The origins of Purim

by Lurker


Last year, Makor Rishon carried a very interesting, thought-provoking article about the origins of Purim and Megillat Esther. Among other things, the article addressed the following questions:

• Why is Esther the only book of the Tanakh not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls? Is there, in spite of this, any trace or hint of it to be found among the scrolls from Qumran?
  
  
• Was Megillat Esther canonized when it was first written, or was it incorporated into the Tanakh only during a later era?
  
  
• How was the holiday of Purim celebrated (if it was indeed celebrated at all) in the land of Israel and in the Diaspora during the period of the Second Temple?
  
  
• Why are the dramatic events described in the Megilla not mentioned in the book of Ezra, which covers the same time period?
  
  
• Who is the central figure in the Megilla -- Mordekhai or Esther? If it is Mordekhai, then why is the book called "the Scroll of Esther"? And if it is Esther -- then why did the Jews originally call the holiday "the Day of Mordekhai"?
  
  
• Why does the Megilla make a point of telling us that Mordekhai was from the tribe of Benjamin, and that he (or his ancestor) was exiled exiled together with King Yekhonia of Judah?
  
  
• Why did Mordekhai order Esther not to tell anyone that she was Jewish?
  
  
• How could Esther instruct the Jews of Shushan to fast during the holiday of Pesah?
  
  
• What does the Megilla mean when it says at the end that when Mordekhai became a great figure among the Jews, he was "speaking peace for all his seed"? Who were "his seed"?

As a public service, the Muqata presents here (after the jump) a full English translation of the article. The text has been supplemented with several additional notes (which appear in brackets or as footnotes) and hyperlinks.

(The original Hebrew article from Makor Rishon can be read here.)

NGO-Leaks

A Joint JoeSettler-Jameel post.

For the last few weeks Makor Rishon and Yisrael Hayom have been publishing some astounding material on the organization Yesh-Din and other Left wing groups. Jameel will be publishing some translations in the near future. Last week they had an incredible expose on the activities of Arik Ascherman (the anti-archeologist -- pictured at right).

Haaretz Reports that Yesh-Din has filed a complaint with the police because their internal documents have appeared in the newspapers. They believe the Right has a mole in their organization.

Yesh-Din is yet another "Human Rights" organization funded by foreign governments, George Soros and of course the New Israel Fund (NIF).

Here's a list of their major donors:

Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
European Commission
Federal Republic of Germany's Foreign Office
Hermod Lannungs Fond (Denmark)
Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (Germany)
Jacobs Charitable Trust (UK)
The Marc Rich Foundation (Switzerland)
The Moriah Fund
Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation (USA)
New Israel Fund
NGO Development Center
The Kingdom of Norway
Open Society Institute (USA)
Oxfam-Novib
United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Yigal Arnon & Co. Law Office (Israel)

Yesh-Din is often seen on the front lines of activities against settlers, claiming settlers destroy trees and whatever else they can imagine.

The 2 newspapers have been exposing the tools and tactics of Yesh-Din. It's utterly fascinating what you can do against Jews when you have so much foreign money in your pocket.

In this weekends expose, the contents of these documents paint a disturbing picture.

It becomes clear how Yesh-Din uses the police as a tool to harass Settlers.

Yesh-Din sees the police as a natural partner for them to use against Settlers, and have set a goal of building a tight relationship with the Yehuda-Shomron police to achieve their objectives.

And in the Makor Rishon interview with the police, there are those in the Judea/Samaria police that see themselves as natural partners to Yesh-Din.

Yesh-Din files various numerous charges against Settlers and demand the police follow up on them, which they do, harassing innocent Jews.

To ensure their files are being followed up on, Yesh-Din makes very regular visits to the police to examine the progress on each file.

Yet for instance, in 98 recent cases that Yesh-Din filed against settlers of alleged violence against Arabs, all were closed, without a single one ended up with a charge filed against any suspect.

Based on statistics from non-Yesh-Din related files, it all looks rather suspicious, as if the charges and claims were made up.

Just as interesting is a Judea/Samaria police statement in an interview where the officer said that most cases and files opened against Settlers would never have been opened at all - if it were a police station anywhere else in Israel (that shows a rather aggressive attitude of the Judea/Samaria police against Settlers).

Meanwhile, these internal documents also show how Yesh-Din bring Arabs, who were jailed for security related crimes such as membership in terror organizations, into the town of Ariel, by bypassing the gate where they might be checked, and going through back roads instead.

In short, this articles describes how foreign money is being used to redirect the activities of the Israeli police, and use them as a tool to harass innocent civilians.

Jameel adds: Isn't it interesting how Haaretz, the publisher of stolen IDF documents, defender of the patron saint of Israel's left Anat Kam and champion of leaked secrets -- is in a tizzy that Makor Rishon published leaked Yesh Din documents?

When dealing with leaked Yesh Din documents, Haaretz says "Hundreds of documents have been stolen from the database of Yesh Din", headlining the report that "Human rights NGO monitoring Palestinians' legal rights gets robbed of internal use documents."

When dealing with Haaretz publishing leaked IDF documents by Anat Kam, it's "freedom of the press", and Haaretz criticized those who attacked Kam and the IDF as conducting a "witch-hunt" against the "the journalist who exposed corruption. The witch hunt that came out yesterday after weeks of gagging - which also has no place in a democracy."

No hypocrisy there.


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