Since the times of the Gemara there has been a custom to not only hang Haman in effigy, but to burn the figure as well. Today, though, you’d be hard pressed to find a Jewish community that celebrates Purim in this way anymore.
Naomi Stone, who researched and wrote her master’s thesis at Oxford University on the Jews of the Tunisian island of Djerba, devoted an entire
chapter to this custom, which has survived there till this day.
Entitled “A Djerban Effigy Burning,” she describes how only children and men are allowed to attend the ceremony, which is done in the courtyard outside the synagogue. (An exception was made for her so she could write about
it.) She describes the burning of Haman as a very spontaneous celebration, with no one knowing what time in the early morning it would begin. She
began waiting at 5:30 a.m. but the ceremony did not actually start until 8:45.
Haman’s stuffed body had already been alread prepared. He didn’t have a head and wore a child’s dirty pair of pants and a flannel shirt, and was nailed to the gallows. Interestingly, the ten sons of Haman were represented by computer printouts of pictures of aliens and clowns attached to the perpendicular arms of the gallows, which resembled a cross. What confused her was that Haman’s wife was depicted by a picture of a princess, and it seemed to her to represent
Queen Esther. She understood, however, that the princess was probably
the only icon available to them and that is why it was used.
The boys threw loud firecrackers as the men were anchoring Haman’s
body. A pit was prepared in the courtyard into which newspapers, leaves
and twigs were placed. Then Haman’s gallows was jutted into the pit
and doused with lighter fluid and the flames began to rise. Firecrackers
were thrown while Haman, his wife Zeresh and their ten sons went up in
flames. Naomi writes that the Muslims were not permitted to watch the
effigy burning. Women who were absent from the scene were very curious and asked her many questions about it after the ceremony ended.
Although it used to be that many burnings of effigies took place all
over Djerba on Purim, four years ago the practice was curtailed. That
year, notices in the synagogues before Purim announced that for security
reasons there would be only one ceremony for the entire Jewish community in one central location. The police force was not capable of offering
protection to the Jews’ individual ceremonies.
VENGEANCE ON PURIM
IN BRAY-SUR-SEINE
More than 800 years ago, the French Jewish
community of Bray-Sur-Seine exacted justice on a man who had murdered a Jew by hanging the killer on Purim in commemoration of the hanging of Haman.
Bray-Sur-Seine, located about 100 miles east of Paris, was an important Jewish community that boasted many Tosafists and commentators in the 12th century.
In 1191, when this part of France was under the sovereignty of the Countess of
Champagne, a Jew was murdered by a French gentile. The Jewish community received permission from the Countess to hang him on Purim in retribution for his taking the life of their coreligionist.
The concept of retribution against murderers of Jews has been addressed in rabbinic responsa. In his work Tzemach Tzedek,
Rabbi Menachem Krochmal (quoted in Tovia Preschel’s “Vengeance”) writes about the obligation of the Jewish community to take
vengeance on those who have murdered Jews:
“There should be no doubt that [the victim’s] relations are duty-bound to aveng blood. And if there be no close relations, then even the most distant ones are charged with this responsibility. There should also be no doubt as to the fact that the community may force the relatives to incur expense to accomplish their duty. However, one may force them to pay only the ordinary expenses, such as payments to the guards, to the judges and to the authorities. Any other
expense…one may not force upon them, as this would result in the relatives shirking their duty altogether.
“Yet it would only be right that the additional expenses…should be paid by the entire community. Because if, G-d forbid, we will not exact vengeance on
the murderer, the blood of our brothers would become hefker. They will continue to murder us and the lives of all our wayfarers would be imperiled. Therefore, it is the duty of all to contribute.
“Thus we have acted many times and we have agreed with the leaders of the generation (parnasei hador) to appoint avengers to pursue the murderers. Even in cases where we knew for certain that we would not be able to exact vengeance on the murderers, nonetheless we appointed avengers to prosecute them in order that it might become known to all that the blood of our brothers is not hefker.”
According to some accounts, the Jews of Bray-sur– Seine dragged the gentile through the streets with his hands tied behind his back and beat him before he was hanged on Purim of that year.
Unfortunately, their actions caused the death of many Jews. Philip Augustus II used this opportunity to invade Champagne and enlarge his territory. He burned 80 Jews at the stake, including Rabbi Yaakov and Rabbi Yitzchok, two Tosafists. R. Ephraim Bonn, a Jewish contemporary who wrote about the incident, states that
the Jews were first given the opportunity to convert to Christianity in order to save their lives. They refused.
