Purim humor, Purim jokes, and Purim pranks are elements of joyful celebration of the holiday of

Purim Purim (; , ) is a Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jews, Jewish people from Genocide, annihilation at the hands of an official of the Achaemenid Empire named Haman, as it is recounted in the Book of Esther (u ...

YIVO YIVO (, , short for ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. Estab ...

Notable expressions of Purim humor of long tradition are Purim Torah read by Purim Rabbi and Purim spiel.

Purim Torah and Purim spiel

Purim Torah are humorous and satirical comments in the learned style of

talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

ic or halakhic comments in relation to Purim and read during Purim by a Purim rabbi. A notable historical example is the 14th century '' Masekhet Purim'' (''A Tractate on Purim'') by Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, condemned by many scholars. A Purim spiel ("Purim play") is a dramatization of classical stories, most often of the

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

, in which the story of Purim is recounted. This tradition dates at least to mid-16th century. Over time it acquired the comic character. Today, Purim spiels can be comedies about anything related to Jews and Judaism. Before the Purim of 1993, a parody on parody appeared on soc.culture.jewish in a thread titled "Talmud Fortran" with commentary on

computer programming Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...

in the style of Purim Torah. Some comments: "As I recall you are not (in certain days) permitted to separate the good from the bad. How does this apply to

debugging In engineering, debugging is the process of finding the Root cause analysis, root cause, workarounds, and possible fixes for bug (engineering), bugs. For software, debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, Logf ...

programs during these days?" - "So long as there is less than one part in 60 of bugs in the code, it is

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, ), from the Ashke ...

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Purim jokes

Purim jokes are on subjects associated with the things and events related to Purim and its history traditionally told on this day.Sam Lehman-Wilzig
Some Purim Levity
''

The Times of Israel ''The Times of Israel'' (ToI) is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012 and has since become the largest English-language Jewish and Israeli news source by audience size. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist Dav ...

'', March 22, 2024 Many of them are "

in-jokes An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. I ...

" which are difficult to understand without the knowledge of the Jewish culture. For example: "Why is the ''

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...

'' before Purim called ''

Shabbat Zachor Special Shabbatot are Judaism, Jewish Shabbat (Modern Hebrew, Hebrew, שבת ''shabbath'') days on which special events are commemorated. Variations in the Jewish liturgy, liturgy and special customs differentiate them from the other Shabbats (He ...

''? BECAUSE THAT IS THE LAST THING YOU WILL REMEMBER FOR A LONG TIME!"Yaakov Moskowitz
Purim Jokes and Riddles
/ref> Moritz Steinschneider wrote that some Purim jokes can be recorded only in "

Jargon Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...

": Was soll mir die icפ in ןמה?—Ei, sie steht ja nicht!—Warum steht sie nicht?—Wozu soll sie mir?—Das ist doch meine אישק (Frage)!. There is a cycle of question-answer jokes, kind of pranks, arising from ''klotz kashes'', in which a rabbi (especially a Purim rabbi during silly Purim Torah discussions) or a teacher is asked a silly question. ( Nathan Lopes Cardozo writes that a good teacher must have a knack of turning a real ''klutz kashe'' into a profound one. Below is an example of a ''klotz kashe'' joke: The Judaism section of the Stack Exchange Network of question-and-answer websites named Mi Yodeya has a special policy about posting Purim Torah ''klotz kashes''. In particular, it says: "Purim Torah questions are on-topic only once a year, and will be closed after Purim."

Purim pranks

Purim pranks are a notable part of the celebration of Purim. Some or them may be insulting and even harmful. There is a scholarship on what ''

Halakha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...

'' says on whether harm, insult ('' lashon hara''), or injury – whether physical (towards property or a person) or verbal – are admissible in the course of Purim pranks or jokes. There are various interpretations, however Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon comes to a conclusion that insults and minor physical harm are admissible as long they are sincere expressions of joy of '' mitzva'' and the harmful acts were not of evil intention; this kind of humor must be used with caution. Purim jokes are for the joy of ''mitzva'', not for just jesting.Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon
"Purim Pranks"

Yeshivat Har Etzion Yeshivat Har Etzion (YHE; ), commonly known in English as "Gush" and in Hebrew as "Yeshivat HaGush", is a Hesder yeshiva located in Alon Shvut, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. It is considered one of the leading institutions of advanced T ...

Purim spiels may include a good deal of insults and foul language directed both at biblical characters and modern real persons. Since Purim pranks are commony delivered in a dead serious tone, they may be misundestood for a real thing. For example, in March 2017, a prank pulled by the officials of the town of Psagot went too far: the social media got ahold of a letter on local official stationery that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would be visiting the town for Shabbos and Kushner would be delivering a '' dvar Torah'' in the local synagogue. Hundreds of people from the nearby places phoned the residents of Psagot to ask for a stay during the event, while leftist groups started arranging buses with protesters.Dov Benovadia
"A Purim Prank Too Far? Kushners Weren’t Visiting Psagot, After All"
March 19, 2017, ''

Hamodia ''Hamodia'' ( – "''the Informer''") is a Jewish daily newspaper, published in Hebrew language, Hebrew-language in Jerusalem and English language, English-language in the United States, as well as weekly English-language editions in England and I ...

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Purim Torah and Purim spiel

Purim jokes

Purim pranks

See also

Notes

References