Purim in the time of Putin (and St. Patrick)

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New daylight saving time bill would upend life for observant Jews, teen skips school to help in Ukraine, YU star plans to be NBA's first Orthodox player, an 'Encanto'-themed Purim parody.

THE FESTIVAL OF PURIM

Today is the Fast of Esther, and this year rabbis and Jewish groups are urging people to observe it in solidarity with Ukraine (more about the war below). Purim starts this evening, and tomorrow, our Jewish drunken celebration coincides with the Irish drunken celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s some history, culture, politics and recipes to guide your holiday.

The strange and violent history of the ordinary grogger: Three hundred years ago, you’d have been more likely to associate groggers with the fire department than with Haman. Three hundred years before that, wooden noisemakers resembling those we’ll be shaking for Purim tonight were used in wars and church services. Through the centuries, what we call the grogger – Yiddish for rattle – went from practical siren to a dated, clunky toy, perhaps transforming it into the perfect totem for tradition. Read the story ➤

Opinion | Of Purim, Putin and petroleum: As we approach Purim, many have compared President Vladimir Putin of Russia to Haman, the villain of the Book of Esther. Putin bears full blame for the invasion of Ukraine, but he is only able to act brazenly thanks to the money the fossil fuel industry pumps into his country’s economy, argues Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder of the Jewish environmental group Dayenu. The Megillah serves as “a warning that evil really does exist in the world,” she writes in a new essay, “and that we as Jews have the power to stop it in its tracks.” Read the essay ➤

In a delightful new Purim film, Esther is a secret agent in Argentina: What if Esther was in MI6? In Gabriel Lichtmann’s “The Red Star,” the teenage winner of a Purim beauty pageant transforms into the woman who brought down Rommel and Eichmann and was Simon Wiesenthal’s favorite informant. It’s a mockumentary about the madcap search to uncover the truth about her while giving us a vivid cross-section of Jewish life in Buenos Aires. “Like the best riffs on the Purim story,” PJ Grisar writes in his review, the film “is about Jewish survival against all odds and the creativity that sustains us.” Read the review ➤

Two drunk festivals walk into a bar: Last year saw the confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, and the hybrid holiday trend continues Thursday when Purim and St. Patrick’s Day coincide. To celebrate, Rob Eshman, our resident food guru, shares the recipe for a “Haman O’Reilly” cocktail and also whipped up a dish called a “Shamrock-taschen” which involves corned beef, cabbage and hamantaschen. And Guinness. Meanwhile, if you’re headed from synagogue to the Shamrock Bar, our Mira Fox has got you covered with these five costumes that combine the revelry of both holidays.

But wait, there’s more…

And in case you missed it…

WAR IN UKRAINE

The Astakhova family are among 500 Jewish refugees staying at a Ramada hotel in Bucharest. (Larry Cohler-Esses)

Our Larry Cohler-Esses sent this dispatch Wednesday morning from Bucharest:

The Ramada Parc Hotel in the business district of Romania’s capital, rated 3.5 stars on Trip Advisor, has indoor and outdoor pools, attractive banquet facilities, a spacious lounge area and dry cleaning services on the premises. This week, it also has 500 Jewish refugees from Ukraine.

You can find them in the lounge areas congregating to exchange news and information on the latest, often horrifying, events back home, plus intelligence and guidance on what is to come next. What’s clear is their next destination: Israel.

For refugees who have declared their wish to emigrate, the Jewish Agency is bringing them to the Ramada, which is owned by Israelis. The setting feels a bit incongruous, certainly compared to the tent cities more typically used to house those fleeing bombs and missiles. But as Israel has moved to rapidly absorb a wave of 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, the Ramada has quickly become a one-stop shop for Israeli consular officials to review each refugee’s eligibility under Israel’s law of return and other logistics.

More on Ukraine

The aftermath of an attack on an apartment building in Kyiv on Monday. (Getty)

A Jewish teen from Montreal skipped school, hopped on a plane, and handed out supplies to refugees at the Ukrainian border. “Much more than a fear of what Aviya might see, was the hope that she would come to appreciate the suffering that’s going on in this world,” said her father. “Because it’s easy to ignore suffering.” Read the story ➤

Readers share stories of their Ukrainian ancestors: He was a rabbi, a butcher and a cantor. And once testified in court about a neighbor’s goat. Khaim Nokhem Muchnik survived a kidnapping and was reunited with his family 39 years later. His great-great-grandson shares his story ➤

And more…

Follow all our Ukraine coverage here.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

The new daylight saving time law would force morning services to start after 9 a.m. in some cities.

