The Purim Festival celebrated every year on the 14th Hebrew month of Adar (that's late February/early March) and is a major event on the Jewish calendar. The story of Purim dates back to about 500 B.C. and tells of a young Jewish girl Ester who is plucked from obscurity, crowned Queen and goes on to save her people from the evil Haman, one of the Kings officials who wanted to banish them from the Empire.
Purim has been described as a Jewish "Halloween meets Carnival".... if you google images of Purim in Israel (as I admittedly did) you might be mistaken for thinking you where looking at images out of New Orleans or Rio! People mascarade in the streets, dress up as the characters and re-enact the story or just dress up in something completely unrelated for the fun of it. In the Synagogues and publicly the story is told and those gathered will hiss whenever the villans name is mentioned and cheer for the heroine, children receive presents and money and are encouraged to do good for the poor.
I came across The Story of Esther in "A Calendar of Festivals" which is one of the fabulous publications to come out of Barefoot Books. Even so it was a little too long for a nearly 3 year old! Here is the story adapted by a Jewish mother in Perth, Australia.... "The Story Of Esther"
As part of the Carnival-like celebrations many Jewish children will make and wear their own masks to represent the characters from the story so we had a go today... Miss May Loves a Crown!
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