Note: See all ten photos at Facebook.com/WisconsinJewish
This is not the whole megillah. We were highly selective. Think Harvard.
It was as though we put on our hardhats and flipped on the headlamps, rummaging through photos from local Jewish organizations and families to find the cutest, the funniest and just the most delightfully Purimesque images. We saw many great photos, but most did not make the cut.
We greatly appreciate the help of local Jewish professionals and volunteers who assisted with the search. Purim, which commemorates Queen Esther’s influence on her Persian king to save the Jews from evil Haman, is celebrated this year on March 23 and 24. It’s a time for silliness, so remember, if you can’t get into Harvard, maybe you can at least get into Purim.
On these pages are our 10 great local Purim photos you’ve just got to love.
1. The clown dance
Sima Munitz performed the “Clown Dance” last year. She was 3. Isn’t she cute?
Every year, Mequon Jewish Preschool goes cute-crazy with a circus show featuring children from 6-weeks-old to 5-years-old.
“It’s led and run by the K4 kids who do all the planning for it,” said Rivkie Spalter, director of the school. “You would be amazed how they can plan.”
Mequon Jewish Preschool “alumni” serve on an “executive committee” to assist with planning, including kids in tenth, seventh and fourth grade.
2. Mordechai the strong man
Nathan Raphael, 4, is serious about his weightlifting, almost as serious asMequon Jewish Preschool Director Rivkie Spalter is about joyful learning.
“Purim represents the idea of joy and to me joy is so central to all learning,” she said. “When a person feels joy a person learns in a different way.”
Her annual Purim Circus and Palooza looks like, well, a circus – with cannonball kids, tightrope walkers and ballet dancers. Queen Esther and the king from the story of Purim are the ringmasters.
“This year the toddlers are the daredevils,” she added.
Toddler daredevils? Watch out!
3. Go King Achashverosh!
This young fellow is actually the king of Persia. His Jewish wife, Esther, warned him that evil Haman was plotting against the Jewish people. The king stuck up for Esther and the people were saved!
The king also sometimes goes by the name Dovid Ahron Andrews, now 5. He is the son of Rabbi Nisan Andrews of Lake Park Synagogue, 3207 N. Hackett Ave.
4. The witch of Lake Park Synagogue
Witch Vera Rubensteyn, from last year’s Purim party at Lake Park Synagogue, must be one of the finest Purim witches in the Midwest, don’t you think?
Witches, superheroes and clowns are all part of Purim – not everyone needs to be Haman, the king or Esther.
In the story of Purim, the person who intended to kill the Jewish people was himself killed, said Rabbi Nisan Andrews of Lake Park Synagogue. “Things were turned around,” he said, explaining that this is why we now turn things around for Purim. “We dress up in ways that we would not otherwise do.”
He compared it to “something being flipped over” and added that we also wear masks and costumes to represent the idea that God operates in ways that cannot be seen.
Here, we’ve got William Tessmer as the Hulk, Benjamin Fox as Spider-Man and Noah Fox as a cowboy for Purim at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay. Another child is secretly Iron Man. We’re betting the creators of the superheroes in the group would be proud.
Back in the 1960s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were co-creators of the Hulk, Iron Man and Spider-Man. Born as Jacob Kurtzberg, Kirby was raised Conservative, attended Hebrew school and was bar mitzvahed, according to a 1990 interview in The Comics Journal. Stan Lee was also Jewish and was born Stanley Martin Lieber!
As Stan Lee used to say in the comics, ‘nuff said!
6. A super-hero lifestyle
Here’s a great photo from “Super Hero Day” at Hillel Academy in Whitefish Bay. Look at all these fabulous heroes!
Our heroes are (from left to right) Chana Wilschanski, Ariella Pullin, Solomon Sparrow, Morah Mishy Pittleman, Esther Schapiro, Gavi Bushee, Genevieve Atias, Zalman Hecht, Jada Smith, Eliyahu Coder, Martin Kalmar, Noam Hellman (behind Captain America), Matan Gelfman and Shir Posner.
As you can see, Matan, now 8, is Purim’s greatest Captain America. In the Gelfman family, all six boys and their dad are big superhero fans. Graphic artist Jonathan Gelfman of Milwaukee grew up reading comic books, drawing heroes and posting art to his wall. Now, he’s passed his super-interest in it all onto his boys.
“Every Marvel and DC movie, obviously we go as a family,” he said. “From the 18–year-old down to the five-year-old, it’s a family affair.”
Here, Jennifer Saber is Queen Esther from a couple years ago, with kids Jacob, now 5, Sydney, now 11, and Lexi the bunny, now 8.
Saber is an educator, having taught for years at congregations Shalom and Sinai, and now serving as education director for Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid in Glendale. With her teaching role in mind, she chose to be Esther.
“That year I decided I really wanted the kids to know what Purim was about,” she said. “I just felt that particular year I wanted to be more true to the story of Purim rather than to pop culture and show up in my Batman costume.”
Abby Heinemann, now 3, was 2 in this picture last March.
“She was Minnie Mouse,” said her mother, Amy. “That was her Halloween costume and she insisted on wearing it again for Purim.”
In fact, she wants to keep wearing it for everything and, having learned that Disney World is where Minnie lives, it’s where she now wants to go visit.
In this shot, Abby is at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center’s Gan Ami Early Childhood Education preschool in Whitefish Bay.
Last year, students made groggers, ate hamentashen and brought in food for a tzedakah bin.
9. Purim, not Halloween
Here’s a thing or two from last year’s Purim carnival at Hillel Academy in Whitefish Bay.
Thing 1 and Thing 2, respectively, are Ariella Pullin and Shir Posner, who were both in second grade.
The pair have grown up together, since they were 18-months-old.
“One of the things I love about Purim versus Halloween, we have to make it ourselves,” said Ariella’s mother, Inna Pullin, noting that you don’t find costumes in local stores just before Purim. “What’s fun is you have to make your own stuff and you have to think about it.”
10. Purim Breakfast – with bacon
This human work of art is bacon, a fried egg, a donut and coffee. Call it “Purim Breakfast.”
“What’s wrong with bacon?” said a mirthful Inna Pullin. “It’s veggie bacon.”
The photo features Inna, the mother of this food family, plus Avi starring as bacon, Adina as a donut and Ariella as a fried egg.
The bacon led to a spirited discussion in Pullin’s kosher home over what bacon actually looks like. She theorizes that the bacon costume actually came out looking like MorningStar Farms veggie bacon.
“Judaism does not have to be serious and stoic. Purim is hysterical. It’s funny,” she explained. The Jewish tradition “reflects the entire experience of our humanity.”
“There’s so much wisdom in every aspect of everything we do.”
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