Tea at the Palaz of Shushan
In my younger and more vulnerable years I celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim by hanging out at my temple’s carnival in my purple Mordechai costume, playing low-rent carnival games, winning raffle prizes, and invariably taking home a bagged goldfish not long for this world. Upon coming to Jerusalem, a new meaning of Purim has been revealed to me—one of catharsis for leftists seeking change. Here I’m told for the first time of the commandment to “fragrence” one’s self with ethyl alcohols so that one cannot tell the difference between capital-b Blessed Mordechai and Wicked Hamen. Additionally, we’re meant to give to charity, or something, but we’re mainly commanded to, as the Coca-Cola Company says, “Enjoy!”
In the interest of protecting our innocence, our parents conceal certain rude truths from us when we’re young. And their telling of the story of Purim is no different.
Dear gentle Jewish folks in the audience, do you remember what happens after Queen Esther and Blessed Mordechai save the Jews from the immanent Persian pogrom? After King Ahasuerus promises to protect his Jewish subjects, the Jews preemptively attack their would-be assailants, killing Hamen. Then, on the 13th of the month of Adar, the Jews of Shushan go throughout the entire Persian Empire murdering all the people who had wanted to kill them, including Hamen’s ten sons, whom they hang. Feeling their killing spree still somewhat wanting, Esther asks the king for one more day to “destroy their enemy” pretty please, and King Ahasuerus accedes. “On that day, the 14th of Adar, the Jews worldwide celebrated, and the Jews of Shushan killed more of their enemies… The Jews of Shushan then rested and celebrated on the 15th of Adar.” At the end of their retelling of the Book of Esther, the good folk at chabad.org remind us that Purim is “the most joyous holiday on the Jewish calendar.”
Somehow the elder members of my liberal congregation in metro Detroit failed to mention all the blood when I was a lad. Knowing the full story now, I can see the moral of the Book of Esther that was hidden from me in my youth: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first” (which is what the midrashic text Bamidbar Rabbah instructs).
Meanwhile, here I am in East Jerusalem witnessing a 50-year-old military occupation with no end in sight. It’s my first day of my internship at the Palestine-Israel Journal, and my editor Hillel has asked me to do a book review for the upcoming issue. Tomorrow I’m planning on going to Area C for my first day working at Tent of Nations, a Palestinian farm that’s stood resolutely against the tide of Israeli expropriation. In other news, I’ve just been accepted to two prestigious graduate school programs, and I’m feeling good about myself and I’m hopeful about my future.
If things couldn’t get any better, my new co-worker Ahed, a Muslim woman who’s well over a foot shorter than me, offers me a beautiful piece of dark chocolate.
“I love dark chocolate,” I say.
“Me too,” she says.
“I don’t understand people who prefer milk chocolate.”
“I agree,” Hillel chimes in. “Does anyone even prefer milk chocolate anymore?”
“Only the right-wingers,” I say.
They laugh. I feel I’ve endeared myself to them.
Click-clack, click-clack, and we’re all working away, when my new co-worker with an affinity for dark chocolate turns to Hillel and informs him that she will likely not be able to come into the office tomorrow. The State of Israel has “shut down” the West Bank from Tuesday through midnight on Saturday for Purim, a routine governmental practice for Jewish holidays. Palestinians living in the West Bank, even those with Israeli-issued permits, will not be able to enter Jerusalem, where many of them are forced to work because Israel has made economic development very difficult in the Territories. They say it’s for security, though, so no worries.
Later this week many of my fellow anti-Occupation activists in Achvat Amim will don our creative adult costumes and fragrance ourselves with whisky and wine. We’ll go hit bongs in Tel Aviv—“bong mitzvah! spark it up, playa!”—or party in Nachlaot, maybe dropping half shekels in the homeless folks’ cups. For a day we’ll turn away from the ugliness of the world around us, putting on masks, freeing ourselves temporarily from that burden of putting on a face to meet those faces that we meet.
Is that Mordechai?! Who the fuck Hamen? Let’s take some shots!
And together we ask: Is it wickedness or weakness??
“Lisbon is destroyed, and they dance in Paris!”
No!
“Not less because in purple I descended the Western day through what you called the loneliest air. Not less was I myself! From my mind the golden ointment rains.”
But I am the world in which I walk.
He’s looking at me strange flushing these goldfish…
