Israelis celebrate Purim with biblical comparisons as Iran war spirals
As Israeli and US attacks on Iran intensify and the conflict spreads across the Middle East, Israelis celebrated Purim this week by drawing parallels with the holiday's story, which tells of the attempt to wipe out the Jews of the Persian empire.
Thousands of Israelis ignored police and military restrictions on public gatherings to dress up in costumes and celebrate on the streets of Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Avner Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s youngest son, was seen celebrating in Jerusalem on Wednesday, escorted by his bodyguards.
On the same day, a Palestinian bus driver was violently attacked by several young Jewish men, who blocked his bus, threw stones at it and then beat him, in what was described as an “attempted lynching” by Koach LaOvdim, a socialist labour union.
A Koach LaOvdim representative told Israel Hayom: “Every year on Purim in Jerusalem there is an increase in acts of violence by teenagers against drivers, often racially motivated.
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“This year the war [with Iran] has been added as well, which constitutes another well-known source of tension,” the representative said.
Hadash, the left-wing Palestinian party in Israel, posted on X a video of the aftermath of the attack.
“This is how Purim was celebrated in Jerusalem last night. An Arab driver was attacked, and the bus windows were smashed,” the post said.
The Iran war, a modern Purim story
Many Israelis are making the connection between the current war with Iran and the traditional story of Purim, which tells of how the Jews living in the Persian Empire some 2,500 years ago were saved from extinction.
“The combined US-Israeli strike on Iran has brought the Purim story vividly to life in a manner unparalleled in 2,200 years,” the Jerusalem Post said on Tuesday.
'On many levels, Achashverosh and President Donald Trump share similar traits'
- The Jerusalem Post
“On many levels, Achashverosh and President Donald Trump share similar traits,” the right-wing paper said, comparing Trump with Xerxes the Great, who is mentioned in the Purim story.
“With God’s continuing helping hand, we will triumph in this latest, most consequential battle, and we shall bring to our people and to the world at large Purim’s prophetic promise: light and gladness, hope and joy,” the report said.
Trump is not the only modern leader to have been compared to traditional Purim characters. Netanyahu and Iran's late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, have also been assigned roles in the contemporary reworking of the holiday story.
Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, said on Wednesday that “Mordechai the Jew of our time is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” referring to the character from the Purim story who saves Persia’s Jews.
After Khamenei and members of his family were killed on Saturday, Yulia Malinovsky, an MP from the opposition party Yisrael Beiteinu, posted on social media that “the modern Haman has been eliminated,” referring to the Persian official who leads the attack on the Jews, according to Purim tradition.
Matching costumes
On Monday, the eve of Purim, Avri Gilad, a veteran media personality on Channel 12 News, hosted his programme dressed as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote that Gilad “opened the broadcast with a flamboyant march and a commanding ‘Happy Purim!’
“Gilad sees himself as a link in a divine Jewish chain thousands of years old. He dressed up as a pilot to give this inner feeling a visual, symbolic expression,” Haaretz said, adding that “the costume says: the war is a holiday.”
Later in the programme, Israelis were shown celebrating the holiday in shelters, with one dressed as Trump saying, “Make America great again, make Israel great again, make Iran free again, happy Purim!"
On Tuesday, Limor Son Har-Melech, an MP from Itamar Ben Gvir's far-right Otzma Yehudit party, posted a photo of her dressed as an executioner while holding a hanging noose and lethal injection.
The costume was a reference to a death penalty law that her party is advancing in Israel’s parliament. According to the bill, every Palestinian who is convicted of an act of terrorism will be sentenced to death, while Israeli Jews who commit the same act will not.
Recent reports have indicated that Netanyahu wants to soften the bill, as he fears the international repercussions and domestic legal challenges.
In the photo posted by Son Har-Melech, her husband is seen holding a prop gun labelled ”Occupation,“ an airplane labelled ”Expulsion,“ and a house labelled ”Settlement,“ in a reference to a longtime demand of Son Har-Melech's party to expel Palestinians from Gaza.
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