The Craziest Purim Story We've Ever Heard
If you've known us for longer than, oh say, a few months, you have absolutely heard us share this story — a tale of an underground Purim party in Leningrad (pictured above) that took place exactly 50 years ago this Monday night.
Before we tell you about what you can expect at our Purim celebration this year (hint: Art Party meets Anatevka?) -- we really need to tell you a story.
If you've known us for longer than, oh say, a few months, you have absolutely heard us share this story — a tale of an underground Purim party in Leningrad (pictured above) that took place exactly 50 years ago this Monday night.
The year was 1976, and Dimitry's mother Yevgenia and her friends gathered in secret to celebrate Purim, resisting persecution from the state.
Here, we are not being hyperbolic. This was a dangerous get-together. The Soviet Union was an unsafe place for religious gatherings, particularly for Jews, and this decision was made with significant risk. These 20- and 30-somethings convened with great caution: finding the location with codewords and closing the blinds to resist being discovered.
23 year old Yevgenia could not have imagined that just a few decades later, after bringing her family to the US as religious refugees, her son and and daughter-in-law would host a come-one-come-all Purim party each year. She certainly could not have pictured a world in which her son was allowed to become a rabbi, or that he would be in a position to name a community "Tzibur," which connotes "public" in Hebrew.
We are blessed to live out the promise found in the Megillah:
"These days are recalled and observed in every generation: by every family, every province, and every city. And these days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and the memory of them shall never perish among their descendants." (Esther 9:28)
The Jews of Ancient Shushan imagined their story as bigger than them, and as more consequential than their brief slice of time on Earth. They established a whole new holiday to be celebrated in every successive generation.
These days, in this place, we celebrate Purim out loud. We send announcements, not codewords. We read the story in front of windows overlooking our neighborhood. For most of Jewish history, our ancestors could have only dreamed of this.
Purim, truly, is the holiest day of the year.
Will you come celebrate out loud with us here in Harlem?
