Word: purim
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Black days come all too often in Israel, and Friday was another. Members of the extremist group Hamas gave their own judgment when they shattered the Jewish holiday afternoon in downtown Tel Aviv with a powerful bomb. As costumed merrymakers paraded down the city's streets to celebrate Purim, which commemorates the deliverance of the Jews in ancient Persia from a plot to slaughter them, a man entered one of the cafes and detonated himself, killing three Israelis and injuring at least 47 more. A six-month-old girl, her tiny, blood-soaked body cradled in a policewoman's arms...
...AVIV: Celebrations for the Jewish holiday Purim were marred today by a suicide bombing attack that killed three and injured 43, many of them children, at a downtown Tel Aviv cafe. The bomber, claimed as a member by Hamas, was also killed by the nail-studded explosive device. Israel responded to the attack by barring Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering Israel. The attack could further strain the tenuous peace between Arabs and Jews already tested by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on building new Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. The bombing...
Yesterday's bombing fell on the first evening of Purim, a Jewish holiday to celebrate the deliverance of ancient Jews from a plot to murder them...
...holiday of Purim itself embodies this sort of juxtaposition. As the book of Esther tells us, the day upon which the massacre was to have occurred "was turned from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to holiday." The day before Purim is traditionally observed as a fast day, which serves to remind us of the terribly real danger that the Jews faced, and of how narrowly the massacre was averted. Purim is not merely a celebration; it is a transformation of great sorrow into...
...these examples that I turn when I try to cope with this week's tragic events. After mourning today, we must celebrate Purim in some way despite what has happened--and because of it. For to do so is an affirmation of life. It is an expression of our faith that things can and will get better...