Purim

Tonight begins the celebration of Purim, the Jewish commemoration of the events from the book of Esther. Up until the last couple of years we observed a bit of this holiday in our home, and the kids loved it. A rambunctious feast during which they were encouraged to yell loudly and get busy with the noisemakers. What's not to like. The favorite part for all of us was drowning out Haman's name during our shortened reading.

A readable English translation is online here. There's a how-to guide containing everything you need to know here. You can buy all kinds of Purim-related goodies online, including here and here. Some of the noisemakers we used were ones I had when I was a child and some were ones we picked up at Party City. The ones pictured above are similar to our newer ones and come from Century Novelty.

Forward.com has a fun spoof. Culture Kitchen has the story about Rush Limbaugh's conversion to Judaism. There's a Starbucks-related Purim Story: Is that mermaid really Queen Esther? Is that story for real or another fun Purim spoof?