Your First Purim in Jerusalem
By: Dvora Stein
1. Mishenichnas Adar: Purim Costume Ideas Begin
I clearly remember the day I walked out of my apartment on a random Tuesday. I blinked in confusion as a parade of caped little boys and bedecked little girls passed me in the street. Why were they dressed up for Purim two weeks early?
Turns out, Rosh Chodesh Adar is dress-up day in Israel, and their morah or ganenet creates costumes for every kid. At pickup time, the streets fill with proud kids showing off the costumes to their mothers.
Until today I love watching these scenes and seeing the morahs’ original ideas. My favorite of all time was a bunch of little boys dressed up as Jews who left Mitzrayim, complete with green turban, brown robe, and a bag of matzah slung over their shoulder!
2. Mishloach Manos Ideas: Jerusalem Style MM Shopping
That first Adar, I planned to wrap up a home-baked pie with a bottle of iced cappuccino for mishloach manos. Easy as pie, right? But I couldn’t find J&J cappuccino in any of the local stores, nor another drink that looked right.
I ended up replacing the cappuccino with a homemade strawberry smoothie to go with my jam pie. Much yummier, anyway! Then I started the search for packaging. Tramping from store to store in search of the right size cellophane bag, ribbon, and name tags, I made too many supply runs to count. Eventually, my pretty mishloach manos packages came together.
On Purim, my friends told me that I wasn’t the only one. One friend wanted to use coffee cups with lids for her mishloach manos, but had to go to 3 stores to find the right size cups that came with lids. Another friend needed nut crunch topping for her cannolis but couldn’t find it in the supermarket, until someone directed her to a specialty baking shop.
Shopping for supplies locally was harder than any of us had thought it would be, though we did figure it out in the end. (With beautiful mishloach manos to show for it.)
3. Taanis Esther: Food to Break the Fast On
That first Purim in Yerushalayim, I was still used to the way the rest of the world does it: fast until after megillah, then break your fast on a festive Purim meal. But in Yerushalayim, Taanis Esther wasn’t going to be followed by Purim, so no Purim meal would be waiting for us. I realized this ON Taanis Esther, and scrambled to plan the meal.
I love baking on fast days, so on Taanis Esther I was busy baking pies for mishloach manos. I added another multiple of the recipe to eat at home. This way we’d have something delicious with which to break our fast. But we also needed to eat something filling.
Taanis Esther is such a busy day, with mishloach manos, cooking for Purim itself, etc. So I kept the menu simple: Fresh rolls with a hearty soup (doubled the soup recipe I was making for Purim.) Filling when you’re hungry, but not too heavy on an empty stomach.
4. Purim D’Prazim: To Travel or To Stay Local
The day after Taanis Esther, half of Yerushalayim leaves town. They’re headed for other cities in Israel that are celebrating Purim; who’s gonna miss out on an extra day of Purim?! If you have family or friends in other cities, you’ll probably want to visit and deliver mishloach manos a day early.
Except that if you’ll be in another city for most of Purim D’Prazim (Purim for the scattered cities, the term used in Jerusalem for the first day of Purim) then it might make you obligated to keep Purim on that day. Which means you’d have to listen to the megillah and do all the mitzvos of the day on Purim D’Prazim instead of Shushan Purim.
The halacha gets pretty complex, so before making plans to travel to another city for Purim D’Prazim, ask a rabbi about your plans so you don’t get into a situation that could be halachically problematic.
Another aspect to consider is that thousands of Yerushalmis will be trying to enter the city at the same time as Purim begins. Everyone will be trying to make it back in time for megillah, which means backed-up roads and traffic jams. So plan to leave early and leave yourself plenty of buffer time until the megillah reading.
Personally, I love staying in Jerusalem on Purim D’Prazim and taking advantage of the extra day to put the finishing touches on my mishloach manos! I enjoy the quiet, peaceful streets, a good prelude for what’s to come that night.
