Rabbis dedicate Fast of Esther to Ukraine, messianic group proselytizing to Jewish refugees, Hawaii becomes go-to for destination for bnei mitzvah, and remembering RBG on her birthday.

OUR LEAD STORY

Can a Christian theater company put on a good Purim spiel?

The setup: In the Purim story, a Jew hides in plain sight among gentiles until the time is right for a big, momentous reveal that, in a miracle of history, saves our people. Our culture reporter, PJ Grisar, recently trekked to rural Pennsylvania to see “Queen Esther,” a big-budget biblical spectacle that puts an evangelical spin on the Megillah. “I was one such hidden Jew,” he writes. “And, appropriately for Purim and a pandemic, I was masked.”

Megillah merch: There were chartered buses bringing audience members from Massachusetts and Maryland and cars with New York and West Virginia plates. The gift shop at the Sight & Sound Theater in Lancaster County was full of Esther merch – snow globes, T-shirts, decorative mirrors. The theater’s limestone walls, palm trees and Mediterranean cupolas gave the vibe of Medieval Times meets “Aladdin.” Indeed, Haman was dressed a bit like that film’s villain, Jafar. Mordechai, in this rendition, was an accountant with a vaguely Yiddish accent.

Exit Haman, enter Jesus: The play follows the actual Book of Esther up through intermission, but takes a sharp turn late in the second act when Jesus, who would not be born for another 500 years, shows up. After the play ended, an actor invited attendees to the lobby to discuss living a life with Christ. “I am now decidedly offended,” writes Grisar. “Esther didn’t stick her neck out for my people just so some ushers could pray for my conversion.”

Read the story ➤

WAR IN UKRAINE

The Great Synagogue in Romania has become a safe haven for Ukrainian refugees. (Photos: Larry Cohler-Esses)

Our correspondent Larry Cohler-Esses made a Shabbat visit to Iasi, a Romanian town near the Moldova border that is home to one of the oldest operating synagogues in all of Europe. Built in 1671, the Great Synagogue reopened in 2018 after a 10-year restoration effort of all its intricate metalwork.

Thirty-six mostly elderly congregants sat in its splendor for Kabbalat Shabbat, a few of them ignoring the nominally Orthodox shul’s gender-separation to sit with their spouses.

The synagogue is one of two of the 110 synagogues in Iasi before World War II that still stand. In the early part of the 20th century, a third to a half of Iasi’s residents were Jewish, and even after the Holocaust, it had a thriving community of 38,000. Today about 300 Jews live in Iasi, but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last month, it has become a staging ground for flying refugees to Israel.

The refugees who pour over Ukraine’s borders to both Romania and Moldova to get to Iasi do not linger there; two attended Friday night’s service.

More on Ukraine

Demonstrators in support of Ukraine gather in front of the White House at the start of the war. (Getty)

Jewish groups are calling for a communal fast day on Wednesday in solidarity with Ukraine.The Fast of Esther, one of six minor fast days on the Jewish calendar, is typically only observed by the most religious Jews. But a growing number of rabbis, Hillel leaders and others are drawing parallels between Queen Esther, who fasted before she asked the king to save the Jews from a villain intent on their destruction, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “This is a Jew in the world who needs our strength right now,” said Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz, who works with Hillel International. Read the story ➤

Yad Vashem turned down a request to host a speech by Zelenskyy. Israel’s Holocaust museum said it wanted to avoid conflating Russia’s attack on Ukraine with the Nazi genocide. This is the second time in a week Yad Vashem has found itself embroiled in geopolitics: on Thursday, it suspended its partnership with Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, who was in the process of donating tens of millions of dollars to the museum. Read the story ➤

Plus…

A Messianic group is spending up to $5,000 a day to missionize Ukrainian Jewish refugees who have resettled in Israel. Leaked audio from a conference call also revealed that the group, Chosen People’s Ministries, plans on baptizing more than a dozen immigrants by Passover. (Jerusalem Post)
This hotel in Poland used to be a yeshiva. Now it houses Ukrainian refugees. (NPR)
Israel is building a multimillion-dollar field hospital in Ukraine. It will be named after Prime Minister Golda Meir, a native of Kyiv. (Times of Israel)
Major U.S. Jewish groups urged President Biden to welcome Ukrainian refugees, saying they know all too well what happens when “America shuts its doors.” (Haaretz)

