{"id":386,"date":"2011-03-18T11:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html"},"modified":"2011-03-18T11:10:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T11:10:00","slug":"fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism&#8217;s Mardis Gras"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s slim pickings for Fun Friday this week &#8212; even <em>The Daily Show <\/em>and <em>The Colbert Report <\/em>have been reruns &#8212; so I&#8217;ll take this opportunity to preview Purim, by far the funnest of Jewish holidays. (When else can you see Orthodox rabbis don rainbow-colored wigs, <a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.msnbc.msn.com\/_news\/2011\/03\/18\/6293692-jewish-holiday-of-purim-is-celebrated-in-israel\">clown noses <\/a>and gypsy skirts, with party themes ranging from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishtimes-sj.com\/news\/2011-03-18\/Community\/Beth_Els_Purim_According_to_Disney.html\">Disney <\/a>to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.strausnews.com\/articles\/2011\/03\/18\/new_york\/arts_and_entertainment\/15.txt\">Italy<\/a>?)<\/p>\n<p>The bawdy festivities, which begin at sundown March 19 this year, commemorate the courage of the pageant-winning Queen Esther, who revealed herself as a closeted Jew to save her people from a a proposed genocide in ancient Persia. (A few years ago, I wrote about how<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/02\/23\/AR2007022301392.html\"> some LGBT Jews celebrate this as&nbsp;&#8220;gay Jewish Halloween!&#8221;)<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here are some more recent&nbsp;links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/16\/dining\/16purim.html?_r=1&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\">Modern Flavors Transform a Jewish Tradition <\/a>(NYT)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/Magazine\/Opinion\/Article.aspx?id=212606\">What&#8217;s so special about Purim?<\/a> (Jerusalem Post)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/news\/article\/2011\/03\/14\/3086413\/turning-purim-on-its-head-with-social-action\">Turning Purim&nbsp;on its head with social action instead of drunkenness <\/a>(JTA)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s slim pickings for Fun Friday this week &#8212; even The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have been reruns &#8212; so I&#8217;ll take this opportunity to preview Purim, by far the funnest of Jewish holidays. (When else can you see Orthodox rabbis don rainbow-colored wigs, clown noses and gypsy skirts, with party themes ranging&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism&#039;s Mardis Gras - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism&#039;s Mardis Gras - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s slim pickings for Fun Friday this week &#8212; even The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have been reruns &#8212; so I&#8217;ll take this opportunity to preview Purim, by far the funnest of Jewish holidays. (When else can you see Orthodox rabbis don rainbow-colored wigs, clown noses and gypsy skirts, with party themes ranging&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-18T11:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism's Mardis Gras - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism's Mardis Gras - Belief Beat","og_description":"It&#8217;s slim pickings for Fun Friday this week &#8212; even The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have been reruns &#8212; so I&#8217;ll take this opportunity to preview Purim, by far the funnest of Jewish holidays. (When else can you see Orthodox rabbis don rainbow-colored wigs, clown noses and gypsy skirts, with party themes ranging&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-03-18T11:10:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html","name":"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism's Mardis Gras - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-18T11:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-18T11:10:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/fun-friday-preparing-for-purim-judaisms-mardis-gras-gay-halloween.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Preparing for Purim, Judaism&#8217;s Mardis Gras"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}