5. Be Prepared: Traffic on Purim in Jerusalem
Like any other major Jewish city on Purim, traffic in Jerusalem turns into Purim bottlenecks, pun intended. Except in Yerushalayim it’s even more than any other city, because thousands upon thousands travel from other cities in Israel. Having wrapped up their Purim, they’re here to experience an authentic Yerushalmi Purim. Their Purim’s not over when it’s over.
Expect any bus or car rides to take far longer than usual, and be ready for route changes. If it’s not absolutely necessary to drive, try walking! You’ll enjoy the street sights anyway.
My mishloach manos delivering expeditions turned into a fascinated observation of the street scenes. Watching the procession of intricate, original costumes is a chavaya in itself. I’ll never forget the little girl I saw wearing an elaborate mitpachat, sandals, ancient-looking jewelry, and a flowing dress, who was pushing six little doll carriages that had been glued together. So many ideas all around me, I made mental notes for next year’s Purim.
I slowed down when I heard booming music up ahead, and caught a glimpse of twenty yeshiva bachurim dressed all in white. They had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders and were dancing up, down, side to side, all while singing at the top of their lungs, each guy a different song.
It wasn’t the first or last bachurim group I’d get to observe. There are more yeshiva bachurim in Yerushalayim than anywhere else, and on Purim, they fill the streets with a rocking Purim fervor.
Some apartments I passed had “Haman” dummies hanging from their windows, swaying in the breeze. Yerushalmi kids spend hours on these life-sized stuffed dummies, hanging them from trees to represent Haman’s hanging.
6. Purim Parties: Family and Friends
Thinking about where to spend the Purim meal made me really homesick on my first Purim. Before I married and moved to Israel, my extended family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, would all gather in our Bubby’s house for a Purim party toward the end of Purim day. And it was hard for me to miss out on that.
Luckily for me, I have cousins and friends in Yerushalayim and we got together for a joint Purim meal. With plenty of bachurim and seminary girls who were happy at the invitation, we had a full house. We made a potluck menu, each of us bringing one of the dishes, and the atmosphere was just as festive as back home.
7. Tish-Hopping: Try New Things in Yerushalayim
After a packed Purim day, I didn’t want the fun to end! After the meal, a cousin invited me to go with her to the Boyaner Purim tish. I figured, why not try it? This Purim in Yerushalayim had been all about trying new things.
It turned out to be a great idea. The place was alive with music, singing, and dancing, exactly the kind of place I wanted to be as my first Purim in Yerushalayim drew to a close.
There were men, bachurim and boys perched on parenches (bleachers) around the Rebbe’s table . I watched some of the tipsy men, hoping none would fall from the upper levels!
Celebrating Purim in Jerusalem From Afar
Friend or family member is celebrating Purim in Jerusalem for the first time? A little package goes a long way... literally across the world and reaching the beautiful city itself.
Send Mishloach Manos To Israel
Dvora Stein grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Jerusalem, where she loves every part of life in the Holy City except that she misses her family and friends back home. She enjoys sharing her Israel experiences and helping shrink the distance between America and Israel by working for Bench.
How is Purim Different in Jerusalem
- How is Purim celebrated in Jerusalem? Jerusalem celebrates Purim on the fifteenth day of Adar, which is called Shushan Purim in the rest of the world. In every other place in the world, Purim is celebrated on the fourteenth day of Adar.
- Why does Jerusalem celebrate Purim one day later than the rest of Israel? As related in the megillah, the city of Shushan celebrated Purim one day later than all the other cities. Once Purim was established as a holiday, the law was established that all cities that were walled, like the ancient Shushan was, should celebrate Purim on that second day, the fifteenth of Adar. The law was extended to include Jerusalem, which was walled in the days of Yehoshua.
- What is Shushan Purim in Jerusalem? Shushan Purim in Jerusalem is the day when all the mitzvot of the day are carried out: Megillah, Mishloach manos, Mishteh, and Matanos la’evyonim. It’s the day when Jerusalem celebrates Purim, one day later than the rest of the world.
- What’s it like to celebrate Purim in Jerusalem? Many people from all over Israel come to Jerusalem to celebrate a second day of Purim, so that the city is packed with thousands of people from across the country. The crowds make it an especially festive and memorable Purim in Jerusalem.