Picture Perfect

So today is a Jewish fesitval, where people dress up in funny constumes and have fun. But why? Sure, us Jews do some pretty strange things, and some pretty cool things too, but they are done reaons.

Very quickly, Purim (meaning "raffle") was when an advisor (called Haman) to the king of the Achaemenid Empire (that's Persia to us) decided to give an enourmous sum of money to the ruler, in return for having sole discretion over the fate of the Jews in the empire (which was considerably large). His intention was to kill all the Jews (history repeats itself. It seems Jews have never really been free of this absurd desire people seem to have about obliterating them all the time. Just give us a break, dammit!) 

We celebrate because, obviously, this didn't happen and disaster was averted by the Queen. The events are recorded in the book of Esther in the Hebrew Scriptures. That genocide was averted explains why we celebrate, we dress up as a symbolic reference to the hiddeness of God's actions in saving the Jews - Interestingly, the name of God is not mentioned in the book of Esther once (though he is present if you know how to look). So we dress up and "hide" ourselves behind masks and costumes to symbolise this.

         As such, going to synagogue can be quite an interesting. I try to avoid synagouge members these days and yet here they all are, dressed in bizzare costumes, as devils, sailors, school masters, ladybirds, punks, and anything else you can imagine. It was like living a bizzare dream.

For more information in the medium of song, and to see such costumes in action, why not try this rather bizzare link which is under a minute long and explains it all quite well.

Also, I recently discovered an unspoken and up until now possibly altogether unknown connection between traditional Jewish Purim songs and African-American folk songs which were sung as they picked cotton in the fields. Compare to the Jewish version (not about picking cotton, but oddly the same tune) Mishe Nichnas Adar.

Here's a selection of videos of the same song, all sung in the style of the country of origin (of the people). Please note, anyone singing this song is probably drunk, close to it, or about to be if theyre above the permissable legal age to drink, so forgive the lesser musical abilities where applicable:  

Traditional Middle-Eastern Israeli,
Western/ 'a cappella'

Unfortunately, my mic isn't working otherwise I'd have sung a clearer (and much better) version for you all. Oh well!

It appears the Jewish conspiracy has permiated to previously unknown and astonishingly grass-root levels, right down to the Old Greats of Folk song. We are everywhere. Fear us.