Or perhaps some will be celebrating, or also celebrating, the Ancient Judean Holiday: Yom Nicanor – 13th of Adar? Or even a Jewish holiday for Cyrus?
Here's a good article on Purim in Modern Iran by Shai Secunda in Tablet: Reading Megillah in Tehran: How Iranian Jews Celebrate Purim. As Jews around the world commemorate the rescue of Persian Jewry, how do those who live where the story took place mark the day? It includes lots of historical background on how the celebration of Purim developed. Excerpt:
I recounted some of this history to the Iranian rabbi I spoke to, hoping to cut through some of the banality of Purim, as I saw it, in today’s Islamic Republic. I repeated my questions: “Are you sure that Iranian officials took no real interest in a holiday with violent depictions of Persian-Jewish tensions? Were you never concerned about publicly announcing Megillah-reading times?” Apparently, I was fishing for a story that was not to be found. Without skipping a beat, the rabbi responded to my question by making a point of his own: “I don’t understand. The Purim story is not about a Persian threat against the Jews. It is about what happens when a non-Iranian character like Haman the Aggagite infiltrates a ruling Iranian government and tries to turn everything upside down.” Indeed. Every generation and its seekers. Every generation and its interpreters.Related: a Talmud Blog post by Prof. Secunda about stableboys, barbers, and Purim: Shave and a Hair Cut.
Tangentially related: a review of his book, The Iranian Talmud by Raphael Magarik in The Forward. Excerpt:
Secunda’s book refuses both polemic and easy answers. It continually disrupts static categories, pushing us to imagine a Jewish mage or a Zoroastrian reader of scripture. In other words, Talmudo-Iranica offers what initially made academic scholarship both exciting and threatening: the ability to make the Talmud strange again.More on this book here and here.
Some past Purim-related PaleoJudaica posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
UPDATE: Haman the Barber- Some Addenda (Yitz Landes, The Talmud Blog).