THE HANGING OF HAMAN ASSOCIATED WITH
THE CRUCIFIXION
It is interesting to note that even though the Hebrew word used in
Megillas Esther for the gallows is “eitz” (tree), the Latin Vulgate used
the word “crux,” a cross. (Of course, one must ask if this was deliberately done to propagate the Church’s anti-Semitic ideology.) In fact,
when Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, he rendered the scene
of the “Punishment of Haman” as a crucifixion.
In the Theodosian Code, the following law regarding the “crucifying of Haman’ was promulgated by Emperor Theodosius II in 438:
“The governors of the provinces shall prohibit the Jews from setting fire to Haman in memory of his past punishment in a certain
ceremony of their festival, and from burning with sacrilegious intent
a form made to resemble the cross in contempt of the Christian faith,
lest they introduce the sign of our faith into their places, and they
shall restrain their rites from ridiculing the Christian law, for they are
bound to lose what had been permitted them till now unless they
abstain from those matters which are forbidden. Given the fourth
day before the calends of June at Constantinople, in the consulate of
Bassus and Philippus.”
It is based on this edict that historians believe the custom of hanging Haman dates back to as early as the 5th century.
REFERENCES TO THE HANGING OF HAMAN IN
JEWISH LITERATURE
A fragment of the Cairo Genizah in the British museum contains a Rabbinic responsum that dates to the 13th century. Its author is unknown.
The following is written there:
“Four or five days before Purim, young men make an effigy of Haman
and hang it on the roof. On Purim itself, they build a bonfire into
which they cast the effigy, while they stand around joking and singing.”
The burning of Haman is also mentioned in the 14th century book of
parody composed for Purim by Kalonymus ben Kalonymus. He states
in his Masaches Purim that in Italy a puppet named Haman would be
hoisted up on an elevation, while trumpets would sound and everyone
would shout in Italian “Ira! Ira!” which in English means ire or rage.
In Sefer Hamasaos, written by Yosef Yehudah Chorny and published
in St. Petersburg in 1884, he describes an interesting custom of the
Jews of the Caucasus. When the men return home from shul on Purim
after having heard the Megillah, they are given blackened pieces of
wood that have been prepared by their wives. Each man asks his wife,
“What is this?” pointing to the wood, and the wife responds, “It is
Haman.”
They then kick it and throw it into the fire. Interestingly, he
states that the Jews do observe the burning of Haman but not in public.
Yaakov Sapir, the 19th century Romanian Jewish traveler who spent
much time in Yemen, writes in his Even Sapir about Yemenite boys
hanging Haman in the courtyard, then pelting him with stones and
arrows until he falls apart.
Nachum Slouschz, the Russian-born Jewish writer, describes in his
Masa’ai Be’eretz Luv how in the beginning of the 20th century boys
from Tripoli, Libya would go outside the city on Purim with branches
and make a bonfire to burn an effigy of Haman.
And in more recent times, many Jews in Israel celebrated Purim
with the hanging of an effigy of Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War in 1991.
Igbo “Jews”
Hang Haman
In 1995, then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin sent a team of researchers to Nigeria to search for descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. They visited many locations looking for any recognizable traits or mannerisms that would indicate that the inhabitants had Jewish antecedents. Indeed, they came across a group known as the “Igbo Jews” who have practiced circumcision and kosher dietary laws for centuries. They sit shivah and forgive debts every seven and 50 years. They also believe in Moshiach and practice certain other rites with noticeable Jewish origins.
These people believe that they are descended from four of the missing tribes—Gad, Asher, Dan and Naftali. They also have a tradition that the river Sambatyon, which rested on Shabbos, is located in Africa. They call themselves the “Bnei Yisrael.” but are not halachically Jewish.
Eldad the Danite, the 9th century Jewish traveler and merchant, writes that his tribe of Dan came to Africa earlier than the other three tribes. He had been told that his ancestors did not want to participate in the civil war in Eretz Yisrael (around 800 BCE) that erupted when the Ten Tribes seceded from the Kingdom of Rechavam, the son of Shlomo Hamelech. According tohim, the tribes of Gad, Asher and Naftali arrived in Africa two centuries later (around 600 BCE)
when they were exiled by the Assyrians.
Instead of wearing costumes on Purim, the Igbo “Jews,” most of whom live in the Nigerian capital of Abuja commemorate the holiday with the hanging of an effigy of Haman from a makeshift gallows.
Of course, all of this raises a logical question: If the “Igbo Jews” were separated from the rest of the Jewish people several centuries before the story of Purim actually took place, how can they have known about Purim to celebrate it? One theory is that they learned about Mordechai, Esther and Haman from Jews who immigrated to Africa from Portugal, in the 15th century, and Libya, in the 17th century.
Today, much of the community’s knowledge of Judaism has been brought to them by outsiders during the last century. They currently have around 25 houses of worship, serving some 4,000 people.
13 ADAR 5775 // MARCH 4, 2015 // AMI MAGAZINE