⏰ The U.S. Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to make daylight saving time year-round across the nation. If passed also by the House, the new law would complicate life for observant Jews. Sunrise would be after 9 a.m. in some parts of the country, making it difficult to attend morning services before starting work. The Senate vote caught some Orthodox leaders by surprise. “This is the first I’m hearing of this,” one Chabad rabbi said when contacted Tuesday afternoon. (Forward)

🏀 Yeshiva University’s star player plans to enter the NBA Draft this summer. “Being the first Orthodox Jew in the NBA would mean the world to me,” said Ryan Turell, a 6-foot-7 forward who wears a yarmulke on the court. “But, just as importantly, it would mean the world to others that never saw this as a possibility.” (Forward)

✈️ Well, that was fast. The Sierra Club has reversed its decision and reinstated trips to Israel after a backlash. The environmental nonprofit – which has long offered trips to explore Israel’s biodiversity, bird migrations and desert landscape – had canceled them under pressure from anti-Zionist groups. Then the pressure reversed. “We cannot allow an existential issue as critical as combating climate change to be derailed by toxic political infighting,” said Tyler Gregory of the Jewish Community Relations Council. (Times of Israel)

🙏 A sociologist followed the lives of 3,290 teenagers from 2003 to 2012. She found that religious upbringing can help keep boys in school. “Religion offers something that other extracurricular activities such as sports can’t,” writes Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz, the study’s author and a Jewish studies professor at Tulane University. “It prompts kids to behave in extremely conscientious and cooperative ways because they believe that God is both encouraging and evaluating them.” (New York Times)

🏺 An American tourist hiking in Israel stumbled upon an intact 5,000-year-old pottery jug in a cave in the desert. He immediately called the Israel Antiquities Authority, which quickly sent people to photograph the artifact and remove it for scientific testing. (Jerusalem Post)

What else we’re reading ➤ An Israeli official suggested that the Greek Islands should serve as a “haven for the Jewish people” in case of an emergency … A victim in an alleged antisemitic attack in Los Angeles has sued two of the accused assailants … For $500, this luxury Zabar’s sweater can be yours.

What we’re watching ➤ “Bad Vegan,” a new true-crime docuseries on Netflix that debuts today. The series – which the New York Times calls “bonkers” and “destined to be ‘Tiger King’ for the next week or two” – follows the rise and fall of a celebrity restaurateur who became a fugitive. She’s been called a “vegan Bernie Madoff,” but it turns out there’s more to the story. Allen Salkin, author of a book about the Food Network and an expert interviewed in the series, walks Forward readers through the case. Read the story ➤

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history: Amos Tversky, who helped establish the fields of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, was born in Haifa on March 16, 1937. If you’ve ever read a nonfiction book about human behavior and the everyday decisions we make, it’s likely based on the fundamental work of Tversky and his longtime collaborator, Daniel Kahneman. Speaking of books, you’ll want to check out “The Undoing Project” by bestselling author Michael Lewis. It’s a thrilling biography of the duo, especially considering it’s about two academics. (Lewis talks about it with Malcolm Gladwell in the video above.) Tversky died in 1996, at 59; Kahneman went on to win the Nobel Prize for their research in 2002.

In honor of National Artichoke Hearts Day, check out this recipe for a vegan dip that includes, you guessed it, artichoke hearts.

Last year on this day, we reported on the Los Angeles rabbi who was a breakout star on Clubhouse, a social media app that was hot for like a minute.

On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 13th of Adar, the yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the 20th century’s most prominent scholar of Orthodox Jewish law.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

In a new medley for Purim, the Maccabeats retell the story of Esther using the tunes from Disney’s “Encanto.” The unlikely chart-topper “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” becomes the Persian diaspora’s plea to their new, Jewish queen against the vicious Haman. Peppered with Megillah references like the 50-cubit gallows, casting lots and even Haman’s “pointy ears” (don’t think too much about it when you nosh on Hamantaschen) it’s a good primer on the details for the little ones who won’t stop singing these songs. Plus, it lends some credence to our working theory that the Madrigals may in fact be Sephardic.

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

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

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