Purim After Hawara

JVL Introduction

The latest episode of the Beinart Notebook was published just before Purim, a celebration of survival in the Persian empire in which the Jews were allowed to rise pre-emptively against those who would do them harm.

It is often celebrated with excessive drinking and riotous behaviour.

The Biblical texts call for violence against the eternal enemy, the Amalekites, whom we are enjoined to wipe out.

Some today associate Amalek with the Palestinians. It is unlikely to be an accident that, following the Huwara pogrom, Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Huwara to be destroyed – just days before Purim.

Peter Beinart presents a fundamental challenge to this reading of the texts, challenging us to invert them, to see them as a call to wipe out the real Amalek, the evil inside ourselves, to which so many Jews have been blinded by their allegiance to Israel and notions of Jewish exceptionalism.

Thanks to Peter Beinart for permission to repost.

This article was originally published by the Beinart Notebook on Mon 6 Mar 2023. Read the original here.