CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

On Purim, Celebrate Jewish Self-Defense, Not Self-Loathing

Ester y Mardoqueo escribiendo la primera carta del Purim - Arent de Gelder - PICRYL - Public Domain Media
Ester y Mardoqueo escribiendo la primera carta del Purim - Arent de Gelder - PICRYL - Public Domain Media

Jonathan S. Tobin

JNS, Mar. 12, 2025

“Whatever the details of what actually happened, the idea that the Jews had turned the tables on those who sought their death and killed a lot of them is horrifying to modern-day leftists.”

This is not the first time in history in which some Jews have internalized the hate that has been directed at them. Those who do so have embraced beliefs that seek to undermine both the unity and ability of their people to survive. So, it is unsurprising that this leads them to rethink traditional practices and sacred texts in order to serve contemporary political agendas rather than the purpose for which they were written and preserved through the ages.

In this way, the Haggadah used for the Passover seder has become a platform for every possible cause but that of Jewish liberation. That can be harmful since it transforms the one Jewish ritual in which even most secular Jews participate into something that doesn’t reinforce their identity in ways that promote their sense of Jewish peoplehood.

As irritating as that may be, the damage that it does cannot compare with a reinterpretation of Purim that has become the preferred narrative for those who hate Israel and support those who seek to destroy it. In this way, the Purim tale is not so much about Jewish salvation as it is an excuse to depict ancient Jews as mass murderers. In so doing, this buttresses the smears of the modern-day State of Israel and its war of self-defense against the genocidal terrorists of Hamas.

That’s the spin we’re getting from people like anti-Zionist writer Peter Beinart, who wrote this week in The Guardian to argue that Purim provides the proper context for the debate about the war Israel is waging on Hamas after terrorists infiltrated the southern border and attacked Jewish communities on Oct. 7, 2023. Similar revisionist articles were also published in The Forward by novelist Michael David Lukas as well as on the My Jewish Learning website by leftist Rabbi Jill Jacobs, a shrill critic of Israel, though the latter doesn’t specifically raise the war in Gaza. A not-dissimilar piece, albeit without a byline, can also be found on the website of the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, founded by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, which is best known for its video library of testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust…..SOURCE

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