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Esther and Joseph: Veiling and Unveiling

The Hebrew Bible should be understood not as a book but as a library. That means that within it we can find many voices talking together, debating together and complementing one other. In this way, based on the rich intertextuality presented to us by the various stories, the author connects the figure of Esther with the stories of Joseph, attempting to work through the common points and the apparent differences, both in form and content.

By Rabbi Joshua Kullock

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Exploring the Hidden: An Interactive Purim Program

This program offers a five-encounter multimedia exploration of what each main character in the Purim story is hiding, and what that says about them as people, with a modern connection to how and why people today hide their motives or identities. It also offers a creative approach to reviewing familiarity with the events in the story. Encounters use Handmade Midrash, mask making, movement, and dramatic tableaus to explore and express the events, hidden characteristics, and choices of the characters in the Purim story.

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Two Before Purim, Two Before Pesach: Arba Parshiot

This project offers a pathway of exploration through the construction of the identity of our people. By means of looking at the combination of the Arba Parshiot, four special readings in the weeks before Purim and Pesach, we learn about the strengths and limitations of each community member; the responsibility of each person to the other; the purity that allows us to reenter the Mikdash and get on with the business of living in a world in which G-d’s presence is expressed in our ancient objective of becoming a holy nation.

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Purim: “A day for sending gifts to one another”

The following program proposes a revision of the story of Megillat Esther and its relationship to the social mitzvot mishloach manot (sending presents) and matanot la’evyonim (gifts to the poor), based on illustrating traditional ritual objects. The different activities include learning the theoretical aspects of Purim and proposals for putting into practice the social and communal values taught us by the Megillah.

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Purim and Choices

This four-encounter program explores themes of Purim through the ideas of choices and reasons that motivate them. Exploring the power of community, faith and prayer it culminates in the artistic activity of designing of a mishloach manot box containing various quotes from Megillat Esther. Other activities include drama, discussion, writing, and art.

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Let’s Eat! Good guys, bad guys, Jewish holidays and young children

Young children are bombarded with good guys vs. bad guys by the media every day. The Jewish holidays from winter to spring provide their own list of bad guys out to defeat the Jews. How do we help our youngest children understand that being Jewish is not ultimately about the fight for our survival, but about striving to constantly make the world a better place? A closer look at the story of Purim helps to address this question.

by Maxine Segal Handelman

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A Women’s Meeting


This program consists of two activities that take up the subject of women. At a first meeting a selection from classical rabbinical literature (from the first to the seventh century), a reading of excerpts from the Mishnah, Tosefta and Talmud is proposed; these contain references to women and their world in those times.

At a second meeting, the proposal is to compare these text selections with true but little known stories of women who in some way challenged the ideas prevalent during the times in which they lived (Gluckl Von Hameln and Ernestine Rose).

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