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| Re: PHOTOS: Purim Greetings from Jerusalem (& Some Others) (227054) | |||
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Re: PHOTOS: Purim Greetings from Jerusalem (& Some Others) |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Sun Mar 20 10:08:55 2011, in response to Re: PHOTOS: Purim Greetings from Jerusalem (& Some Others), posted by Kew Gardens Teleport on Sun Mar 20 09:55:35 2011. Thanks!Were you reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim#Shushan_Purim on Wikipedia? If so, here is what it says: Purim is celebrated on the Adar 14 because the Jews in unwalled cities fought their enemies on Adar 13 and rested the following day. However, in Shushan, the walled capital city of the Persian Empire, the Jews were involved in defeating their enemies on Adar 13-14 and rested on the 15th (Esther 9:20-22). In commemoration of this, it was decided that while the victory would be celebrated universally on Adar 14, for Jews living in Shushan, the holiday would be held on Adar 15.Later, in deference to Jerusalem, the Sages determined that Purim would be celebrated on Adar 15 in all cities which had been enclosed by a wall at the time of Joshua’s conquest of the Land of Israel. This criterion allowed the city of Jerusalem to retain its importance for Jews, and although Shushan was not walled at the time of Joshua, it was made an exception since the miracle occurred there. In other words, the celebration in Shushan was delayed, but this meant that a city other than Jerusalem had elevated status with regard to celebrating Purim, so the Rabbis developed the rule about walled cities in the time of Joshua so that Shushan's inclusion was the exception, not Jerusalem's. Since there are no Jews in Shusha or cities such as Jericho where Purim would also be observed tomorrow, Jerusalem is the only city left meeting that criteria. However, some maintain that one should observe Purim today if living outside of the Old City walls (as most people do, modern municipal borders aren't the determining factor however for what defines Jerusalem in this instance) and there are some cities (Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, Acre, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheva, Beit She'an, Beit Shemesh, Gaza, Gush Halav, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramlah and Shechem) where if there are Jewish communities in those cities, certain Purim observances take place today but will also be repeated tomorrow to be sure that the observances took place on the correct day. Does this explanation help? |
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