Purim, the Jewish festival commemorating the salvation of Jews of the Achaemenid Empire from the evil extermination plot of the king’s adviser Haman, has taken an alarming twist during the past few years in Iran. This includes accusing Jews of perpetrating crimes against Iranians in ancient times, as well as limiting or hindering Jewish celebrations of the holiday.
This year a picture from the Iranian city of Hamadan went viral, showing a Palestinian flag hung defiantly right at the entrance to the shrine where, according to Jewish tradition, the graves of the heroes of the Book of Esther, Queen Esther and Mordechai, are believed to be; a flag found by the chief rabbi of Iran took him by surprise. This shrine has served as a place of Jewish pilgrimage and has been vandalized and obstructed in the past, and included arson, demonstrations in front of the shrine with Hezbollah flags and signs reading “Death to Israel”. In a country where the right of peaceful assembly is rarely honored unless aligned with, if not ordered by the regime, these demonstrations are even more meaningful.
One allegation constantly directed at Jews during Purim is the perpetration of the so-called “Holocaust of Iranians.”
One user uploaded an elaborate infographic referring to an Iranian tradition to travel in nature on the 13th of the Iranian month of Badar, claiming that on this day, “Esther, a Jewish lover of King Ahasuerus, exploited the king’s state of inebriation to pass a decision to commit genocide against all non-Jews. Once Iranians heard that they fled the cities to the mountains to find asylum.” The infographic also claimed that following this decision, 75,000 Iranians were murdered and 15 Iranian ‘nations’ were lost forever. Jews. it said, celebrate this brutal genocide by consuming blood-tainted food and wine and eating food shaped like the hat of Haman.
Another user published a picture of a doll being hung in what apparently looks like an Israeli street, claiming that it is a personification of an Iranian woman and adding: “On the eve of the anniversary of the ‘Iranian holocaust,’ Israel is preparing for the Purim celebration, hanging dolls of Iranian women. And then Iranian sellouts who worship Israel also bend over backward to defend racist Jews!”
A third user referred to Purim as “the holiday of the slaughtering of Iranians” adding that Haman was “an Iranian minister murdered by Esther and Mordechai;” while another one pointed to the picture mentioning ironically the well-known Iranian protest slogan “woman, life, freedom.”
Writer and Iran expert from Haifa University Dr. Thamar Elam Gindin stated, “Like every Purim, this year too, Iranian antisemitic social media users repeat the Iranian version of the Esther story, and the tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan is under attack. Their story is based on the Book of Esther and some verses in the Quran that refer to Jews as liars. This allows them freedom to tell the story mostly based on their imagination.
“The story as told on the web is, mainly, that Esther and Mordechai killed 77,000 Iranians, which is the first genocide in history, and since then Jews celebrate Purim, whose other name is ‘the holiday of killing Iranians’ (Jashn-e Iranikoshi) and eat symbolic body parts of Iranians (reference to Hamantaschen, named in Hebrew ‘Haman ears,’ actually pockets)) originally baked with blood of little Iranian children,” Gindin added.
“Every year I have to explain to Iranians on social media and news outlets that as the Book of Esther is the only source of the story, and that it complies with all the necessary requirements of an ancient Near East New Year myth. I also have to explain time and again that judging a 2,500 year-old story by 21st century values is wrong.”
Iran's Jewish community
Iran is home to an estimated 10,000 Jews, out of approximately 145,000 before 1948. The Jewish community boasts a permanent representative in the Iranian Majlis (parliament), as well as religious services including slaughtering, ritual bathing and temples. However this small minority is regularly monitored and scrutinized under the totalitarian regime of the Islamic Republic for fear of ties to Israel, with some reports pointing to coercion by the authorities to carry out staged anti-Israel protests.
Additionally, Jews who have left Iran mentioned many instances of popular and institutional antisemitism culminating in legal, verbal and even physical violence, with a recent Telegram note from the Jewish community administration advising Jews to keep a low profile during holidays.