Purim, Politics, and Satire
This evening, when the sun goes down, Jewish folks the world over will observe the holiday of Purim, the happiest - and least theistic - of all our holidays. Costumes, noisemakers, wine and sweet treats (called hamentashchen) are all part of the celebration. It is said that unless and until one cannot distinguish between baruch Mordechai (Blessed be Mordechai) and arur Haman (Cursed be Haman), one has neither consumed enough wine nor entered the true riotous, satiric spirit of the day.
Purim, the “Feast of Lots,” celebrates a Jewish miracle in ancient Persia. It commemorates the Divinely orchestrated salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from a plot orchestrated by a narcissistic, racist bigot’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.” Literally “lots” in ancient Persian, Purim was thus named since Haman (the ultimate bad guy who happened to be the King’s Prime Minister) had thrown lots to determine when he would carry out his diabolical scheme, as recorded in the Megillah (the Biblical book of Esther . . . the only one which does not specifically mention G-d).
The Persian Empire of the 4th century BCE extended over 127 lands, and all the Jews were its subjects. When King Ahasuerus had his wife, Queen Vashti, executed for failing to follow his orders, he arranged a beauty pageant to find a new queen. A Jewish girl, Esther (Jewish name, Hadassah), found favor in his eyes and became the new queen, though she refused to divulge her nationality.
Meanwhile, the Jew-hating Haman was appointed prime minister of the empire. Mordechai, the leader of the Jews (and Esther’s cousin), defied the king’s orders and refused to bow to Haman. Haman was incensed, and he convinced the king to issue a decree ordering the extermination of all the Jews on the 13th of the Jewish month of Adar, a date chosen by a lottery Haman made.
Mordechai galvanized all the Jews, convincing them to repent, fast and pray to G‑d. Meanwhile, Esther asked the king and Haman to join her for a feast. At a subsequent feast, Esther revealed to the king her Jewish identity. Haman was hanged, Mordechai was appointed prime minister in his stead, and a new decree was issued, granting the Jews the right to defend themselves against their enemies.
On the 13th of Adar, the Jews mobilized and killed many of their enemies. On the 14th of Adar, they rested and celebrated. In the capital city of Shushan, they took one more day to finish the job.
Purim is a raucous holiday; it involves most people being clad in costumes, consuming more wine than usual, cheering on Mordechai (the hero) each time he is mentioned, and blotting out the name of Haman (the bad guy) every time his name is mentioned. It is also a time for satire and parody. For years, I have written and performed parodies based on Broadway musicals (Westside Story, Oliver!, The Pirates of Penzance, as well as "A British Invasion Purim”, and “A Woodstock Purim.”
As but one terribly small example, Paul Simon’s The Boxer was turned into The Fixer:
Esther, once Hadassah has a story quite well-known,
She’s the girl who saved our people,
From the mania of Haman, he’s the enemy.
He was a pest, ‘cause he cast a lot that sealed our fate
To put us all to rest. Lai lai lai . . .
When she heard the news from Mordechai
Of what Haman planned to do,
She retreated to her chamber,
In the quiet of the royal palace, good and scared.
Praying slow, seeking out the one solution
That would “let her people go”
Looking for the blessing only G-d would know. Lai lai lai . . .
Then too, it became the custom over the centuries to create what came to be known as The Purim Torah, in which rabbinic scholars would do parodies of Talmudic tractates. One of the most famous was done in 1929 by “Reverend” Gershon Kiss of Brooklyn as a parody on the era of Prohibition (the cover page can be seen above. It’s title, translated into English is Tractate Prohibition). It captured the spirit of Purim brilliantly poking fun at both Rabbinic dialectic and American society. Written in a combination of Hebrew, Aramaic and the occasional Anglicism (“do not read for the Jews there was light and joy va-yikar, rather there was light and joy and liquor”) and formatted like a traditional Talmudic tractate, with a “gemara” framed by a Rashi-like commentary, This little-known work makes for excellent reading and even study as part of the holiday festivities. Regrettably, it is not easily translatable. “Tractate Prohibition” is best enjoyed by readers familiar with Talmudic terminology, who will appreciate its subtle allusions to classic passages, Mishnah and Gemara (“ha-kol shokhtin,” the opening of tractate Hulin, is rendered as “ha-kol shotin:” “everyone is eligible to perform ritual slaughter” now reads “everyone is eligible to drink”). Even readers with less experience in Talmud, however, will enjoy the social satire evident on every page. The text wonders, for example, if the mandated temperance extends to “Mar (“Mister”) Vilson,” meaning President Woodrow Wilson, during whose term the 18th Amendment was enacted. The “Rabbis” conclude that President Wilson is exempted from prohibition “ki gavra rabah hu,” meaning “he is a great man.”
