Our stories give us hope in challenging times. Support JWA by Dec. 31.
Close [x]

Show [+]

Purim

Content type
Collection
Hamantashen

Cookie cleavage: How much is too much?

Preeva Tramiel

I took these pictures last Purim to illustrate a little-discussed aspect of the aspect of hamantashen baking: Cookie cleavage.

Topics: Food, Purim
College Costume Party

Purim, drinking, and consent: The Jewish community's role in preventing sexual violence

Chanel Dubofsky

In the end, I hung the plastic bag of condoms on the door handle of my hotel room.

Topics: Purim
Oznei Haman

Eating Jewish: Oznei Haman (Haman’s Ears)

Katherine Romanow

There are many Purim sweets that are modeled after Haman's anatomy or clothing.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Purim
Sambusak el Tawa (Iraqi Chickpea Turnovers)

Eating Jewish: Iraqi Purim Delicacies

Katherine Romanow

With preparation for Purim in full swing, there is no doubt that many people are thinking about Hamantaschen, which has become synonymous with this holiday in North America.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Purim
Gluten-free Bakery Style Hamantaschen

Gluten-free bakery style hamantaschen

Claire

These were my first Hamantaschen. What is a Hamantaschen, you might wonder? These cookies are little three-cornered wonders that puff up into bite-size pastries filled with any number of things, including jam, chocolate hazelnut spread, nuts, dates, and perhaps most commonly, poppy seed filling or prunes. Their triangular shape is sometimes called evocative of the ears of the villain of the holiday of Purim - you guessed it - Haman, who is defeated in the story as told in the Book of Esther.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Purim
Striped Hamantaschen

Rolling in Dough

Preeva Tramiel

My congregation is having a big Purim Party on Sunday. They will need about 300 hamantaschen and I am bringing enough dough to make 2/3 of them.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Purim

Celebrating "Esthers with Attitude" this Purim

Leah Berkenwald

Purim is just around the corner and it's deliciously serendipitous that the Jewish holiday with the most well-known heroine happens to fall during Women's History Month.

Esther: Nice Jewish Girl, Married to a Goy?

From the Rib

This past weekend was Purim, and amidst the celebrating and partying one thing stood out in my mind that most people tend to ignore: the fact that the feminine hero of the story, Esther, is interma

Topics: Marriage, Purim

Queen Esther’s Agunah Story

Elana Sztokman

You can learn an incredible amount about different people from language.

Topics: Marriage, Purim

What Queen Esther can teach us about intermarriage

Jenna Zark

“She was trying as hard as she could not to be beautiful. But she had a brightness on her, made stronger by the fact that she wanted to hide it; thinking if it was seen, somehow, it would make him choose her, and of course it did.” 

Topics: Marriage, Purim

Vashti is not a failure; Esther is not a bad feminist

Leah Berkenwald

Abby Wisse Schachter, associate editor at the New York Post, recently published an article in Commentary Magazine that suggests that feminist thinking has changed the meaning of Purim, and that that is a bad thing. I have not read the piece because the article is only available to subscribers, and therefore I cannot evaluate the merit of Schachter’s individual arguments. Still, I reject the idea that a feminist interpretation of the Purim story “lionizes the wrong woman, promotes a false political message of nonviolence and tolerance, and worst of all embraces failure instead of promoting perhaps the greatest of Jewish heroines,” as Schachter argues in her abstract.

Topics: Feminism, Purim

Purim, feminism, and my kids

Minnesota Mamaleh

What’s not to love about Purim? Another success story for our people: plan to kill us, foiled! Bring on the food!

Topics: Feminism, Purim

Esther: Midrash and Aggadah

Queen Esther, the central character in the Biblical book named after her, is extensively and sympathetically portrayed in the Rabbinic sources. In their commentary on the Book of Esther, the Rabbis expand upon and add details to the Biblical narrative, relating to her lineage and history and to her relations with the other characters: Ahasuerus, Mordecai, and Haman.

Esther: Bible

Esther, the main character in the book named after her, is a young Jewish woman who becomes queen of the Persian empire and risks her life by interceding for the Jewish people to save them from a pogrom. Set in the Persian diaspora, the Book of Esther depicts the struggle for Jews to survive in the face of hostility in a foreign land.

Esther: Apocrypha

The Greek Additions to the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Esther were probably written over several centuries and contradict several of the details from the Hebrew text. Generally, the Additions are more dramatic and ultimately portray Esther as stereotypically weak and helpless, even though parts of her weakness and femininity ultimately help save her people.

Trafficking, Sex Work, ... and Purim?

Jordan Namerow

Purim starts in a few hours, and while the holiday is considered by many to be the most joyous in the Jewish calendar, there is a somber side as well.

Topics: Purim

Zeresh: Midrash and Aggadah

Zeresh was the wife of Haman, portrayed by the midrash as even more wicked than her husband. Of all of Haman's advisors, she was his best counsel.

Early Modern Italy

A study of the role of Jewish women in household formation, the household, and household dissolution, as well as their engagement in Jewish culture in early modern Italy, raises the question of how much of Jewish practice reflected the context of the surrounding society and how much engaged options in traditional Jewish practices, which were selected to meet their own needs. Despite the wealth of information about some well- known women and reports of the activities of many unnamed women, Jewish women, like Christian women, still functioned in the context of women and the period does not represent a Renaissance for women.

Festivals and Holy Days

According to halakhah, women are responsible for obeying all of Judaism’s negative commandments and for observing most of the positive ones, including the Sabbath and all of the festivals and holy days of the Jewish year. In some instances, however, male and female obligations on these days differ.

Resource Round-up for a Day of Identity Play

Jordan Namerow

In the spirit of Purim, the spirit of spring, and the spirit of the real and its opposites, here are some cool resources to celebrate your day of identity play. Purim Sameach!

 

Topics: Purim

Be happy, it's Adar!

Judith Rosenbaum

Happy Adar, everyone. Get your costumes ready, give the groggers a preparatory whirl, and pre-heat your hamantashen-baking ovens, because Purim is coming! (Well, actually, not until next month, since this is a Jewish leap year, with two months of Adar).

Topics: Feminism, Purim

Fast of Esther and Marriage Enslavement

Jordan Namerow

Today is Ta’anit Esther (the Fast of Esther), a minor Fast day commemorating the three day fast observed by the Jewish people in the story of Purim Ta’anit Esther is the only time in the Jewish calendar that wholly commemorates the power of a single woman to exercise courage in changing the course of Jewish history.

From Wonder Woman to Wonderbras

Jordan Namerow

Though some Jews reject Halloween because of its Christian origins, others fully participate in what they consider to be a neutral, mainstream celebration. Either way, it’s difficult to escape the flood of candy, jack-o-lanterns, and synthetic spider webs as well as the latest Halloween “fashion.” Anyone who has watched the evolution of women’s Halloween costumes over the last several years may have noticed that Cinderella and the Hershey’s Kiss have long gone out of style in the wake of more risqué get-ups.

Topics: Feminism, Purim

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Listen to Our Podcast

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now