Follow all our Ukraine coverage here.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Leon Schwarzbaum, a Holocaust survivor, speaks during an interview in 2019. He died Sunday. (Getty)

🇵🇸 Israeli security forces shot and killed two Palestinians, including a teenager, during separate clashes in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning, Palestinian officials said. The Israel police said officers were in the Palestinian villages near Ramallah and Nablus to arrest suspected terrorists when violence broke out. (Jerusalem Post)

😷 Sticking with Israel for a moment, researchers there have apparently discovered cases of “Deltacron,” a hybrid COVID variant of Delta and Omicron. The variant has already been spotted in France and the Netherlands. Experts call such combinations “gradual mutations.” (Times of Israel)

⚖️ Judah Samet, a Holocaust survivor who also lived through the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, said he wants to take the stand during the upcoming trial of Robert Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 people that day. “For my family, it’s never over,” Samet said. “It reminded me of the concentration camps. It reminded me of the fact that one of my brothers was killed defending Israel.” (New York Post)

🇾🇪 There’s only Jew left in Yemen, according to a United Nations report about the treatment in conflict zones of religious minorities – particularly Jews and Bahai. “A Houthi leader in Yemen has described Bahais as Israeli spies, effectively making the community targets for harm,” the report said. (Jewish Insider)

🏝️ A Jewish woman who moved to Maui in 2017 is turning the island into a destination for beachfront bnei mitzvahs. It’s drawing families frustrated by COVID restrictions at synagogues and party venues, and, as the pitchwoman put it: “It’s much more spiritual than being in a space with fluorescent lights.” (JTA)

Shiva call ➤ Leon Schwarzbaum, a Holocaust survivor who served as a key witness during trials of Nazi war criminals, died at 101. “His death represents a great loss to the collective memory,” said Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee. “We will all miss his anger and humanity.” (Times of Israel)

What else we’re reading ➤ The New York Times profiled the Orthodox Israeli skier who shined, but did not compromise, at the Paralympics … Cilantro was an essential part of Sephardic cooking for centuries … A guided tour of “Mrs. Maisel” locations celebrates 1950s Manhattan.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who served as a Supreme Court Justice for 17 years until her death in 2020, was born on Mar. 15, 1933. Ginsburg grew up in Brooklyn and attended the Jewish summer camp Che-Na-Wah, where in 1948 she served as the 15-year-old “Camp Rabbi.” Ginsburg’s judicial career was shaped by her Jewish upbringing; she famously kept the biblical quote “tzedek, tzedek tirdof – justice, justice you shall pursue” – on the wall of her chambers and used it as the title of her last book. “The demand for justice runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition,” Ginsburg said.

Jane Eisner, the Forward’s former editor-in-chief, wrote after interviewing Ginsburg at a Washington synagogue in 2018 that the roar that greeted the tiny justice was akin to “a Springsteen or a Streisand” and called her “the most unlikely celebrity of our time.” Read our obituary of Justice Ginsburg ➤

Last year on this day, we reported that Andrew Yang, a New York City mayoral candidate, was endorsed by a Jewish lawmaker in Queens. Turns out, it was not enough; Yang lost in the Democratic primary to Eric Adams, who became mayor on Jan. 1.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Dumplings are a tradition on Purim because their ingredients are hidden in the dough, just like God’s presence is hidden in the biblical story of Esther. Watch Rukhl Schaechter, the Forward’s Yiddish editor, and Eve Jochnowitz, a gourmet chef and food scholar, make potato kreplekh. Their instructions are in Yiddish, but we’ve added subtitles for those who need.

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Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle)

Thanks to Larry Cohler-Esses, PJ Grisar and Rukhl Schaechter for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

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