Purim, the Feast of Lots, the silliest of Jewish holidays is coming Thursday & Friday March 20th & 21st . It’s a raucous, drunken party holiday with costumes and funny plays. You don’t have to be Jewish to celebrate it. For non-observant people, here’s how.

Update? How can there be an update on a holiday thousands of years old? It's not. It's about the Purim party this Saturday far after the jump.

Purim celebrates a fabled victory of Jews over their enemies in Persia thousands of years ago and follows the time honored tradition: They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s Eat. For the full story, people read the whole Megillah – the scroll in which the Biblical Book of Esther is written. This is not really much a religious holiday. God appears not at all in the story which is an entirely human tale of struggle.

A bare-bones plot summary via Wikipedia:

Those seeking to avert anti-Mulsim outbreaks and to foster community with Islamic-oriented New Yorkers way want to visit the Tweed Courthouse Monday evening at 6:PM. with Supporters of the Kahlil Gibran and it's ousted principal Deborah Almontaser (read the post below). The call, below, was sent out by the Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, of which I am a fan.

As you may know, there has been a storm of controversy brewing about the opening of the Kahlil Gibran International Academy, the first high school to focus on Arabic arts, culture and language to open in New York. Since the school was first announced, the right wing media in New York, particularly the Sun and the NY Post have been running a smear campaign against it. This Monday, August 20th at 6pm, there will be a community building event for the school. Please join JFREJ and members of communities from across New York in standing with Debbie and the fierce leaders of the Khalil Gibran International Academy and against anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia and hate-mongering.
Dara Silverman
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A COMMUNITY BUILDING EVENT
Monday, August 20, 6pm
Department of Education
Tweed Courthouse
52 Chambers Street
Subways: 4, 5, 6, N, R, W, M, J, 2, 3, A, C

Communities in Support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy

As New Yorkers and others in support of quality public education for all of our communities, we stand in solidarity with the Khalil Gibran International Academy, which has sustained hateful and false attacks by anti-Arab media and extremists. In the post-9/11 world, a school educating our children about Arab history, culture, and language is not only crucial for the next generation to become informed leaders for positive change in our communities; it is also an extraordinary place of hope for peace, understanding, and justice for our embattled world. We regret that Debbie Almontaser was pressured to resign and applaud her work to establish this school and promote intercultural exchange in this diverse global city.

For a person like me, who came of age in the course of the civil rights movement of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, it was a perfect left-wing storm: Blacks, Asians, Jews, clergy, labor united, demanding dignity and workers' rights. Your chance to march with them is Saturday June 9, 2007. More about that after the jump.

Demanding enactment of a NYS “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” hundreds of domestic workers – largely, it seemed, West Indian and Asian, packed into the Sanctuary of Judson Memorial Church, listened to their leaders, AFL-CIO president John Sweeny, socialist-author-blogger, Barbara Ehrenreich, State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith and leaders of Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ). There was, by the way, lots of great food.