Okay, I need help brainstorming for Purim

[xiphias]

So, Rafi wants me to put something together for my class to present at the Purim event in two weeks. We will have one class -- this Sunday -- in which to teach the kids whatever it is they will be doing. The older kids are already doing a purim shpeil, and Isaac’s class is doing the Purim song that goes to the tune of Tumbalaika.

Any ideas? What do y’all (who grew up Jewish) remember doing as kids for Purim that you liked? What do y’all who didn’t grow up Jewish think you’d want to know about Purim if you were a kid?

Comments

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

I like the food. Which reminds me, I should get down to MIT soon to buy some of the scary cookies that look like they're made of ant-bits.

[gingicat]

Purim is kinda the lead-in to Pesach; at the Purim Seudah I went to years back, the rabbi told wonderful Hasidic stories about Purim and the preparation for Pesach.

You could do a "strong women" pageant: Esther, Deborah, Judith, Jael, Miriam, etc.

There are a number of wonderful Purim songs; one of my favorites starts "Now once there was a wicked, wicked man, and Haman was his name, oh!"

You could make Purim masks.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

As someone who did not grow up Jewish, my first question would be what it is and why it's important. :) I don't know your class, but not all the kids might know.

[cheshyre]

(A) Don't forget the comment you often make about the relation between Purim and Yom Kippur

(B) You going to make hamentaschen? After all, we have all those excess poppyseeds you bought last year... :)

[kightp.livejournal.com]

What do y’all who didn’t grow up Jewish think you’d want to know about Purim if you were a kid?

Pretty much the same kinds of things I wanted to know about the religious traditions I did grow up with:

Why do we do this?
How did it start?
How do we celebrate/observe it?
What does it mean (in relation to my own life and the world today)?

I used to drive the nuns crazy with those sorts of questions. (-:

[webmacher.livejournal.com]

Costumes and food! Costumes and food! What's not to like!?!?

More seriously, I think there's some good themes in this holiday about tolerance, or at least the dangers of intolerance. (Resonates nicely with the controversy over "Passion of the Christ" and the general climate in this country, though that might be too much for kidlings)

May I make a shameless plug for a website at my work: www.jholidays.org? (We have links to sites that might help)

Also, I like www.myjewishlearning.com. They have tons and tons of stuff.

Do you remember the Boris Kitchen sketches?

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of the ones that struct, X, JB, and I dreamed up for the Weirdo coffeehouse in 93.

The one I remember best is the chofar prophylactics done to the tune of "Tequila!"

(That's the one where we were doing the congo line, humming the tune, and someone blew the chofar on the trumpet note.)