Every year, I prepare myself for Purim by rereading the Biblical Book of Esther along with its commentaries and rereading what, to my way of thinking, is the greatest of all modern satires: Voltaire’s Candide, a satire about eternal optimism. After so many, many years, Candide. his tutor, the “optimistic metaphysician” Dr. Pangloss (“This is the best of all possible worlds”) his true love, Cunégonde, and her brother, The Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, are friends. This week, while rereading Candide, I also continued reading the political news from around the country, focusing in closely on the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the upcoming annual session of the Florida State Legislature. I was amazed by just how closely the pronouncements of MAGA Republicans seemed to be satiric . . . except they weren’t.
Let’s deal with the latter first - that which is being proposed in Tallahassee. Just the other day, State Senator Jason Brodeur (R.- Lake Mary) filed a bill which would require bloggers who are covering political figures in Florida—including the governor, lieutenant governor, Cabinet or state legislators—to register with the state and report whether they received compensation for their posts. This would include yours truly who, although I have never received a single cent for any of the nearly 950 political essays I’ve posted over the past 18 years, would, if this asinine legislation were to become law, have to fill out a ton-and-a-half of paperwork and likely be both fined and arrested.
The bill has drawn criticism from free speech advocates, who have warned that it would eat away at the constitutionally-protected right to freedom of speech and press. Sen. Brodeur has defended the bill, saying that paid bloggers equate to lobbyists and should therefore be required to report their compensation. I wonder if he, Brodeur, would be willing to list the names and amounts of everyone who has contributed to his campaigns were, by law, required to be listed. This legislative proposal (SB 1316) is so obnoxious and unsavory (and obviously meant to curry favor with the ultra-right MAGA wing of his party) that even former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has spoken out against it: "The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. it is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately," he tweeted. (Ironically, Prior to his election in 2022, Senator Brodeur was found to have dumped tens of thousands of dollars of campaign money into firms operated by prominent Republicans, as well as payments to Jacob Engels [a.k.a. “Roger Stone’s “Mini-Me”], an Orlando blogger associated with InfoWars and a neo-fascist group the Proud Boys.
The other “Purim satire” centers around conservative pundit/actor/Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles who, speaking before attendees at the annual gathering of CPAC, boldly declared that “trans people do not have a right to exist.” Predictably, he denied having said this . . . despite tons of videos proving he did. “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” That’s what he said, verbatim. Knowles subsequently claimed that “eradicating” “transgenderism” is not a call for eradicating transgender people and demanded retractions from numerous publications, including Rolling Stone. This would be as laughable and parodic as a Purim gathering - if it were not so incredibly horrifying. Knowles and his many followers - both in and out of public office - have loudly voiced their support for bills to deprive transgender people of gender affirming medical care, bans on using public bathrooms, and the targeting of live performances by trans individuals.
Geoff Wetrosky, the Human Right’s Campaign National Campaign Director, responded to Knowles and other Cu speakers, saying they were attempting to appeal to a right-wing audience — and putting trans people and other members of the LGBTQ community at risk.
“Their vile, anti-trans rhetoric does not resonate with the majority of Americans who are interested in solutions, not slander. But that doesn’t mean their transphobic hate and propaganda won’t cause harm,” Wetrosky said. “Their words rile up far-right extremists resulting in more stigma, discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people. The rights and very existence of trans people are not up for debate. We will keep fighting back until we are all treated equally, with dignity and respect.”
Knowles occupies a not-unique space on the far-right spectrum. His A-historicism is as bone-chilling as that of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda: “Nobody is calling to exterminate anybody, because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological (relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being) category — it’s not a legitimate category of being, There are people who think that they are the wrong sex, but they are mistaken. They’re laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion.”
According to Jewish tradition, Haman ha-rasha (“the wicked Haman) was a descendent of Amalek, who was the grandson of Esau and likely history’s first anti-Semite. The Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy 25:17–19) commands “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt . . . you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under the heaven. DO NOT FORGET!” This is why we put our noisemakers (called either graggers [Yiddish] or ra-ahsh-shanim [Hebrew] to work, making a noisy cacophony of sound every time Haman’s name is mentioned in the reading/chanting of the Purim scroll. It’s somewhat akin to the ancient custom of writing the name of one’s enemy on the soles of one’s sandals and then stomping about in the mud.
And so I say, wineglass in hand, noisemaker at the ready: ARUR (cursed be) MAGA! ARUR CPAC! ARUR HOMOPHOBES, WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND ALL RIGHT-WING CULTURE WARRIORS!
!חג פוּרים שמח (Chag Purim samayach) Have a riotous Purim
Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone