Purim - The Jewish Halloween, Only Better
Can you think of any more fun holiday than Purim? Sure, Halloween might spring to mind but your kid dresses in a costume, goes door-to-door asking for candy, comes home to count it and it’s all over.
But Purim! Not only can you dress up as anything, but it’s a time to put on a whole new persona, a time to get together with friends and put on plays, bake special cookies and for the socially-minded, there’s even an component of being helpful by making gift baskets to distribute to your friends and to the needy in your community. All bases are covered.
And let’s not forget the Purim Spiel, a reenactment of the Purim story. The more outrageous, the better. Grab a group of friends, create a bunch of costumes, bake a batch of hamentaschen and start celebrating!
Not sure how to start? Try this website which will help you with everything from making masks, costumes, games and puzzles to creating noisemakers, Purim Origami as well as crafts and songs, even Purim jokes. Let’s get the party started!
Read Here.
A couple of days left until Purim. Still time to get a copy of:
Barnyard Purim by Kelly Terwilliger. Illustrated by Barbara Johansen Newman. (Kar-Ben, 32 pp. cloth. $17.95, paper $7.95, eBook $13.95)
This whimsical book has Farmer Max’s animals putting on a Purim play. Chicken is the director and hands out the parts. The cast includes Duck as Queen Esther, Goat as Mordecai, Horse as King Ahahuerus, Cows as Noisemakers and Geese as the Audience. The trouble happens when Sheep—who is not a very scary Haman—dresses up as a wolf.
Hey Kids!
Would you like to learn more about Jewish subjects from all over the world and all through history? Maybe learn about where Esther and Mordechai are buried; visit modern-day Modi’in, and find ancient evidence of Judah Maccabee’s hometown; learn about what “half-Shabbos” is? A fun place to start is author Tami Lehman-Wilzig’s Zvuvi’s Israel blog (Zvuv is Hebrew for ‘fly’). Zvuvi flies all over to bring you fun, interesting facts, old and new. Check it out.
