Israelis Take to Streets to Mark Purim

Children in colorful costumes and Halloween-style masks and makeup poured into the streets across Israel on Sunday to celebrate the Purim religious holiday.

Children dressed as werewolves, ninja fighters and superheroes ran through the streets laughing and screaming as they sprayed white foam on each other, a Purim tradition.

In the afternoon, thousands of brightly costumed children were led through the streets of Tel Aviv by Mayor Shlomo Lahat, who was waving a giant fake parking ticket.

Purim, which officially began at sundown Saturday, came to Jerusalem’s walled Old City at sunset Sunday because Jewish religious law states that the holiday must begin a day late in the walled cities of Israel.

Saved by Esther

The festival of Purim celebrates the Jewish victory in Persia in the 5th Century BC over Haman, an anti-Semitic adviser to the king who ordered that all the Jews in the Persian empire be killed.

The Jewish community was saved from destruction when the Persian queen, Esther, who herself was Jewish, and her brother, Mordechai, persuaded the king to hang Haman and spare the Jews.

In modern times, the holiday has come to symbolize the triumph of the Jewish people over persecution.

On Purim, costumed worshipers crowd into synagogues to listen to the Book of Esther and swing small metal noisemakers when the name “Haman” is mentioned, in keeping with the tradition of “blotting out the name” of the wicked.

In the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, it is customary for people to become so drunk that they cannot tell the difference between the name of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, and Mordechai, the pious brother of the story’s heroine.