suicide, parallel to Haman’s daughter in Tractate Megillah.
“Tractate Megillah 16a”
French bestseller unravels Nazi propagandist’s cryptic last words about Purim Archived 10 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Times of Israel 28 December 2012
French bestseller unravels Nazi propagandist’s cryptic last words about Purim | The Times of Israel
There is a tale in the Hasidic Chabad movement that Joseph Stalin died as a result of some metaphysical intervention of the seventh Chabad leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, during the recitation of a discourse at a public Purim farbrengen.
Joseph Stalin was Jewish – Library of Rickandria
Rich, Tracey R. (2010). “Purim”. Judaism 101. Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
Judaism 101: Purim – Preserved by the Arquivo.pt
Stalin was suddenly paralyzed on 1 March 1953, which corresponds to Purim 1953, and died four days later.
Due to Stalin’s death, nationwide pogroms against Jews throughout the Soviet Union were averted, as Stalin’s infamous doctors’ plot was halted.
The Doctors’ Plot – Library of Rickandria
Pinkus, Benjamin (1984). Frankel, Jonathan (ed.). The Soviet government and the Jews, 1948–1967: a documented study. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 107–08. ISBN 978-0-521-24713-9.
“Provides the English reader with a comprehensive study, based on first-hand documentary material, of Soviet policy towards the Jews of the USSR from the Stalinist era, through to the interregnum (1953 7), the Khrushchev period and the ‘collective leadership’ of Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny (1964 7). In 1948 the State of Israel was established with the support of the Soviet bloc. But the period 1948 53 (the so-called ‘black years’), also witnessed the murder of the actor Shlomo Mikhoels, the closing of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the liquidation of all Jewish cultural institutions, and the launching of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign and the ‘Doctors’ Plot’. After Stalin there were improvements in the policy towards the non-Russian nationalities, and even certain gestures of goodwill towards the Jewish population; but these proved to be more symbolic than substantive, and the Jews as individuals and as a national minority came to feel increasingly and inescapably trapped. Government restrictions, crude attacks on Judaism, Zionism, and on the State of Israel became regular features of the post-Stalin era.”
Brackman, Roman (2001). The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life. Frank Cass Publishers. p. 390. ISBN 978-0-7146-5050-0.
“This account of Stalin’s life begins with his early years, the family breakup caused by the suspicion that the boy was the result of an adulterous affair, the abuse by his father and the growth of the traumatized boy into criminal, spy, and finally one of the 20th century’s political monsters.”
The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life – Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)
The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre took place during Purim of 1994.
Church, George J.; Beyer, Lisa; Hamad, Jamil; Fischer, Dean; McAllister, J.F.O. (7 March 1994). “When Fury Rules”. Time. Archived from the original on 16 April 2009. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
When Fury Rules – TIME (archive.ph)
The Dizengoff Center suicide bombing took place on the eve of Purim killing 13 on 4 March 1996.
The Horrible Truth About Religion – Library of Rickandria
MORE CONNECTIONS:
The Connection Between Purim and the Gulf War (meaningfullife.com)
The Gulf War, 1991 From Gas Masks to Purim Masks | Jackie Goldman | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com)
Rabbis: Purim, Iraq war linked – Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)
Purim miracles: From Saddam to corona and beyond – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
15 DAYS AFTER PURIM 2024 (MARCH 23RD – 24TH), IS THE GREAT AMERICAN TOTAL ECLIPSE V2.0, WHERE IN 2017 V1.0 TOTAL ECLIPSE’S PATH WENT THROUGH TOWNS NAMED SALEM, AS WELL AS WHAT APRIL 8TH WILL BRING, HAVING THE TOTAL ECLIPSE PATH GO THROUGH MORE TOWNS NAMED SALEM – COMPLETING AN X – WHERE THE INTERSECTION OF THE TWO PATHS LANDS ON SALEM, ILLINOIS.
CONTINUE:
The Great American Eclipse: An Astrological Analysis – Library of Rickandria