Re: Purim-Las Fallas

[Trudi Goodman <goobietheg...>]

  Zounds suspiciously Yewish to me.
   trudi the g


>From: Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan (at) staff(dot)chuh(dot)org>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: Purim-Las Fallas
>Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 09:38:46 -0500
>
>I thought this might be of interest to some on our list.
>Lorele
>
>Rammsm (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
>
> >  From: Marsha B. Cohen <mcohen02 (at) fiu(dot)edu>
> > > Subject: Las Fallas-Purim Connection
> > >
> > > I was listening to the authors of a new book
> > > entitled "100 Things to do
> > > Before You Die" being interviewed on public radio
> > > the other day.   Dave
> > > Freeman and Neil Teplica  described an annual
> > > festival held in
> > > Valencia, Spain beginning on March 15.  The origins
> > > of the festival are
> > > described by the authors as "murky."  According to
> > > the book, Las Fallas
> > > may have begun as a feast day for St. Joseph, the
> > > patron  saint of
> > > carpenters, but has evolved into a five-day,
> > > multifaceted celebration of
> > > fire. The focus of the fiesta is the creation and
> > > destruction of
> > > "ninots"=97huge cardboard, wood, and plaster
> > > statues that are placed
> > > around the city on March 15. The ninots are
> > > extremely realistic and
> > > usually depict bawdy, satirical scenes and current
> > > events , particularly
> > > corrupt politicians.  The ninots remain in place
> > > until the final evening
> > > of the fiesta, when young  men with axes chop holes
> > > in the statues and
> > > stuff them with fireworks.   The crowds start to
> > > chant, the streetlights
> > > are turned off, and all of the  ninots are set on
> > > fire at exactly the
> > > stroke of midnight.
> > > <http://whatsgoingon.com/100things/lasfallas/>
> > >
> > > In the course of some recent research I did on
> > > al-Biruni (Chronology of
> > > Ancient Nations, Persia, c. 1023) I came across a
> > > passage which stated
> > > that Purim could not fall on a Saturday because this
> > > would prevent the
> > > burning of Haman.  Exploring this curious
> > > explanation, I found that the
> > > Ge'onim describe a custom called  mashvarta dePuria
> > > Young lads make an
> > > effigy of Haman and hang it from the roofs for four
> > > or  five days. Then,
> > > on Purim, they make a bonfire and throw the effigy
> > > into it, and they
> > > dance around the fire and sing. They hang a ring
> > > over the fire, and
> > > they jump through the ring from one side of the fire
> > > to the other.
> > > ("Keitzad Hiku Et Haman biTefutzot Yisrael", Yalkut
> > > Folkloristi lePurim,
> > > by Yom Tov Levinsky.)  Other sources have confirmed
> > > that Jewish boys in
> > > Persia stuffed effigies of Haman with gunpowder and
> > > set it alight.
> > > Haman burning  was also a custom in Libya, Bukhara,
> > > the Caucasus,
> > > Tunisia, Yemen and southern India, sometimes
> > > accompanied by crucifiction
> > >
> > >(see
> > http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/purim/pugnen07.html
> > >
> > > Have any studies been done as to whether Las Fallas
> > > may have originated
> > > as a Purim festival, which either was preserved by
> > > conversos after the
> > > Expulsion, or, if it originated much earlier,  might
> > > be linked to the
> > > ban on the burning of Haman imposed on the Jews in
> > > Christian Europe
> > > because of accusations that the hanging, crucifying
> > > and burning of Haman
> > > was a symbolic crucifixion of Jesus?.   Both its
> > > timing and its
> > > tradition of burning and exploding effigies of
> > > political figures bear
> > > strong resemblance to the Purim customs of the Jews
> > > of the Muslim
> > > world.  Any further information would be greatly
> > > appreciated.
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Marsha
> > >
>
>

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