JOANNA COLWELL

We have just passed the Jewish holiday of Purim, a time to commemorate the story of Queen Esther, who saved the Jewish people by persuading her husband that his advisor, Haman, was not to be trusted. Haman had hatched a wicked plan to kill all the Jews in Persia.

Purim festivities mark the arrival of spring, and are often celebrated with a spiel (play) re-enacting the story of Queen Esther’s bravery. There are also costumes, collecting food and other supplies to share with people in need, parades, and delicious triangular pastries called hamantaschen.

In the Purim story, Mordecai, a cousin of Queen Esther, alerts her to Haman’s evil plot, and begs her to petition her husband, King Ahasueras, to save the Jews. The king ends up killing Haman and his associates. Some stories say that throughout the Persian Empire, 75,000 of the “enemies of the Jewish people” are killed. So, when we celebrate Purim, are we rejoicing in a genocide?

Today many American Jews are grappling with the Purim story. We want to honor Queen Esther’s bravery and her desire to keep her people safe. But we don’t believe in celebrating violence. We want to build a world where everyone is safe, from militarism, from starvation, from displacement, from ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, we are watching in real time as the United States slides into authoritarianism and Fascism. The far-right Heritage Foundation has published a report called Project Esther, that seeks to use the language of fighting antisemitism to stifle student activism and further repress marginalized communities.

On college campuses around the country, students have spoken up against the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel. Here at Middlebury College last spring an encampment called out for freedom and safety for Palestinian people, and several “Ceasefire Shabbats” brought together students and community members who want an end to militarism.

There are some Jewish students, faculty, and community members who feel deeply uncomfortable with criticism of Israel. I know this because during our monthly vigil on the village green, people sometimes yell at us from their cars. And right in our own community, Rep. Matt Birong of Vergennes has co-sponsored a bill, H0310, that seeks to conflate criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism. But there are also many American Jews who know, deep in our bones, that our safety and that of our Palestinian siblings is intertwined. Just like we can never be safe when our trans siblings, our undocumented siblings, our unhoused siblings are so threatened every day, we will not be safe until they are also safe.

Recent polling shows that one third of American Jews believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. There is a huge generational divide, in that young Jews are increasingly separating their Jewish identity from any kind of connection to Israel. They may have been raised to believe that Israel is a beacon of safety and freedom for Jews, but when they learn about the reality of the Apartheid state and the brutality of militarized borders, many young Jewish people choose solidarity with Palestine over the Zionism they were taught in Hebrew school.

At our Purim celebration in Burlington last week, two young members of our L’Chaim Collective created a spiel to tell the Esther story. Our young playwrights, Coco and Sela, narrated the action as newscasters with a breaking story to share. At the end of the play were the words “Everyone can be a hero and a villain. Esther saved her people, but she isn’t a hero if she turns around and hurts another community.” And, “That’s why we wrote this Purim spiel. To show that everything has two sides to it, and that the stories we are told aren’t always right. The people in them aren’t always right either. You have to think harder and work harder to understand them as a community. Like many Jewish communities are attempting to do. To really wrestle with our history, and not just to accept one interpretation.”

Joanna Colwell (she/her) is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher who founded and directs Otter Creek Yoga, in Middlebury’s Marble Works. She lives in Ripton, where she enjoys taking walks, gardening, and cooking. Joanna started the Yoga Equity Project, which makes yoga classes available and accessible to People of the Global Majority.