Jewish community comes together to celebrate Purim

Purim is an annual Jewish holiday held on the 14th and 15th day of Adar, the sixth month of the civil year and twelfth month of the religious year on the Hebrew calendar. It’s celebrated as the anniversary of a day of deliverance, after a plot by Haman — an advisor to the king of Persia — to kill the Jewish people was foiled by Mordecai and Esther, two figures in the Hebrew Bible.

The story originates from the Book of Esther, one of the writings that makes up the Jewish Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, in which it says that during the Purim holiday, Jewish people should “make the days of feasting and gladness, and sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.”

Members of the Umpqua Valley Havurah came together to celebrate the symbolic traditions — they ate hamantaschen cookies, shaped in a triangle to represent the hat worn by Haman, they sang traditional folk songs, collected food to donate to a local food bank and dressed in masks, representing how, in the Hebrew Bible, Esther hid her Judaism from the king of Persia.

“It’s about celebrating the culture,” Alixe Dancer, the secretary of Umpqua Valley Havurah, said. “I was a folk dancer, and I studied anthropology, so the culture of it — our stories, our legends, our traditions, the role models — all of that is important to me.”

Dancer didn’t only sing with other members of the organization during the event, but also lived up to her last name, by performing a traditional dance along with the song “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”.

“There’s lots of ways to be Jewish,” said Dancer. “It’s not just a religion, but it’s also a culture. I like to think of this as our folk tradition, we have all these stories. The Torah is a part of it, but it’s just a part of it. Maybe the basis of it, but it goes way wider than that.”

Lauren Schroeder, a member of the Umpqua Valley Havurah, said the Jewish community in Douglas County is very small, with 35 families on the Havurah’s mailing list.

“There are people out here who are Jewish who don’t know about us,” Schroeder said. “It’s a small community. We don’t have a temple…we’re pretty laissez-faire about a lot of things because we just don’t have the numbers.”

For members of the Umpqua Valley Havurah, it was a chance to celebrate and remember the traditions that bring their community together. The organization plans to hold a similar gathering for Passover Seder at the start of April.

“Of course, it’s a social event, which is good, but it’s also a religious and historical remembrance,” said Jerry Harris, a member of the Havurah. “That’s part of our Jewish religion, not to forget. We’re supposed to learn from history. Hopefully, by remembering what happened in the past, we can help to bring peace to the world.”

More information about the Umpqua Valley Havurah can be found at their website, umpquavalleyhavurah.org.