The Whimsical History of the Purim Spiel
Art History, Culture Rachel Rumstein Art History, Culture Rachel Rumstein

The Whimsical History of the Purim Spiel

The story of Esther is full of cosmic winks and giggles, which is what made Purim Speils so hard to ban for Chazal, even when live theater was often violent and crude with the occasional on-stage murder. Sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic eras condemned theatre for being frivolous, and yet, Purim Speils were relatively commonplace throughout Ashkenazi Jewry of the mid-1500s.

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