Happy Purim!

Howdy... Happy Purim! Today is my favorite Jewish holiday! While I do look like one (I have a schnoz befitting a name like Shlomo) I am a silly goy who was raised near a synagogue (conservative) and in a Jewish neighborhood. Add visiting the relatives from Hasidic Brooklyn and you have one gentile who can fake it and fool most everyday American Jews. Since I was raised in the church (insert "ummm hmm" by the chorus of sista church ladies here) I was well heeled in the Old Testament and by the age of 13 I'd been to more Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Shi'vahs and Brisses (sp?) that most residents of Tel Aviv. My mom also taught pre-school in the temple's school - ironically staffed mostly by gentiles, though the principal was Jewish.

Growing up in my neighborhood I was a relative fixture at Temple Shalom. Our Jewish neighbors had a daughter my age and while they were pretty reformed rather than conservative, they did on occasion, go to services and festivals - especially the good ones. While I like Bar Mitzvahs they are not my favorite - I was at that tender age where people were starting to ask girls for dates to Johnny Somethingsteins Bar Mitzvah. I guess I knew even way back then - girls just made me nervous. Well except for neighbor girl, she was quite the tomboy (though sidenote: she is a babe now from what I hear). That and temple members and occasionally the rabbi would comment to me "are you looking forward to your bar mitzvah?" I always used to laugh nervously and say 'yes' to avoid any further weirdness. In retrospect this may have pertuated the notion that a good ole jewish boy (hey I could quote the good book and did one time in front of a visiting rabbi - he was very impressed!) All this despite having the multi-vowel last name ending in 'o' but I digress.

Where was I - oh yes - my favorite Jewish holidays... Bar Mitzvahs were ok. Sukkoth on the other hand (the harvest festival) was pretty cool. See to me it may have celebrated the harvest but what made it neat was the Sukkah (a sortof tent with fake fruit/food hanging from the roof if you were at my temple or the real stuff if you were building one on your balcony in Brooklyn - the Hasidics win here...) Sukkoth was a lot of fun, but I just liked running around in the outdoor tent they built in the back of the temple. In truth Sukkoth is one of the most joyous times in the Jewish calendar - following Yom Kippur, the most solemn time... I've been told in my later age Sukkoth was one of the holidays that not only provided for but encouraged unbrideled drunken revelry... I've yet to confirm that by Patti Greenstein's Dad seemed to never drink at all but on this day... put a lock on your Manischevitz!

But Purim - ah the mother of all Jewish holidays. Not a high holiday (though I could be wrong) but what a day... as a child I looked forward to Purim, maybe even more than Easter. They didn't have chocolate bunnies or those nasty peeps - they had yummy hamantashen , Halloween in early spring, they got to scream in temple and they had a PURIM CARNIVAL!!! At the temple they would have a "carnival" for the kids which for some reason I thought was the coolest thing. In truth it was actually pretty lame - but they called it a carnival and hell that made it sound exciting, therefore it was exciting. You could play games of chance (something that was a no-no in Catholic churches, unless of course it feed their greedy little mouthes, in that case there was Bingo...) and one year I won big!

A goldfish! Yes I won a live goldfish and proudly walked up the hill I lived on with a plastic bag of fish and water. It happened to be Palm Sunday that year so my goldfish prize was like a big slap in the face to that damn Easter bunny. Of course this goldfish was special - he lasted longer than any other fish I ever had - he really did, it was something absurdly long for a mere goldfish... like more than a year or two... until his untimely demise at the hands of a daft neighbor lady who thought some fried shrimp - yes like the kind we humans eat - would be better than the fish flakes we gave her. He was unceremoniusly flushed before I could mourn... no shi'vah, no nothing...

To make matters worse that stupid bunny rubbed it in my face with extra peeps with clumps of green Easter grass stuck to them... I'll take Purim anyday...