Jews around the world will celebrate Purim on the 14th of Adar, March 19, except in cities which were walled at the time of Joshua, like Jerusalem. In that case, Jerusalemites will celebrate on the 15th of Adar, the evening of March 20.
During the past few weeks, I’ve been walking around Jerusalem, sometimes on cold, crisp, sunny days when the wind was normal, sometimes when it was rainy and sometimes when it was a bit warmer to see the signs of the upcoming Purim holiday.
The first sign was in bakeries. Last year an article reported that during Purim Israelis eat 24.5 million hamantaschen. The same article said the average Israeli eats five during the holiday, the ones with poppy seed filling being the most popular.
What is the good news? Hamantaschen are an excellent source of calcium.
What is the bad news? Each 50-gram hamantasch has 200 calories. The poppy seeds in the popular filling contain high amounts of oil but also fiber, calcium and iron.
Bakeries are already selling hamantaschen. They range in price from $6 for a kilo (2.2 pounds) to $15.06 and come in a variety of flavors including the popular poppy seed, chocolate, date, nuts and halva.
When Israelis aren’t thinking about hamantaschen, they are thinking about what they will wear during the celebration. Come Purim week, adults and children alike will be walking around town in costumes because in Israel, everyone loves to dress up!
It’s often hard to distinguish the costumes at a lot of stores because they are all covered in plastic coverings. However, I was able to detect a large number of costumes of Queen Esther, princesses, policemen, bunnies, soldiers and Superman.
Aside from complete costumes, there are also wigs, bunny ears, masks, capes, braids, colored glasses, hose, gloves, fans, jewelry, and shoes. Mustaches, beards, lipstick, nail polish, glitter and sprays of different colors.
Barry isn’t big on costumes but says he’ll wear a great looking leather cowboy hat he bought here. I love costumes and will probably dream up something wearing a long, black check jumper which has let me be Maria from Sound of Music (with cardboard guitar) and Dorothy from Kansas which I enjoyed the most!
